View Single Post
Old 02-07-2018, 03:24 PM   #16
Icelander
 
Icelander's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: [Cutting-Edge Armor Design] Real World SCA-legal Armour and Ballistics Armour

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
Out of interest what kind of money does this splinter cartel have?
The GM guesstimated that Raul Vargas was pulling in about US $50 million per year, which he had to use for his living expenses, spread around to his closest cronies to keep their loyalty and use to invest in real estate as part of the long-term plan to own all the land where an anticipated pipeline in his territory is meant to run.

This means that the combined revenues of everything everyone who takes his orders is doing is much higher, of course. They buy drugs for many millions per month and sell them for more than that. However, their access to the drug territory and ability to collect the revenue is contingent on their willingness to kill the enemies of the Sinaloa cartel.

So actual, practical things like paying soldiers, lookouts, vendors and mules, buying vehicles (frequently lost), ammo and functional firearms, as well as all the other costs involved in running both a drug business, extortion business and what amounts to a small, elite mercenary group, exists outside Vargas' personal budget.

And while normal TL8 body armour might be a part of that budget, 'Black Knight' armours with ballistic protective capabilities are certainly not a normal operating expense. They are a luxury and come out of Vargas' personal money. Or the personal money of those of his men who are trying to impress him, maybe.

Essentially, Vargas has $50 million a year to run his personal 'household' and to use it to grow richer. He is not going to be willing to spend more than about 5-10% of this on gifts of various kinds to his household and lieutenants, who are supposed to be already loyal, and besides, too afraid of him to need much keeping sweet. Besides, most of them would probably appreciate other gifts than just one awesome armour. You know, new cars, gold-plated Colt 1911s, horses, that sort of thing.

On the other hand, Vargas' has had a personal income probably exceeding $1 million per week for maybe six or seven years, with fluctations. There was probably a time in 2010-2012 when he earned several times that and probably a time in 2014 where he was essentially using his entire income (which might have been lower, as well) to keep together a core group of his best fighters, while they were essentially cut off form all their more powerful support. He's been in his current position for maybe two or three years, making an average of $50 million per year, but he's expecting a large payout within a couple of years from his real estate scheme.*

So, if we assume that he's been willing to devote ca 0.5-1% of his household budget to 'Project Black Knights' over the past two and a half years, he's maybe put a million dollars into it, total. That's a lot, in one sense, but it's not 'set up a factory' a lot. Of course, he might have already started some work on it while he lived in Michoacán, which might mean a couple of million at that time, but it's far from certain that he managed to finish it that time or that he would have been able to take with him everything that he did have.

*Him and about every other well-connected criminal in the region, as they are all part of a very dishonest, very ruthless, very large scheme to dispossess a lot of people so they'll profit from an ancipated oil pipeline. The oil pipeline is a multi-billion project and Vargas hopes to gain a significant chunk of that. Realistically, success would mean several hundred millions for him, in legitimate money.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
Because my gut* over all feeling here is if your chap is willing to spend enough money he'll have no issue being able to entice a series of specialist relevant companies to solve the various issues mentioned. Even if they charge massively inflated bespoke "who is this crazy idiot, not our usual work" mark up prices

*FWIW I work for a company / industry that makes bespoke equipment that is heavily involved in material science. Yeah of course there are limiting factors to what can feasibly done, but one of the big ones is having a big enough desire and wallet to back it up and leave concerns of cost effectiveness in the rear view mirror!
Well, give me some idea on what would be realistic to commission from a legitimate company or how they might have an 'in' with a company willing to be less-than-legitimate.

It's highly unlikely that anyone doing business with Vargas will not realise pretty quickly that he is a drug lord, so unless the stuff can be ordered by a flunky from an online catalog or by the one of the few grey market contacts he retains who have an in with several Chinese businesses*, he'd need to deal with someone who was cool with designing armour for a scary drug lord.

What kind of money are we talking to make this an attractive proposition?

How much of it would be the cost of one custom-made armour, with possibly a couple of failed or unsatisfactorily prototypes on the way there, and how much could you get cost per unit down for about a dozen less fancy ones once you have the techniques down?

And what kind of materials, coverage, design, etc. would be realistic?

If we want something that looks like movie-armour for knights, but functions as well as we can within a plausible budget?**

*Mostly, but not exclusively, representatives of huge conglomerates who'll buy iron ore by the shipload despite having to fake some paperwork, because it's stolen, untaxed and being sold by gangsters. Also, representatives of companies, possibly the same ones, who sell tons of chemicals useful as methamphetamine precursors. And a few people with connections to Norinco, at the very least, to logistics companies that transport weapons from China for export.
**He might spend as much on his own armour as he'd spend on a really pimped-up luxury truck, with gold decorations and other insane stuff, if the mood should strike him. He's probably not going to pay for twelve truck-equivalent armours to give his lieutenants and bodyguards.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
Basically I realise we're not talking about the Medellín cartel here who could write off $2bn a month to loss by mould and rat gnawing, but how splinter is splinter?
Vargas considers himself an independent cartel leader and has big dreams to become the next Joaquin 'El Chapo' Loera Guzman. It is true that the Caballero templarios were large enough to make more than a billion a year, most likely several, within the last five years and that Vargas' and his men are the largest, most powerful group of remaining men who still use the title, but they seem to have retained comparatively little of the connections that yield such high revenue.

In actual fact, he and his men are a semi-independent group of enforcers for the Sinaloa cartel, geographically limited. In that respect, they are about the size and power of La Línea in Juarez, at the height of their powers, though working for Sinaloa, not Juarez.

Though Vargas' Caballero templarios do not hold territory within Ciudad Juarez (though they do not hesitate to operate there if given targets), but rather in the Juarez Valley to the southeast of it, and as far out from there as they can enforce their will on the Los Zetas and other rival cartels in that direction. Practically speaking, this currently extends to the Ojinaga plaza, where the locals now operate under their authority and pay them tax.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!

Last edited by Icelander; 02-07-2018 at 03:39 PM.
Icelander is offline   Reply With Quote