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

[Icelander]

The 'Low-Tech Armor Design' article in Pyramid #3/52 suggests that it's appropriate to apply any modifiers from Low-Tech to the armours designed using the system, as long as these modifiers do not directly reflect the material the armour is made from, as using the differences between copper, bronze and the various grades of steel is supposed to be handled by the material stats of the design system itself.

The 'Cutting-Edge Armor Design' system in Pyramid #3/85 is designed to be compatible with the lower TL version and I don't see any inherent reason why metal armours designed with the system cannot use Fluting to reduce weight or why any armour could not reduce weight slightly using better tailoring. The Optimised Fabric option does this for many flexible armours at higher TLs, much more cheaply than the lower TL tailoring options, but I feel that it should also be possible to pay slightly more for better fitting metal armour at high TLs.

The only thing is, I feel that perhaps with exact measurements being easily available and computer-assisted design, precision tools and all the other improvements in manufacturing between TL4 and TL8, it might be possible to duplicate the benefits of Expert Tailoring, Fluting and Masterful Tailoring for a slightly lower mark-up than +5 CF, +4 CF and +29 CF.

Would it be appropriate to lower these any?

Or at least have some of the price difference be included in the 'Styling' costs in 'CEAD'?

I get that bespoke, custom work will be a lot more expensive than running off mass production armour in one of several sizes, but if I'm already accounting for a premium for custom work for TL8 steel alloy armour that uses the 'Plate' Construction (x5 cost, 0.8 weight compared to simple sheets of the same grade metal), I think that, for example, getting the armour precisely fitted, rather than fitted just enough not to rate a penalty, ought to be comparatively easier at TL8 than TL4.

I'd especially like to reduce the cost of Masterful Tailoring, as I don't believe that you would need the same level of extreme mastery of the armourer's craft to be able to produce perfectly fitting armour at TL8 as TL4. There are just so many helpful technological innovations at TL8 that enable the 'merely' highly skilled and educated professionals at working metals to do the kind of precision work that could only be done with breathtaking individual genius using traditional craftsmanship.

Would anyone object if I made Expert Tailoring +3 CF, Fluting +2 CF and Masterful Tailoring +14 CF when performed using TL8 technology?

Those are approximate halvings of the modifier value.

Or does anyone feel that the value should be changed from Low-Tech when performing these with higher TL technology, but the change should be greater or lesser? By all means, propose what Cost Factors you would use and explain the reasoning.

As any change from the most common design might reasonably be expected to be expensive at higher TLs and materials that are good for armour are often hard to shape into convoluted forms, perhaps Expert Tailoring and Fluting are already fairly priced, even at TL8. But I suspect that Masterful Tailoring, at least, should get a lot easier if you can measure the intended wearer to the micrometer from all angles, design armour that fits him exactly with TL8 engineering programs and then manufacture it exactly to the designed blueprints using TL8 fabrication and machining technologies.

At the very least, if you have the facilities to make one Expert Tailored or Masterfully Tailored armour, you can make several others more cheaply than you could by handcrafting. Even if the dimensions of the intended wearers differ, as you would simply need new measurements and changing the design blueprints, much of which would be fairly well understood engineering and I imagine that a good design program would do most of the calculations when you enter the different measurements that you want to cover. The manufacturing would stay exactly the same, only with new inputs that don't seem like the would be the hardest part of the process.

This is still more expensive than turning out several off-the-rack suits of armour, but the cost difference probably should be more in line with the difference between expensive off-the-rack gentleman's suits and similar quality made to measurement. That's a significant cost difference (unless the work is done abroad, where wages are much lower), but a well tailored bespoke suit made to exact measurements (generally $2,000-$10,000*, very nice quality possible in $3,000) is not necessarily thirty times the price of a fine suit, like an Armani, Hugo Boss, Brioni or Tom Ford (commonly $800-$5,000, very nice quality possible in $1,000), in a standardised size.

In men's suits, I'd say that the equivalents of GURPS 'Good' quality armour, i.e. fitted to the wearer, but not the best possible fit, was a high-quality off-the-rack suit with alterations or a made-to-measure suit. The equivalent to Expert Tailoring would be, well, a bespoke suit from a good tailor. The equivalent to Masterful Tailoring would be the better craftsmen at leading Saville Row and equivalent tailors, with several personal fittings and choosing all the more expensive options for a perfect fit (materials are a separate issue). I'd call representative prices $1,500, $3,000 and $6,000-10,000, but suspect that any $10,000+ also includes a hefty surcharge for fashion trends, where famous people shop, etc., not just the quality of tailoring.

So, in GURPS terms, the Styling x5 and x20 prices are in the right range, but for anything you wear, they should probably be able to include Expert Tailoring and Masterful Tailoring at the higher ranges of Styling.

So it seems at least plausible to me that Expert Tailoring and Masterful Tailoring would be less expensive at TL8 than TL4, as long as you are applying the CFs to the price of armour or suit where some degree of personalised fit is assumed, i.e. Good quality, and not using mass-produced examples that would be Cheap in terms of fit as the basis.

*Any higher and you are probably also paying for more decorations with more expensive materials (gold, ivory, etc.) than ever go into a reasonable off-the-rack suit, no matter who made it.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Icelander

The only thing is, I feel that perhaps with exact measurements being easily available and computer-assisted design, precision tools and all the other improvements in manufacturing between TL4 and TL8, it might be possible to duplicate the benefits of Expert Tailoring, Fluting and Masterful Tailoring for a slightly lower mark-up than +5 CF, +4 CF and +29 CF.
... There are just so many helpful technological innovations at TL8 that enable the 'merely' highly skilled and educated professionals at working metals to do the kind of precision work that could only be done with breathtaking individual genius using traditional craftsmanship.

I don't have time to work back through this thread before the weekend, but if you want to get a sense of the 'high-precision tools' which the best modern armourers use, read Price's Techniques of Medieval Armour Reproduction and check out the Armour Archive discussion forum. The Pole who made my harness started from TOMAR. There are also some good armouring channels on YouTube.

Robert Macpherson, one of the best American armourers, is convinced that the only reason he and his European colleagues still have business is that the Indian armourers don't find it worth their while to make accurate reproductions and higher-quality armour. As far as he can tell, they make things faster with simpler tools than anyone he knows can make them with expensive tools. Hobby armourers with the right jobs or contacts keep trying fancy tools, but so far they have not changed the basic economics.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

The only thing is, I feel that perhaps with exact measurements being easily available and computer-assisted design, precision tools and all the other improvements in manufacturing between TL4 and TL8, it might be possible to duplicate the benefits of Expert Tailoring, Fluting and Masterful Tailoring for a slightly lower mark-up than +5 CF, +4 CF and +29 CF.

Possibly, although you may just be moving the costs around. For example, if you design your fluted shapes using CAD, the way to make them more easily is probably to print mandrels and templates to guide your forging work. You need a large metal-sintering 3D printer for that, which is quite expensive, but it seems to be being assumed in the setup already.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Possibly, although you may just be moving the costs around. For example, if you design your fluted shapes using CAD, the way to make them more easily is probably to print mandrels and templates to guide your forging work. You need a large metal-sintering 3D printer for that, which is quite expensive, but it seems to be being assumed in the setup already.

Yeah, absolutely.

I don't have a problem with the reality that designing and making something so extremely custom as a one-of-a-kind plate harness that uses advanced materials to make superior TL4 armour effectively costing $1,000,000+, anywhere up to $2,500,000, really.

I guess I'm wondering how to price suits of armour made from various steel alloys, probably softer and easier to work than the ultimate armour will be, that are made using the $500,000 of specialised workshop tools, the multi-million vehicle facility. I assume that the team will make a lot of armours to test various machines and methods, see whether some alloys work or not and similar things. They can't all spend all their time just making one perfect suit of armour, the road to making it must have been filled with time not strictly speaking spent on constructing that one armour, but on developing the methods to do so.

Also, some of the bodyguards, lieutenants and sicarios will be looking to acquire armour, especially if they can get superior quality at lower effective prices than ordering it custom made from workshops over the Internet. As long as it doesn't cause the search for his perfect armour to suffer, Vargas wouldn't mind the armourers and technicians involved making some extra money by turning out cheaper and less ornate designs of armour. But the way I see it, as they are using CAD to build the ultimate armour, they might as well use similar methods with their cheaper armour, if not quite Masterful Tailoring level.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I'd especially like to reduce the cost of Masterful Tailoring, as I don't believe that you would need the same level of extreme mastery of the armourer's craft to be able to produce perfectly fitting armour at TL8 as TL4. There are just so many helpful technological innovations at TL8 that enable the 'merely' highly skilled and educated professionals at working metals to do the kind of precision work that could only be done with breathtaking individual genius using traditional craftsmanship.

Would anyone object if I made Expert Tailoring +3 CF, Fluting +2 CF and Masterful Tailoring +14 CF when performed using TL8 technology?

Those are approximate halvings of the modifier value.

Or does anyone feel that the value should be changed from Low-Tech when performing these with higher TL technology, but the change should be greater or lesser? By all means, propose what Cost Factors you would use and explain the reasoning.

And to be more helpful ... check your copy of the records of the LT playtest mailing list, but as far as I know, those price modifiers are based on gameist considerations and "how much do similar things in other books cost." I am not sure whether Masterful Tailoring was meant to be realistic, or meant to be a way of allowing characters with too much money to spend it ... GURPS does not have many tools to represent how much happier a really well-fitted armour makes you.

Given the scarcity of really good armourers today, and the sheer number of new things which are being tried at the same time (especially if they have to find a way to shape the arms and legs out of unforgeable hard alloys!) I would think that hoping for Expert Tailoring is generous.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I assume that the team will make a lot of armours to test various machines and methods, see whether some alloys work or not and similar things. They can't all spend all their time just making one perfect suit of armour, the road to making it must have been filled with time not strictly speaking spent on constructing that one armour, but on developing the methods to do so.

... But the way I see it, as they are using CAD to build the ultimate armour, they might as well use similar methods with their cheaper armour, if not quite Masterful Tailoring level.

This is a problem with all non-trivial engineering projects. How do you share out the R&D and tooling costs across the production items? The usual way is to estimate how many you can sell, and divide it among them.

If you aren't making them for a free market, which is quite common in military equipment, then the division of costs becomes a question of what you can get away with. One of the ways of doing that is called "spiral development," which is a lot more practical with suits of armour than with warships.

The actual incremental cost of manufacturing a suit isn't huge. So you work like this:

1. From all the ideas you have, pick a set that you want to try out together.
2. Acquire the tools you need for that, and learn how to use them.
3. Build some example components, and test them.
4. Look at what worked best, and try some variations.
5. Once the components are as good as you can make them with current tools, build full suits and test them.
6. Give Vargas the best suit you have, and sell the ones that seem worthwhile to other people.
7. If you have more ideas you want to try (you've probably generated some more), go back to step 1.
8. You've reached the best method you've invented so far, so build Vargas an "ultimate" suit.
9. Problems will emerge. Go back to step 1.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

And to be more helpful ... check your copy of the records of the LT playtest mailing list, but as far as I know, those price modifiers are based on gameist considerations and "how much do similar things in other books cost." I am not sure whether Masterful Tailoring was meant to be realistic, or meant to be a way of allowing characters with too much money to spend it ... GURPS does not have many tools to represent how much happier a really well-fitted armour makes you.

True, I guess. But I don't really have a problem with armour varying in weight for basically the same protective value, depending on whether it fits precisely and makes extremely effcient use of materials, or is made at some baseline average fit and design, the optimal compromise at TL1 to TL4 between ease of construction and perfect design.

I just think that TL8 would allow the design and fit part to be a lot easier than at TL4, when measuring with precision, calculating the exact thickness and strength and a lot of other factors is possible in a way that it really wasn't earlier.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Given the scarcity of really good armourers today, and the sheer number of new things which are being tried at the same time (especially if they have to find a way to shape the arms and legs out of unforgeable hard alloys!) I would think that hoping for Expert Tailoring is generous.

That's fair, but note that a lot of the 'lesser' armours will be made out of softer steel alloys, meant to develop and refine their techniques in working the metal.

And after making CAD blueprints, they'll make a prototype armour suit from some sort of synhetic material (probably 3D printed plastic), then from steels where complex machining and shaping is already a thoroughly understood science and only as the ultimate step will they make armour out of steel alloys that you wouldn't usually work with in anything of a shape that complex.

I don't necessarily think that you should be able to get any kind of full suit of plate armour cheaper than the ca $4,500 the design system spits out for a 60 lbs. plate armour that has Styling x5 applied to it. I actually like that as a base price.

I just think that the Styling x5 and x20 modifiers shouldn't be fully cumulative with the Expert Tailoring, Fluting and Masterful Tailoring ones, so that you end up with armour using Fluting costing a minimum of $22,500 (while being 54 lbs. instead of 60 lbs. for the same protective value) and the very best armour costing almost half a million dollars, despite being made out of ordinary steel, but simply very well made and nice looking (and weighing 36 lbs. for the same protection).

That's not a new kind of armour, mind you, it would be an adaptation of the design of the best historical armours, made from about average steel, not Cheap, but not any kind of very high hardness steel alloy either (equal to RHA in protective value).

I'd rather have Styling take Cost Factors that are additive with other options. Probably just the basic GURPS ones of +1 CF for +1 / +4 CF for +2 / +9 CF for +3; all modifiers applying to Reactions with connoisseurs and aficionades. I like to add a +19 CF for +4 Reactions level, as wel. And then use the rules on LT p. 38-39 (adjusted for TL, maybe) for decorations, etchings and suchlike.

I might add +1 CF (coat of plates, presumably very easy to adapt plates made with modern methods to it) to +4 CF (articulated plate, really demands finding ways to replicate the handmade craftsmanship) just as a surcharge to adjust for the design system assuming mass produced armour and making armour that looks like handcrafted historical armour at TL8 requires you to use methods that approximate methods used at lower TLs.

This produces about $4,500 as a minimum price for full plate made at TL8, about $5,400 for armour that looks nicer but works the same (+1 Reactions) and about $12,600 for a plate harness which is Expertly Tailored (weighs only 85% of the cheaper armour, for the same protection) and looks really nice (+2 Reactions).

Then the very finest armour at any TL could have Fluting +4 CF, Masterful Tailoring +29 CF and Styling +19 CF; if we are making it at TL8 (where base prices for steel and other metals is much lower), we add +4 CF for making it look like historical armour, for a total of x47 to Cost or about $42,300 at TL8 (if made out of steel alloys about matching historical ones), which seems fairly right, if not, perhaps, quite expensive enough. One might add decorations to that to push price upwards and any kind of harder steel would push price up by a lot.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Icelander

True, I guess. But I don't really have a problem with armour varying in weight for basically the same protective value, depending on whether it fits precisely and makes extremely effcient use of materials, or is made at some baseline average fit and design, the optimal compromise at TL1 to TL4 between ease of construction and perfect design.

I just think that TL8 would allow the design and fit part to be a lot easier than at TL4, when measuring with precision, calculating the exact thickness and strength and a lot of other factors is possible in a way that it really wasn't earlier.

Well, your "suit" analogy is a perfectly fine way to pick an arbitrary price in G$. But I would say that trimming 30% off the weight of a well-designed armour is pretty impressive.

Originally Posted by Icelander

I don't necessarily think that you should be able to get any kind of full suit of plate armour cheaper than the ca $4,500 the design system spits out for a 60 lbs. plate armour that has Styling x5 applied to it. I actually like that as a base price.

I just think that the Styling x5 and x20 modifiers shouldn't be fully cumulative with the Expert Tailoring, Fluting and Masterful Tailoring ones, so that you end up with armour using Fluting costing a minimum of $22,500 (while being 54 lbs. instead of 60 lbs. for the same protective value) and the very best armour costing almost half a million dollars, despite being made out of ordinary steel, but simply very well made and nice looking (and weighing 36 lbs. for the same protection).

I don't know CEAD very well, but LT p. 14 treats Styling as a Cost Factor like fluting. Using that to represent the difference between prices in G$ and prices in 2018 USD, rather than multiplying the base price by a conversion factor, sounds fine.

You can look at Royal Oak Armoury's site to get a sense of how much modern armourers charge for things like Gothic gauntlets vs. hourglass gauntlets, or hardening their spring steel.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

This is a problem with all non-trivial engineering projects. How do you share out the R&D and tooling costs across the production items? The usual way is to estimate how many you can sell, and divide it among them.

I've basically just assumed that the R&D and tooling are paid separately, leaving the rest of the budget for paying for the manufacturing and materials. That means that the before we charge the cost (actually opportunity cost) for a single armour that they make at the hacienda, we're $1,700,000 in the hole.

That would be $500,000 for various contracts, custom-made armour ordered from armourers around the world and contracted R&D before 2015, which mainly taught them what wouldn't work, ca $500,000 it costs to put up the hacienda workshop and the $700,000 in salaries; one year's pay and upkeep for Caló Renteria [$250,000] (he's been with Vargas maybe five or six years, but the armour project is just part-time for him), two years for the Texan machinist-fabricator [$300,000] (he's been with Vargas more than four years, but not all on this project) and 18 months for Vyacheslav [$150,000].

The machines for the flash bainite process (let's assume they spent at least $1,000,000) and the Mini-Manufacturing Workshop ($1,000,000+; HT p. 29; equivalent to the US Army Mobile Parts Hospital) are actually part of the light armoured vehicle workshop, so they don't come out of Vargas' hobby budget.

This means that for the last 18-24 months, Vargas has been spending up to $800,000 on material costs and expenses other than salaries for the base three members of the team. Actually, I think it might make sense to assume the participation of someone expert in Metallurgy, so let's assume that $200,000 of this has been spent on everything to do with that specialist knowledge, up to and including identifying and educating some bright young technician that Caló Renteria plucked from the ranks of his assistants at his main job with the vehicle fleet.

Another $100,000 will go toward buying custom-designed soft body armour underlayers and other outfits from Miguel Caballero, likely through a convoluted path involving a crooked private security company.

I'm thinking that the $500,000 left over buys a lot of raw materials and workshop running expenses over the more than a year before the start of play that they'll have their more-or-less final version of the armour workshop up and running, have gotten everything they need for the manufacturing process and finally have the full project team, all in one location together. It would be during the later months of 2015 and the entire year of 2016 that I'd expect them to start making armour at any serious rate, after the previous 4+ years were mostly trial-and-error and then increasingly focused R&D and design work.

The raw material costs and the workshop running expenses over this last stage of the project should be a fairly modest part of the final budget, even if they end up making a couple of dozen suits of varying hardness. Especially as before you use the flash bainite process, they start out with fairly ordinary steel alloys, not prohibitively expensive stuff like titanium alloys. Though I expect they experimented with that, too.

It's basically those $500,000 with which I'll be 'paying' for the various armours designed in the Pyramid #3/85 'CEAD'. Well, those Vargas wants himself and those which he means to give as gifts. The rest of the armours will be bought by lieutenants, sicarios and others who participate in the Caballero Templarios twisted reenactment play slash attempted murder while wearing full armour.

Vargas is already paying for the full labour cost, so he'll 'pay' only about half the calculated price of each armour, in various outlays which include raw materials, running costs and any unforseen expenses.

Others are paying the materials cost, plus enough to basically induce the people making their armour to work overtime, during the periods when Vargas doesn't expect them to be working directly on his armour. So, basically, full price as calculated with 'CEAD'. Or that's what I plan to use to compare their options with what it would cost them to order such armour from an armourer over the Internet.

Originally Posted by johndallman

If you aren't making them for a free market, which is quite common in military equipment, then the division of costs becomes a question of what you can get away with. One of the ways of doing that is called "spiral development," which is a lot more practical with suits of armour than with warships.

The actual incremental cost of manufacturing a suit isn't huge. So you work like this:

1. From all the ideas you have, pick a set that you want to try out together.
2. Acquire the tools you need for that, and learn how to use them.
3. Build some example components, and test them.
4. Look at what worked best, and try some variations.
5. Once the components are as good as you can make them with current tools, build full suits and test them.
6. Give Vargas the best suit you have, and sell the ones that seem worthwhile to other people.
7. If you have more ideas you want to try (you've probably generated some more), go back to step 1.
8. You've reached the best method you've invented so far, so build Vargas an "ultimate" suit.
9. Problems will emerge. Go back to step 1.

Yeah, that is about what I figured, except that I don't expect that you can sell suits that were rejected for Vargas to anyone else without performing extensive work re-sizing them. Not because there's nobody else even close to about 6'3" and 250 lbs., but because all their armour would fit fairly exactly to the dimensions of the person it was tailored to, as any kind of articulated plate harness has to do. I imagined they'd sell sicarios suits of armour they made for practice or to test a machine or process they were wondering would work for Vargas' armour, but weren't sure enough to make a suit for him yet.

Make armour in a size for someone who wants one, perform tests on it, destruction testing if necessary, and then make another, identical one to sell it to the guy you used for the measurements if he still wants one. Hell, sometimes they'll even be able to salvage the tested armour and sell it at a discount.

I expect that the manufacturing method they use will involve something like making precise measurements of the intended wearers, making casts of various body parts to aid them in 3D printing a plastic full-size prototype armour, to be adjusted as necessary after being worn during exercises, and then using a large 3D Model Scanner (HT p. 29). on the adjusted final plastic product to make CAD project files they'll use for the metal armour.

Of course, this will be the approach that the designers with a mechanical engineering and machinist-fabrication background will default to. Vyacheslav will start out using more traditional methods and only change over if something is clearly superior to using just slightly better versions of armourers' tools or he absolutely cannot work some alloy without computer-controlled manufacturing machines many times more powerful than even the strongest powered hand tools.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Well, your "suit" analogy is a perfectly fine way to pick an arbitrary price in G$. But I would say that trimming 30% off the weight of a well-designed armour is pretty impressive.

Well, what's the lowest weight that you would accept for the absolute finest, perfect fit, no wasted materials, field plate harness (without helmet, gauntlets, sabatons or any padding/underlayer), that covers most of the body with 1-1.5 mm thick armour, the fauld and pauldrons slightly thicker, has an armour of proof breastplate of around 5-7 mm and the rest of the cuirass somewhere around 3 mm thick?

These thicknesses will vary somewhat over the covered areas, but these are fair averages, and the thickness I'd be using to calculate DR.

Applying the full modifiers to the product of the 'CEAD' yields something about 40 lbs. Is that implausibly light for such armour, taking into account that the Fluting and Masterful Tailoring options assume that maximum use of made of shaping the armour to deflect likely threats, to strengthen the areas most likely to be hit at the cost of areas less likely to be exposed, etc.?

If you can't imagine such a harness being any lighter than 50 lbs. without helmet, then Masterful Tailoring gives too much of a weight reduction and Expert Tailoring ought to be the limit.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I don't know CEAD very well, but LT p. 14 treats Styling as a Cost Factor like fluting. Using that to represent the difference between prices in G$ and prices in 2018 USD, rather than multiplying the base price by a conversion factor, sounds fine.

Yep, I'm talking about Styling as a Cost Factor instead of a multiplier. As long as I do that, I don't actually want to reduce the Cost Factors of any other armour modifiers.

I do want to add a Cost Factor that does not actually give a Reaction bonus, but is instead just a basic buy-in to make the output of the 'CEAD' look like reenactor armour, instead of being clearly shaped like plates turned out with Machinist and secured to the underlayer with some method more friendly to modern mass manufacturing (i.e. more like this).

That will be from +1 CF for the types of medieval-esque armour that is probably easiest to fake using Machinist and Sewing (coat of plates or the like) to +4 CF for the most basic kinds of replica articulated plate (the kind that gives no Reaction bonus, but looks fairly authentic, if basic).

Originally Posted by Polydamas

You can look at Royal Oak Armoury's site to get a sense of how much modern armourers charge for things like Gothic gauntlets vs. hourglass gauntlets, or hardening their spring steel.

Yeah, the difference of $1,500 and $1,950 sounds like additive Cost Factors for all the extra pricing options are the way to go, as otherwise the price difference would be more like x5.