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Old 02-18-2018, 02:43 AM   #192
Polydamas
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
Default Re: [Cutting-Edge Armor Design] Real World SCA-legal Armour and Ballistics Armour

Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
This sounds like Masterful Tailoring might be theoretically possible enough to exist as a rules option, but not practical or plausible for the situation in the current case.
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I do want Vyacheslav to have, in game terms, rolled a critical success when he built Vargas a suit of Gothic plate at the workshop in Kiev around 2011-2013. It explains why Vargas picked him as the armourer he believes in and why he is much more friendly with Vyacheslav than the other members of the team, all with much more marketable skills and higher paid.

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As the most perfect example of Vyacheslav's talent and the final flowering of his traditional armourer's craft before he switches over to harder alloys and other materials which he cannot work with without developing and learning new methods, which Low-Tech options would it be plausible to apply to it?

I was thinking it wouldn't have any exotic alloys, just the best steel he could forge in a classic forge, and it didn't come with gold, silver or diamond decorations, but was instead subtly beautiful for the elegance of its craftsmanship. It would be made of thick steel, pistol proofed as widely as possible, and the cuirass and massive helmet would be as protective as 'normal' alloys could make it. Not a direct copy of an extant plate harness, but an inspired combination of the best design features Vyacheslav had seen in all historical armour he had ever examined, online or in person.

The armour would have been contracted to be built, in name, by Vyacheslav's employer at the Kiev workshop, someone with a very good reputation in the field, but during regular email exchanges and then Skype talks over the course of the construction process, Vargas would come to see that the vision, commitment, passion and superior artistic talent were all coming from the less senior employee who handled the day-to-day work, and demand that Vyacheslav be officially put in charge of finishing the armour. In effect, the armour would have been his 'masterpiece'.
I would give Fluting definitely and Expert Tailoring definitely, possibly using a cast of Vargas' body, mailing rough pieces for a fitting over Skype, or using one of those printers that takes a scan and prints a foam 'dummy' of Vargas. I would be inclined to say that Masterful Tailoring requires multiple fittings in person, or at least practice working from scans rather than a living moving patron who can tell you where something pinches. The metal quality would be better than LT's Hardened Steel: you could represent that with CEAD, or with just adding say +50% DR instead of +1. I listed some of the real steels which are popular, like 4130 chromoly, in an earlier post, but I can't say what GURPS stats they would have better than "maybe +50% DR over LT, representing DR 70-odd per inch."

Under LT, if we give Plate + Heavy 1 on the Arms (50%) + Legs (100%) + Hands (10%) + Feet (10%: total 170%) they have DR 4+1 before modifying for metal quality and weigh 20.4 lbs before tailoring.

If we give Plate + Heavy 6 on the Head 30% + Neck 5% + Torso 100% (total 135%) they have DR 9+1 before modifying for metal quality, and weigh 43.2 lbs before tailoring.

If he borrowed some ideas from 16th century armour, he could add separate reinforcing plates to the Chest Front, Skull Front, and maybe whichever shoulder is most exposed in tactical combat using the Grand-Guard rule on LT p. 109. Reinforcements for the Chest Front were used in real 16th century field armour: apparently having two spaced layers helped against balls propelled by black powder. I would am for a total weight of no more than 80 lbs before multiplying for tailoring and for his kingly physique, but I don't have time to fiddle around and look for mechanical 'sweet spots' especially since those depend on what you assume the DR per inch is.

And of course, all the pierced and filed decorations, gilt brass or solid silver rivets and mount points for tactical gear or a pimpin' plume, polishing bright as a mirror or bluing as dark as Vargas' soul, linings of blood-red velvet or hand-tanned and stamped leather, and etchings/engravings count towards Styling. Wrapping the straps in velvet and giving them gilt or silver ends can look nice.

At rich-country prices, I would guestimate around 100k USD. At Ukranian wages, maybe 20-50k USD. Of course the prices of one-off special orders by rich patrons are hard to predict! And the extra thickness might well drive up the price, but not by an order of magnitude.

I would probably make the bevor (throat) one of the ones of lames which collapse over one another, so Vargas can lower it for tactical combat, when shouting orders and getting his cheek and his rifle together are important, but raise it for fighting with swords.

Vargas might be able to get Fine Mail for the gaps if his people ordered it early enough and understood that they need to pay more than the list price to make it worth the worker's time, or bought some original pieces and chopped them up. There are only a handful of people making mail like that who have studied how the original pieces were tailored, and their customers can't afford a fair price for the hours involved. Otherwise, modern riveted mail would usually count as Light Mail, often with -1 DR or -1 DX if it comes straight from India/Pakistan. I never played with welded 'shark mail/butcher's mail' to see how it performs.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
Vyacheslav would have finished his masterpiece at the end of 2013. No matter the craftsmanship and the best hardening possible with traditional forging, Vyacheslav couldn't have promised that steel used would be completely proof against rifle fire, however, not even the thick breastplate. Experiments with the same alloy, hardened to as similar levels by Caló Renteria and his assistants, would have shown that high-powered rifle rounds would penetrate that thickness of steel, though they might not always penetrate a backing of ballistic fabric afterwards. The thinner armour elsewhere, however, would probably not be thick enough to stop any rifle round and even with ballistic fabric backing, would probably inadequate protection from typical threats.

Which is why Vargas continued his project despite having gotten the GURPS equivalent of Very Fine plate armour and, when circumstances altered in Mexico between 2014-2015, and Vargas found himself moving to a new place, with more power and autonomy, if technically slightly less revenue, convinced Vyacheslav to move there and see if he could not improve on his masterpiece armour using the best modern tools, methods and materials.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
I guess I want Vargas and Vyacheslav to be friends, as far as Vargas is capable of friendship, and give Vyacheslav reasons to love Vargas for his open-handedness, charm, shared hobbies, demonstrated trust and genuine, if untutored and unsystematic, appreciation of his craftsmanship and the artistry of a traditional armourer. I think it makes for a far better dynamic if Vyacheslav loves his charismatic, domineering and mercurial patrón almost as much as he hates the horrible, despicable things he comes to learn Vargas does.

Especially if Vyacheslav is romantic enough to be considering a range of dangerous actions to rescue his Dulcinea even before maybe encountering PCs, and, in imaging a cinematic mano-a-mano confrontation between the wicked patrón fallen from his pedestal and his rebellious subject filled with justified wrath, thinks that having studied historical swordsmanship much more intensively than Vargas will somehow matter in a real fight to the death with a hardened killer who uses machine guns for actual combat. Always good to give players the possibility of potential allies who bring almost as much trouble as aid.
Eighteen months feels like the sweet spot between "I have all the armour books I ever wanted and a computer-controlled oven for heat treatment! There was a naked women in my bed when I arrived! And il jefe said I have cojones and gave me a sword with a gilt pommel- the blade is so-so, but a golden pommel!" and "Maria, they eat babies! Conan never ate a baby. My girl says that she is scared and she wants to go, but we cannot get out ..."

Making really good plate armour, the kind that makes you feel like a god, requires a weird mix of aesthetic sensibility and hard-headed practical engineering and craftsmanship, and a rapport with the client.

With his contacts, Vargas might have some original Frazetta paintings still in Saddam's gilt frames around the hacienda, across from the shelf of first edition hentai rebound in that special leather that the maids don't like to touch.

If Vargas has been emailing and Skyping with Ukraine, there are almost certainly copies somewhere within the American intelligence apparatus, but whether Onyx Rain has access would be up to the GM. You could have something where they know those files exist, but another agency has locked them for a drugs or human trafficking investigation and does not want to admit that it is just armour pron not a SINISTER FOREIGN THREAT.

There are a couple of comments on fitting armour for special clients, and the relationship between armourers and clients, in PBS "Resurrecting Richard III' http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/resu...-episode/1934/

and some things about what a high-end reproduction project is like on the Nova "Secrets of the Shining Knight" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient...ng-knight.html

Chris Gilman's "Talents I have Seen" could also be helpful https://diligentdwarves.blogspot.co....obert-mac.html

Now off to make things with my hands, or hike in the fresh air.
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Last edited by Polydamas; 02-18-2018 at 02:55 AM. Reason: Added one more link
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