[Cutting-Edge Armor Design] Real World SCA-legal Armour and Ballistics Armour

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

It might well be worth it to have two guys who understand the process, requirements and technology in house, with them being in charge of deciding what can be done on site, what needs to be ordered as off-the-shelf components, what must be custom-made and what is going to require specialised design or even R&D beyond what they can do, before they can even approach someone about manufacturing it.

This will all go better if Vargas understands that what he wants is a new kind of armour, which nobody has built before. While it's likely that the first generation will be pretty good, there's definite scope for further development and customisation.

And thus, both experimental armour, and cast-off pieces that have recently become obsolete, are around for PCs to try using.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by johndallman

This will all go better if Vargas understands that what he wants is a new kind of armour, which nobody has built before. While it's likely that the first generation will be pretty good, there's definite scope for further development and customisation.

That should already be in his mindset; the armoured "narco-tanks" that the cartels use now tend to be one-of-a-kind constructions, perhaps with an overall design brief ("make it bulletproof but still fast"), but certainly nothing like standardised.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

This will all go better if Vargas understands that what he wants is a new kind of armour, which nobody has built before. While it's likely that the first generation will be pretty good, there's definite scope for further development and customisation.

Yeah, I think he does. I had intended to write up several generations of armour, with each existing in prototype form.

That way, I will also be able to use more than one style or approach, suggested by different posters.

Originally Posted by johndallman

And thus, both experimental armour, and cast-off pieces that have recently become obsolete, are around for PCs to try using.

Ah, so they will!

Though no PC will be quite as tall and beefy as Vargas. If he was 6'3" and 225 lbs. while aged 44-45 and keeping up with 22-year-olds in the physical parts of US Army SFQC at Camp Mackall, he's probably going to have added a slight thickening around the middle seventeen years later, especially with his new supersoldier body allowing him to run rings around most younger mortals even without having to do any exercise. Any way you slice it, he doesn't have to exercise as much as the Jefe of a DTO as he did while a member of a USASF Operational Detacthment Alpha (ODA) on a really challenging training rotation.

Vargas still does lots of physical conditioning by most standards, because he likes to feel his strength, show it off and be admired. And he genuinely enjoys some active hobbies, such as TKD, sambo, freestyle sparring, dynamic entry training, knife fencing and swordsmanship (new hobby). For that matter, his favourite things in the world are probably blowing stuff up with demolition charges and shooting fragile things with belt after belt of machine gun ammo until the barrel glows. Neither is wholly a sedentary pursuit and the toys involved are heavy, especially when doing it in full armour, with full kit.

But all in all, with Vargas's dissolute lifestyle, huge alcohol consumption, high-cholesterol diet and generally being a man of Brian Blessed styled appetites, I expect he's slowly adding pounds on his involuntary quest to catch up with Brian Blessed's physique. I'd be surprised if he weighed less than 250 lbs. by now. Mostly muscle, but florid and beefy, not carved of old teak, like some of the old NCOs look.

The heaviest PC weighs 180-190 lbs., I think. Most are between 150-165 lbs. No one is taller than 6'. I think that the PCs had better hope that, for example, the enthusiastic SCA armourer moved there, that part of his payment is that he gets to make less ornate, but functional armour for himself, and that he is closer to their size, if any PC wants to dress up as a knight.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

That should already be in his mindset; the armoured "narco-tanks" that the cartels use now tend to be one-of-a-kind constructions, perhaps with an overall design brief ("make it bulletproof but still fast"), but certainly nothing like standardised.

Good point.

Almost certainly, when Vargas first wanted armour that looked knightly while also providing the same or better protection as tactical gear with trauma plates, he would have asked the mechanic or machinist in charge of making bullet-resistant plate and welding it to trucks or other vehicles to make improvised APCs for the Knight Templar Cartel to build him such armour. That would have been in 2011, back when they were just emerging into independent cartel status in Michoacán, from having been the armed enforcer wing of La Familia Michoacán.

Only after learning from their chief machinist about the challenges of making rifle-proof armour that looked vaguely medieval would Vargas have turned elsewhere. As he learned more about the difficulties involved, he would have realised, eventually, that he needed to start what amounted to an R&D project, instead of just commissioning such a suit of armour directly from a custom workshop.

Well, I'm sure Vargas first tried to get their Chinese partners to help him, specifically arranging to have some steelworking company, which is certain to have been a part of one of the huge Chinese conglomerates buying shiploads of iron ore from La Familia Michoacán and then the Knight Templar Cartel, to construct him a suit of black, bulletproof armour.

After suffering disappointment with the result, probably not sufficiently protective, comfortable nor authentic looking, not to mention almost certainly significantly restricting his range of motion and being impossible to get a good cheek weld in for shooting, being constructed at a mass production steelworking facility by fabricators without much idea of human ergonomics or the principles of making body armour, Vargas would have realised that he needed someone who actually knew how to make medieval-looking armour. Enter the Internet, which I am not sure how much Vargas uses himself, but which one of his younger henchmen is sure to be intimately familiar with. They'd eventually find a custom workshop making re-enactor armour and start to outline their requirements.

The requirement for rifle-proof protection would have led to a knowledgable SCA-legal armourer advising that the suit needed to be made from very different materials than armour for medieval style melees and that working with such materials demanded very different tools and techniques than a traditional smithy or even a custom workshop for softer steels. Eventually, it would have become evident that an innovative, bright and creative engineer, metallurgist, material scientist or machinist-fabricator, with an interest in working out how to shape extremely strong steel or titanium alloys into pieces useful for body armour, was as necessary as the armourer for the project.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Icelander

.

What's your view on AR500 or similar very high hardness, abrasion resistant steel alloys, as regards DR? Should they have the same, extremely high DR for their weight against all damage types or would they resist some types, like piercing, better by about 20% to 50%?

I would look at flash bainite. Most of these fancy heat-treatment stories are full of hype but this one seems to have some substance. A couple of car makers are doing some serious testing so it looks viable.

https://newatlas.com/flash-bainite-a...testing/40774/

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Vargas is liable to make any sicario who shows up in armour wear it through all the exercises that day. The proper way to impress him would be to be not only buy a cool suit of armour, but to be tough enough to do four hours of cardio, combatives, land navigation, defensive driving, small unit drill, MOUT and patrolling exercise in your armour, even in the summer heat.

Well, for good or bad ACL/HMB/IMCF culture is heavily influenced by combatives and BJJ. Remember that it got started as an excuse for Russians and Ukranians to beat each other senseless! So there are plenty of sports armourers who are used to supplying people who take their kit through a military-style cardio and combatives routine several times a week, and who sell a full harness for a few thousand dollars.

On the other hand, folks in that world often convince themselves that armour which is too heavy and 'bites them' is just proof of how tough they are, and their kit often has bigger weak spots against thrusts than historical armour. Thrusts are not allowed in their game.
Armour for foam and stick fighting tends to have things around the joints and the face which could turn very very bad if blades or sharps are involved. But these guys are fighting with rifles and knives, so they probably don't care that a good fighter with a bill or a sword could rip out the tendon at the back of their knee in two tempi.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

I would look at flash bainite. Most of these fancy heat-treatment stories are full of hype but this one seems to have some substance. A couple of car makers are doing some serious testing so it looks viable.

https://newatlas.com/flash-bainite-a...testing/40774/

In GURPS terms, this sounds like a cheaper way to get protective values similar to TL8 'Ultra-Strength Steel', which is meant to represent triple hardened or nano-metric steel. It specifically outperforms titanium alloy as armour, by weight, which does sound like similar performance to flash bainite.

Which, yes, sounds very much like something which would be useful for making a harness of medieval-looking plate providing rifle protection over as much of the body as practical.

What kind of machinery do you need to perform the process?

No way to do it outside of a huge factory or could you set something up to handle smaller, custom pieces, without spending millions of dollars just on equipment?

And how does it work, do you make the steel first and then shape it into whatever car part (or body armour) you want or do you do it the other way around, making something out of the regular steel mentioned in the article and then send it off to be bainite flash heat treated?

Or does the entire production process have to happen in a specific way for the end result to be bainite flash treated steel, so the armour would have to be entirely made by the (so far) extremely few people who are working with this new method?

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Icelander

...


Clearly, you are not the company Vargas is looking for. :-)

...


Ah, but whoever Vargas eventually found had to be a company run by someone whose immediate reaction was glee. No other way, really, as I can't see anyone else sticking with such a scary, sketchy client and near-impossible requirements, constant meddling input, etc.

Yep I think you are right, without specific interest in the project overriding it, any involved companies are going to looking out for themselves and covering their backs as their primary concern.

This kind of project has the potential risk of being open ended and if the customer starts acting like that it gets more and more likely that the $2m just bought more then $2m worth of hassle and grief. Some business just isn't worth having, (at least not without having the T&C's and indemnities locked down as much as is reasonably possible and the control of the money)

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Icelander

In GURPS terms, this sounds like a cheaper way to get protective values similar to TL8 'Ultra-Strength Steel', which is meant to represent triple hardened or nano-metric steel. It specifically outperforms titanium alloy as armour, by weight, which does sound like similar performance to flash bainite.

Which, yes, sounds very much like something which would be useful for making a harness of medieval-looking plate providing rifle protection over as much of the body as practical.

What kind of machinery do you need to perform the process?

No way to do it outside of a huge factory or could you set something up to handle smaller, custom pieces, without spending millions of dollars just on equipment?

And how does it work, do you make the steel first and then shape it into whatever car part (or body armour) you want or do you do it the other way around, making something out of the regular steel mentioned in the article and then send it off to be bainite flash heat treated?

Or does the entire production process have to happen in a specific way for the end result to be bainite flash treated steel, so the armour would have to be entirely made by the (so far) extremely few people who are working with this new method?

I may be reading the article wrong but I think theoretically one of the big advantages would be someone working with the steel wouldn't need to do the process themselves but could get the steel that had been processed and then work with it relatively easily.

However the article also seems to say that you could start this process up in a garage with smaller bit of processing kit for approx $300k

From the article:

Another factor in Flash's favour is an extremely low capital cost of entry for companies looking to get involved in the manufacturing process.

"The entry point for Flash equipment is about US$300K and a one car garage, while large format equipment would only cost $5M to generate about $75M in annual sales," Cola tells us. "Imagine if 100s of fabrication shops around the country could make higher performing steel than the Big Steel Industry can in their $400M seven-story tall furnaces."

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Well, for good or bad ACL/HMB/IMCF culture is heavily influenced by combatives and BJJ. Remember that it got started as an excuse for Russians and Ukranians to beat each other senseless!

So... basically for people like Vargas, adjusting for location in the world?

After all, there was a time when Vargas used to be a TKD sport competitor and then military combatives fanatic, chasing after martial art fads and always wanting to spar full-contact, preferably using too dangerous techniques.

Not to mention taking a lot of pride in Mexican knife-fighting or 'Saca tripas', his 'traditional martial art' of knife-fencing, Vargas having learned to use switchblades, navajas, tranchetes and other kinds of knives in civilian life, while growing up in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, probably from some old-school Latino gang members, before the time when the street gangs started packing firearms (Vargas was born in 1955).

Originally Posted by Polydamas

So there are plenty of sports armourers who are used to supplying people who take their kit through a military-style cardio and combatives routine several times a week, and who sell a full harness for a few thousand dollars.

Which might be within the financial means of his full-time sicarios, though either they'd buy such armour only to use in, essentially, re-enactment, or they'd try to get it with outsized chest protection, allowing them to wear TL8 ballistic vests with inserts under the archaic armour.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

On the other hand, folks in that world often convince themselves that armour which is too heavy and 'bites them' is just proof of how tough they are, and their kit often has bigger weak spots against thrusts than historical armour. Thrusts are not allowed in their game.

Ah, okay.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Armour for foam and stick fighting tends to have things around the joints and the face which could turn very very bad if blades or sharps are involved. But these guys are fighting with rifles and knives, so they probably don't care that a good fighter with a bill or a sword could rip out the tendon at the back of their knee in two tempi.

For use in their actual combat raids, that's very true.

On the other hand, unless the owner has a more complete suit with better limb protection which he uses when sparring with his fellow sicarios or even with Vargas himself, it's probably a bad idea for anyone who wants to try to ingratiate himself with El Jefe to have obvious weak spots in his armour where a knife or a sword being used at default from knife techniques might get through to cause a bad wound.

Vargas was notorious for injuring his sparring partners during combatives training, even when he was an ostensibly law-abiding soldier back in the United States. I don't imagine that a decade fighting the Drug War in Mexico, out-brutalising Los Zetas, will have improved his sense of human empathy to the point of causing him to adopt more sensible safety precautions. Most likely, he considers it the responsibility of whoever is fighting him to wear armour good enough not to get injured. And, you know, with Callous and Sadism (high SC, but still there), he's likely to actively try to hurt people some days.

People should probably refuse to fight him, even if only for 'fun', but toadying to his interests, displaying reckless disregard for risk or injury and extreme physical toughness are some of the most reliable ways to earn entrance to his inner retinue, where sicarios can really earn. And it's not like anyone would last in the Caballero Templarios if they weren't at least as crazy as historical tournament knights, anyway, and preferably a lot crazier.*

*Meth also helps. Vargas claims to dislike anyone using drugs when working (though he sometimes breaks his own rule), but playing around with knives, swords and armour doesn't count as work. They do that in their free time, not as part of the mandatory military style training that his men must participate in. No one is forced to play with swords or pretend to be a knight, at least not more than a few ceremonial occasions involved with becoming a full sicario or entering the inner circle, but it's probably been a good way to get Vargas to notice you and for the last two years, it's been the most reliable way to Vargas' good graces. Not coincidentally, two years is how long Vargas has been claiming the title of Jefe over all the Caballero Templarios, not just his personal group of enforcers.