Quote:
Originally Posted by mlangsdorf
So on the availability of full body kevlar armor: I'm not aware of any. But you can buy fencing jackets made from Kevlar or Spectra, and you can just buy bolts of kevlar fabric, so there's no reason why you can't make your own body armor.
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It looks like Kevlar fencing jackets are extremely thin. I was able to find tests where someone tried the stab resistance of the thickest, most protective Kevlar fencing jackets and it was found to be negligable. As in,
no difference whether the dead pig as covered with one or not. Two jackets did not protect, but did feel like a little resistance. DR 1 in GURPS terms, I'd guess.
Three of the thickest, most protective fencing jackets protected from a desultory stab with a kitchen knife, but could be penetrated with a full-force stab, which also went deep into the pig. DR 2, I'd assume, if the random Internet person was around ST 10 (Dmg 1d-3 imp, reverse grip, AoA (Strong) 1d).
The fencing jackets are meant to protect from accidental contact by fairly blunt tips of broken swords, most often the equivalent to draw cutting motions. They are woefully lacking as actual armour when encountering actual, sharp-edged knives.
I think working with and sewing kevlar and other aramid fabrics gets progressively more difficult the thicker and more protective they get. You might need special tools to cut and tailor kevlar fabrics that actually grant a significant DR. Which I'd guess they'd invest in, as inexpensive kevlar kit sounds like a worthwhile thing to have their kidnapped maquiladora sex slaves work on during the day. They could even sell home-made vests on the black market, at least to more-or-less allied DTOs or gangs, and make a profit.
Assuming that the machinery required to work with Kevlar thick enough to be rated as DR 8 or higher isn't prohibitively expensive, hard to acquire or requires a huge factory, or something.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mlangsdorf
I went for a mid-end design that bounces bullets everywhere at great expensive. What can we do on the low end?
DR 15 improved kevlar vitals protector: 1 sqft, 1.2 lbs, $144.
DR 9 improved kevlar vest with groin and rib cover: 6 sqft, 4.3 lbs, $518
DR 4 Hard Steel Breastplate with gorget and fauld: 7.7 sqft, 12.3 lbs, $220
DR 4 Kevlar arms, legs, balaclava: 12.6 sqft, 5 lbs, $80
DR 4 Kevlar gloves, socks: 1.4 sqft, 0.6 lbs, $45
DR 3 mild steel arms, legs, gauntlets, boots: 14 sqft, WM .7, CM 2, 23 lbs, $230
Buy an off-the-shelf riot helmet with a ballistic helmet's visor for 4.4 lbs, $400.
Total is 50.9 lbs, $1960.
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That's quite good. I like that.
We'd want to tweak the cosmetics a little. Maybe we could build a plastic or even metal cosmetic chassis to cover the riot helmet, make it look like a Conquistador morion helmet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mlangsdorf
This is a lot less effective, but much simpler, than the previous example. It isn't effective against 7.62mm rounds anywhere and most of the limb armor is for show: it's effective enough against animal attacks and it looks intimidating, so hopefully most attackers won't bother trying to penetrate it. It will protect against light pistol rounds to the limbs, and heavy pistols to the torso, but 5.56mm rifle rounds will break through the weaker side protection.
The combined thickness of the armor on the limbs is less than half the maximum, so it shouldn't be too encumbering. You could make this armor by cutting the kevlar sleeves and leggings from bolts of fabric, attaching them to an Interceptor vest or equivalent, and then adding some mid-range SCA armor*.
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Well, we
could replace the Improved Kevlar vitals protector with abrasion resistant steel plates covering the same area as most typical trauma plates, costing $100-$200 per plate.
That would give us rifle-proof armour over the mid-chest area and maybe even the back, if we go back and breast.
Of course, wearing ballistic steel trauma plates
under a soft steel back-and-breast plate might get bulky. And heavy.
We
could drop gauntlets (couldn't shoot well in them anyway), sabatons (couldn't run well) and the Kevlar underlayers for these areas, to compensate for the weight. You'd pass out eventually if there are no areas uncovered, anyway.
There's no way to compensate for the bulk, though.
Could you wear a 1/4" abrasion resistant trauma plate under a 16G back-and-breastplate?
Or would that require an absurd shape or far too much extra material for the back-and-breastplate?
If you couldn't, you would basically have to replace the back-and-breastplate with a brigandine design, where you'd sew ballistic plates of high hardness steel over 11" x 14" in the front, 12" x 10" in the back and the smaller areas covered by the two side plates. Then cover what remains unprotected with custom-made soft steel plates made by a SCA-legal armourer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mlangsdorf
* I do not believe you can get SCA legal steel armor for the limbs for USD 230, so adjust prices to match your expectations of reality.
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Looks like you are right. I can easily find complete limb armour in 16G for about $900, which leads me to believe that it might be possible to get cheaper Indian or Chinese production, but it might be that these would not look good enough.
Custom-made medieval style armour today seems to come out with a +2 to +3 CF for rarity and very specialised market, at least for limb armour.