01-21-2018, 09:26 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Houston, TX
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Armor Failure Point
Is there a point at which a suit of armor (be it medieval plate or TL11 monocrys), structurally fails? The armor is no longer useable?
I don't mean ablative armor, per se. I'm thinking more like modern day ballistic plates cracking if you drop them the wrong way, a suit of armor getting riddled by machinegun fire and looking like swiss cheese after, a breastplate getting pierced to the same effect, etc. I've looked at Basic Set, Ultra-Tech and High-Tech (I don't own Low-Tech) and I can't find anything that talks about it. The closest I've come is the HP and DR of Structures table on B558 and B559, with the small paragraph about repeated damage at the same spot effectively being ablative. |
01-21-2018, 01:52 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Austin, TX
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Re: Armor Failure Point
Modern ballistic armor should really be ablative for the early Kevlar generations and semi-ablative for the more modern stuff. They are really not intended to be used again after being shot a few times.
Rules for general armor damage appear in Low-Tech Companion 2: Weapons and Warriors p 25.
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01-21-2018, 02:16 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Feb 2014
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Re: Armor Failure Point
(Chain) maille is easy to repair; rivet a few links in the hole and Bob’s your uncle. For plate armor, the steel doesn’t change material if it’s been cracked or punctured. A competent smith could forge weld it back together and make it functional again, but it wouldn’t be a fast process, as the whole piece would have to be laborously reshaped for the (presumably) new wearer and heat treated to proper hardness again. If it was corroded by acids or rusted by magic, give it to a smith as scrap steel to make housewares from.
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01-21-2018, 02:34 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
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Re: Armor Failure Point
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.
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01-21-2018, 02:34 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Denver, CO
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Re: Armor Failure Point
I've seen a number of optional and/or house rules on the subject. In general, I haven't seen anything where the increased realism is worth the headache of the extra bookkeeping. In my group, we accept that there is armor and weapon maintenance going on in the background and that it doesn't need to rise to the level of bookkeeping.
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01-21-2018, 02:46 PM | #6 | |
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: Armor Failure Point
Quote:
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01-21-2018, 03:00 PM | #7 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Armor Failure Point
Likewise. If I was running a gritty game that used modern armour with ballistic plates, I might suggest that they needed replacing every time they stopped lots of damage.
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01-21-2018, 09:00 PM | #8 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Armor Failure Point
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.
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01-21-2018, 09:02 PM | #9 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Armor Failure Point
That is the case anyway. You always replace SAPIs that have been hit, this is actually printed on the things in real life.
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01-21-2018, 10:21 PM | #10 |
Untagged
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Armor Failure Point
I don't think I've ever seen any such plate in fiction or artwork. My "Google-fu" sucks. Could you link to some images if you know of any?
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