Ceramic coatings are applied on various engineering hardware components to provide protection against wear, corrosion and high heat fluxes. Metal hardware operating in harsh environments could fail prematurely due to wear, corrosion and high temperature exposure. A protective layer of coating is typically applied to provide a barrier which prolongs component durability and the desired properties of the hardware components. A salt spray corrosion technique has been used to study the corrosion of coated mild steel plates by sea salt particles. It has been shown that sea salt particles can cause severe corrosive damage to these materials and that the predominant mode of material loss is by removal of oxide scale. This behavior can account for the reported increase in corrosion of yttria stabilized zirconia coated mild steel.