[Icelander]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Right. DR 25 for 5.5 lbs at $110 for a solid plate works out to a CM of $20.

Cost = Weight x CM x CC.
CM = Cost / (Weight x CC). CC is 1 for solid, so $110/5.5 = $20.

Weight = SA x WM x CW x DR.
WM = Weight / (SA x CW x DR). CW is 1 for solid, and a 10x12" is 5/6 sqft, so 5.5 / (5/6 * 25) goes to 6 * 5.5 / 5 / 25 goes to 6.6 / 25 or 0.264. I'd originally calculated from DR 23 and got something closer to 0.3.

Apparently, Ultra-Strength Steel in Pyramid is meant to represent materials that are genuinely cutting-edge in vehicle armour applications.

Unless I can confirm that the cheaper very high hardness Abrasion Resistant steels are equivalent in protective value against all threats as vehicle armours made from triple-hardened steels or nano-metric/nano-crystaline steels, I'd be loath to give equivalent or better stats to AR500.

We know the DR against piercing damage, but isn't it possible that such very high hardness steels are actually more protective against typical fast-moving, light penetrators made from, generally, softer materials, than they are against some other types of damage?

In other words, maybe a 5.5 lbs., almost 1 square feet, NIJ Level III certified plate of AR500 should have DR 25 against piercing (and possibly cutting), but only modestly better DR than an equivalent thickness and/or weight of TL6 'Hard Steel' would have against other threats.

I mean, should it resist collisions (cr), cutting torches (burn), HEAT (cr ex) or explosively-formed penetrators (imp) any better than the kind of steel used for TL7 and TL8 APC or tank armour?

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

As far as working metals with absurdly high Brinell numbers, I assume you would work the metal while it's a lot softer and then case-harden the final form. You can (and people traditionally did) case-harden fire arm components, because you want to do the precision machining on low carbon alloys but have high carbon alloys for wear resistance in the final gun. If you can case-harden a revolver frame, you can case-harden a breastplate (though I am not a metallurgist and have only the vaguest idea of how you would do it).

As I understand it, making hardened alloys of high-carbon steel, chrome-moly and manganese is something only very specialised suppliers do.

Machinists, smiths, speciality stores or custom workshops buy high hardness Abrasion Resistant steels, they don't make the alloys themselves. And it looks like you can only buy AR500 in sheets, targets, trauma plates, i.e. what 'Cutting-Edge Armor Design' calls Solid.

Maybe you can get some other kind of very hard steel made in specific shapes, but I suspect it would be very expensive to do so for a few suits of armour. Maybe if you were looking to buy enough of each part to make a line of wear-resistant power tools or Caterpillar attachments.

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

I also suspect that armor like this is one of those things that is really expensive to buy one-off, but only moderately expensive to buy in lots of 100+. What your cartel would want to do is make a prototype or three out of low carbon steel, come up with a fake movie production company or similar cover story, and then have the cover company solicit bids for 100+ copies of the suit made from the proper materials. The companies who already have equipment to make metal in weird shapes and at high hardness levels will get back to you with a hopefully cost-effective solution.

I think you are right here.

Which is why I think that only Raul Vargas, the undisputed leader of this surviving subgroup of the Knight Templar Cartel, has any chance to have a custom-made plate harness out of a steel hard and tough enough to have meaningful ballistic resistance.

The rest should find other methods of sort of looking like Knights, while being protected at least as well as if they were wearing tactical vests with trauma plates.

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Of course, if you can't afford 100 suits, you may be in a situation where can't afford to buy 10 suits, either, because you have to hand-make each one at great expense.

Well, there aren't 100 trusted inner circle lieutenants, bodyguards or leaders of soldiers, anyway, in this splinter faction of the original cartel.

There's probably about a dozen men close enough to the leader and crazy enough to buy into his 'Knight Templar' propaganda to the extent that they attend banquets wearing faux-medieval armour. Say about twice that who'll pay it lip service and attend wearing more-or-less medieval movie-setting appropriate clothing, but not functional armour.

And maybe thirty or forty loco gunmen who mix this sort of Ren Faire aesthetic with their norteño or narcocultura aesthetic in the hope of currying favour with the Jefe (or because they are crazy and have been with the Knight Templars for five years, which for some of them might have been since they were ten years old, so some of them probably swallow the entire 'Knights' bit whole).

Drug baron Raul Vargas is not going to finance full plate armour for all these men. He needs his money! For operating costs, for bribery and gifts to important people in allied Drug-Trade Organisations (DTOs) to increase his power, for investments in a huge real estate development that he hopes is going to make him a legitimate billionaire one day, etc. Not to mention absolutely ridiculous amounts of cocaine, methamphetamine, top-shelf booze and other luxury goods for personal use.

Vargas might be willing to pay for cool knight armour for his bodyguards and those of his lieutenants who take the 'Knight Templars' bit seriously, but that's always going to be less than twenty suits. But he is absolutely going to have a personal full plate harness that incorporates as much actual ballistic protection as possible, because while he is crazy, he is crazy like a fox. He likes stuff that skirts the line of 'Awesome but Impractical', but is actually somewhat effective, if much more expensive than a less cool way to do it.