Armor Failure Point

[DanHoward]

http://myarmoury.com/images/pb/76790...750e6b5a06.jpg

I've also seen a few that were repaired with brazing but don't have any pics.

[DanHoward]

For a couple of centuries it was common for plate armour to be covered with cloth and it was known that some unscrupulous armourers used it to hide dodgy repairs. The Armourers Guild of London had to introduce a regulation forbidding armourers from applying the cloth cover in-house. They had to sell it to someone else to cover and the buyer couldn't apply the cover until it was examined and certified by four accredited persons beforehand.

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-...life/pp145-148

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Plate armour was usually repaired by riveting a patch over the damaged section. It also looks like they might have had a kind of "spackle" that they used for smaller repairs. Once it was damaged too much to repair, it was cut up and turned into jacks of plates.

Couldn't the metal have been recycled? As in melt the whole thing down and make something new? I have no idea how to verify this short of finding a document saying something like "Took plate armor and melted it down to make a new armor".

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Couldn't the metal have been recycled? As in melt the whole thing down and make something new?

That's really expensive, it takes a lot of fuel and smiths time. Making plate at all is really expensive, it takes a lot of fuel and smiths time. Why on earth would you trash all that time when you can spend a little of an apprentices time with some tools cutting it up into still-useful pieces?

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle are in that order for very important reasons.

• First you try to reduce waste by not getting your armor broke (with you inside it!)
• Then you try to reuse the material in its current form or something as similar to it as possible. Repair it until it can't be repaired, cut it into pieces for armor pieces (where the pre-made armor-quality plate is valuable).
• Recycling is the last resort, in history as is now.

[Eddie T]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

The normal rules for damage to objects should apply, so an armor piece is going to have to start rolling for failure at -HP and automatically fail at - 5×HP.

Unless I've missed another section of rules (which happens frequently no matter how often I reread the books and/or my memory just isn't that good anymore), when someone wearing armor takes damage, the armor only takes damage up to the DR, the rest penetrates to the wearer. At no point does the armor take hit point damage. Normal object damage doesn't seem to have the ability to come into play. Unless someone can state that they're only trying to damage the armor, but that doesn't really seem feasible.

If the armor is sitting on the ground unused, then I can understand normal object damage rules to an extent. No wearer, no one to absorb the damage so it hits the other side of the armor. No issue with that scenario.

I know the SAPI plate example was a perfect example of ablative armor, but I don't mean just ablative qualities, I was using that as an example of a structural failure, e.g. it didn't got shot, it just got broke, Supply Sergeant.

And to clarify my wording on "no longer useable," I don't mean ablates to 0 points, but this arm joint is so damaged it won't move. I specify, because in my mind, all the descriptions of ablation say that the armor is whittled away, not that it impairs movement at 0 points.

I'm not trying to be an accountant at the table, but I am trying to know before I get asked at the table.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Eddie T

Unless I've missed another section of rules (which happens frequently no matter how often I reread the books and/or my memory just isn't that good anymore), when someone wearing armor takes damage, the armor only takes damage up to the DR, the rest penetrates to the wearer. At no point does the armor take hit point damage. Normal object damage doesn't seem to have the ability to come into play. Unless someone can state that they're only trying to damage the armor, but that doesn't really seem feasible.

That's just to avoid bookkeeping. You can figure out how much of that cover DR is hit points and use the overpenetration rules instead, if you think that sounds like fun.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Couldn't the metal have been recycled? As in melt the whole thing down and make something new? I have no idea how to verify this short of finding a document saying something like "Took plate armor and melted it down to make a new armor".

You can't melt iron unless you have an industrial blast furnace. A blacksmith's forge or even a bloomery smelter can't do it.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

You can't melt iron unless you have an industrial blast furnace. A blacksmith's forge or even a bloomery smelter can't do it.

It can still be beaten, folded, beaten again, etc. Question is what that saves you over just using new raw materials.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

You can't melt iron unless you have an industrial blast furnace. A blacksmith's forge or even a bloomery smelter can't do it.

Although you have blast furnaces when you have widespread plate harness (in fact you have one largely because of the other).

It's still cheaper and less wasteful to reuse.

[Eddie T]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

You can figure out how much of that cover DR is hit points and use the overpenetration rules instead, if you think that sounds like fun.

Nope, I'm a firm believer in doing as little as possible, as long as I have a good explanation.