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

[seycyrus]

A few comments.

A small team created to work with the manufacture and production of exotic steels or other metals would likely consist of a few PhD Material Engineers with that specialization, a couple of technicians (BS level perhaps higher), and a machinist(decades of experience) or two.

Engineers verify microstructures and measure physical properties. They also propose new methods and solutions to the problems and difficulties that will be encountered.

Technicians run the mills, rollers, heaters and presses etc.

Machinists cut, bend and punch materials.

There can be overlap on these jobs depending on what stage the process is in.

Everyone knows Solidworks or the equivalent except for the cranky, old machinist who still uses Autocad because of reasons...


Additive Manufacturing isn't there yet. Porosity and density remain major issues, with the result that the very best parts produced on a small scale only having ~70-80% of the desired physical properties of materials conventionally produced. This is for "common" metals with "common" geometries.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

If he is from Michoacán, can he have attended the satellite facility in Morelia, without doing violence to your concept? That is, will the regional satellite facility have a full engineering program or would he have had to move to Mexico City for that?

I have no idea, but you could plausibly switch him to having studied at Instituto Tecnológico de Morelia.

Also, just if you happen to know, might one of the US car companies have had staff at the port in Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacán?

There are a lot of car assembly plants in Mexico, and they export to southeast Asia and South America through that port, so any of them are possible.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

I think the latter is the best idea as he can't risk being left high and dry by a more standard commercial relationship. And knowing that might drive him to act in a manner that will actually increase the likelihood of that happening! If nothing else while Vargas might not be interested in the commercial detailshere, he might well be interstetin the ability to express his largesse to other organisations by being able to bestow special gifts using this material.

Sure, I guess.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

TBH I'd say the armoury (vehicle) and (body armour) could easily separate from the steel production facility. And actually keeping it all separate might not be a bad idea for security reasons as well!

That way you have one site with the process going on spitting out pieces to the specs sent to them by a 2nd site where the body armour is produced, and 3rd site where the vehicle work is done.

Could you do that without inconvenience, though?

I mean, when the design team is trying to figure out whether something would work, don't they have to run up test pieces? And don't the people developing armour specs have to be intimately familiar with the machines used to harden the final product, so they'll avoid design solutions that are prohibitively difficult to manufacture/finish with the set-up you have?

A distributed logistics and supply chain with just-in-time delivery may be very efficient for the mass production of established designs, but I can't imagine it's very convenient for what amounts to new design work and the building of a series of prototypes, in seach of one perfect custom armour.

Even the vehicular armour plates, at first, would be a new design, albeit a much simpler one, only trying to replicate the features of a known commercial product with a cheaper and easier manufacturing process.

And they'd want the flexibility of being able to add other products than flat or gently curved plates, I imagine, as it would be extremely nice if they could flash bainite treat armour for what would otherwise be weak spots in trucks armoured with commercial plates of AR500 or other similar steels.

So the workshop is probably going to be a place of experimentation and discovery for months, if not years, not simply running an easily repeatable process all day.

They won't be building all that much volume, though. Practically speaking, 50-200 armoured trucks over the entire year would be as much as they could possible use without a major expansion of their sicario force.

And the limiting factor there is the quality of recruits available, as Vargas has no desire to directly employ amateurs as his personal soldiers, at least without seeing some spark of future genius (or extraordinary ruthlessness) in them. He will accept fealty from underbosses with such employees, sure, but then he wouldn't expect to equip them himself.

They could easily sell or trade the Sinaloa cartel at least an order of magnitude more armoured trucks than they have any use for personally, and Vargas could certainly make it more attractive to accept him as overlord by providing some equipment to his satellite gangs and crews.

On the other hand, unless the GM thinks that having Vargas' splinter Caballero Templarios be a significant part of the logistical machine of the Sinaloa allegiance cartels would add something to the game or his planned adventure, that sort of volume would be something for a hypothetical future, not the current state of affairs.

I mean, Vargas, his Disadvantages aside, is trained as an 18C (Special Forces Engineer Sergeant) and then later, as an Assistant Operations and Intelligence Sergeant (18F). Vargas also spent several years as a Special Forces Warrant Officer (180A), which means he literally had a job where he was expected to be able to set up a guerilla force, train them, equip them, organise the building of a base around a village or two, plan a campaign and execute it.

So it's certainly not beyond the realm of possibility that Vargas' specialist skill set would allow him to set up an organisation around paramilitary supply that made him crucial to the Sinaloa cartel in ways beyond just direct action and unconventional warfare missions. It's just his personality that would make him less likely to want to focus his own time on something like this, though he might perform exceptionally well for a short period of time at finding qualified people and ordering them around to organise the nucleus.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Icelander

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).

Yes, these events attract people who want to spend lots of money, travel around the world and break some heads in front of a cheering crowd. Back in 2013, a fellow called Robert Downey with experience in SCA combat wrote up his experiences at Battle of the Nations 2012:

Perhaps a few stories will get across the accepted level of risk I am talking about.

It is the first day. Due to not being able to talk any of the languages, the whole USA team had been standing in armor, in the sun, for three hours. My heart rate had been steady at round 150 bpm for at least one of those hours. I had completely lost the ability to shed heat. We wound up being the sixth fight of the day. We had seen three guys get carried off on backboards already, and shuttled off into the three ambulances they had on rotation. The fight just before ours finished, and they moved one of the ambulances to the entrances of the list. The fourth guy they pulled off wasn’t moving…. At all… They were rushing to shove him in the ambulance so they could get it out of the way for us to take the field. You know those gladiator movies, where they plunge the hook into the dead guy to pull him off the arena? Yeah, that’s what it felt like.

I will never forget the look that passed between Brad and Myself. The reality of it slammed home to all of us. They closed the ambulance doors on the unmoving man at arms, and it was our turn.

In Felix’s first one on one fight, He was fighting a Dane. Felix was doing really well. The fight ended when Felix cut the end of the Dane’s finger off. Later that day, The Dane proudly gave Felix the fingernail from his severed finger as a Martial souvenir, and promised to send him Video of the surgery.

One of the Belarusians, (I think) had his finger cut off. It was hanging on by a flap of skin and the tendon. They did not want to take him in to the hospital for such a minor injury, as they needed it for the “actual” injuries. They set the bone, and sewed it up there in site.

There was blood everywhere. At one point, I looked down on my buckler and it was smeared with blood from God know’s who or what. It became very commonplace for my companions to wash the insides of their helmets to get the blood out, so they could be ready for the next bout.

My dear friend Rudy had his moment in “deep waters”, as three men tried to beat him to his knees. He passed his test, and won the respect of every man at arms there at the cost of a broken shoulder blade, and the muscles literally torn from the bone.

A friend I trust has seen videos of an event in eastern Europe where they built a village and set it on fire to fight in. Someone in the post-Soviet world with a lot of money seems to be handling the promotion-and-advertising end of HMB, and there are rumours that one or two deaths have been covered up.

Originally Posted by Icelander

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.

Spend a while looking at Allen A-200 or the Wallace A 292 like you were a sharp sword trying to get in between the cuisse and the wing of the poleyn, and then at the Armstreet Kingmaker. Probably someone with a background in Flipino martial arts or Dog Brothers could figure that one out.

I know a few tough guys who play these sports, but not well enough to get a sense of how many know about the problems with their kit. On one hand these sicarios would be used to planning to kill everyone they see, but on the other hand their instincts come from modern combat, prison shankings, and leg breakings where big cojones are worth more than fancy kit. I would expect that some of the older smarter ones have figured out some of the problems with each other's armour and filed them away for later use, but most of them are probably busy murdering people, taking meth, and fornicating.

Some of the lower-end armourers in eastern Europe are really good at bling.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I have no idea, but you could plausibly switch him to having studied at Instituto Tecnológico de Morelia.

Excellent!

Originally Posted by johndallman

There are a lot of car assembly plants in Mexico, and they export to southeast Asia and South America through that port, so any of them are possible.

In 2007-2008, the Chinese car company First Automative Works (FAW) decided to build a 100,000 man factory in Michoacán (in a town just outside of Morelia, but obviously meant to take advantage of the port in Lazaro Cardenas, as well as also offering access to Veracruz). However, the automotive industry crisis altered the situation and the plan was eventually abandoned in mid-2009.

Their Mexican partners were already importing cars and had established a network of car dealerships, which meant having to service the several thousand cars they had sold. Fairly massive investments had already been made and I don't consider it implausible that a senior Mexican engineer or ten could have been hired to set up the factory and everything related to that.

If Carlos (do you want to give him the rest of his name, as his intellectual father, or should I?) could have been recruited from his former employer in late 2007, early 2008, by either Grupa Salinas, Elektra or directly by the Chinese at FAW, he would have been out of a job a year or two later, when FAW decided not to build the plant. Due to the industry crisis, Carlos would have found that he could not get a job with his old firm or any other comparable job with a car factory in Mexico.

And the Caballero Templarios cartel's predecessors in Michoacán could have been intimately involved in the abortive FAW plant, as at this time, La Familia Michoacána was in a similar relationship with many unions as the Mafia in the most stereotypical mafia movie.

They also controlled a lot of the mining industry in Michoacán* and sold the iron ore to China, bought a lot of Chinese products for their many legal and illegal businesses and had a piece of almost every local industry, as diverse as lime growing, logging or modern manufacturing. According to research, 85% of legitimate businesses were involved in some way with La Familia Michoacána in the years until the Caballero Templarios mostly replaced them in 2010-2011.

Not to mention their drug business, both unlicensed prescription medicines and crystal meth, cocaine, marijhuana, heroin and others. And their near-total capture of local government in many places, where it was simply impossible to run any kind of business without licenses and cooperation of the local cartel appointment in government.

So, it makes excellent sense for Carlos (not yet further named) to have started his involvement in Mexico's Drug War by being recruited to the Caballero Templarios in 2011 or so (allowing for time where he searched for legitimate employment, found unsatisfatory work, etc.).

The initial recruiter would have been someone he knew from his previous place of employment, the local cartel contact with legitimate businesses, an altogether smoother operator than Vargas. But when he went with Vargas after the fragmentation of the larger cartel, Carlos would have followed. Not that he'd have been given a choice, if he was valuable.

*44% of Mexico's entire iron industry was estimated to be controlled by their more-or-less heirs, the Caballero Templarios, a couple of years later.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

If Carlos (do you want to give him the rest of his name, as his intellectual father, or should I?)

Go ahead - you're much more up to speed in these names than I am.

... could have been recruited from his former employer in late 2007, early 2008, by either Grupa Salinas, Elektra or directly by the Chinese at FAW, he would have been out of a job a year or two later, when FAW decided not to build the plant. Due to the industry crisis, Carlos would have found that he could not get a job with his old firm or any other comparable job with a car factory in Mexico. . .

This all fits together nicely. So, Carlos is the vehicle expert, and was at one time the boss of the armour team, although they may have got out from under by now.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Yes, these events attract people who want to spend lots of money, travel around the world and break some heads in front of a cheering crowd. Back in 2013, a fellow called Robert Downey with experience in SCA combat wrote up his experiences at Battle of the Nations 2012:

Sadly for Vargas, travelling the world would probably be risky. He's wanted in the US and while fake papers could be obtained, he probably suspects some alphabet soup agencies of looking for him using facial recognition software, gait matching and other techniques.

He's been staying hidden and on the move in Mexico, protected by powerful cartels as a leader of enforcers, until he became an independent operator and eventually settled down on frontier territory ceded to him by Sinaloa. And this might turn out to be a bad idea, as we don't know what JTF Onyx Rain will decide to do if he rejects their 'generous' offer of conditional ammesty.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

A friend I trust has seen videos of an event in eastern Europe where they built a village and set it on fire to fight in. Someone in the post-Soviet world with a lot of money seems to be handling the promotion-and-advertising end of HMB, and there are rumours that one or two deaths have been covered up.

Excellent.

Of course, I expect that when Vargas and his Knight Templars put on the unlicensed, Mexican, non-union equivalent of such games, there may be less pageantry and even less safety; but they could probably put on more pyrotechnics, provide significantly more cocaine, methamphetamine, champagne, tequila and other party favours to participants, not to mention covering up a significantly higher number of deaths... accidental or otherwise.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Spend a while looking at Allen A-200 or the Wallace A 292 like you were a sharp sword trying to get in between the cuisse and the wing of the poleyn, and then at the Armstreet Kingmaker. Probably someone with a background in Flipino martial arts or Dog Brothers could figure that one out.

Yeah, I expect that such chinks in armour will be a pretty standard feature of imported suits costing $2,000-$5,000. Only very expensive custom archaic-style suits, made to order for the more senior personnel, will avoid it. That's why they'll wear a kevlar-reinforced underlayer, to protect from hits to gaps or chinks in armour.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I know a few tough guys who play these sports, but not well enough to get a sense of how many know about the problems with their kit. On one hand these sicarios would be used to planning to kill everyone they see, but on the other hand their instincts come from modern combat, prison shankings, and leg breakings where big cojones are worth more than fancy kit.

In the real world, the organisations these enforcers come from have made it mandatory since about 2005-2006 for prospective sicarios to go through a full-time paramilitary training camp of 12-24 weeks, depending on the period, operational pressures and the intended speciality of the recruit. The training camps are run by former Mexican Special Forces and other veterans of North, Central and South American militaries.

So all of them would have what amounts to basic military training, for a period which is almost comparable to typical soldiers in many militaries. A US infantryman will usually have 14-27 weeks of combined BCT and AIT, for example, unless he has a very specific and technical MOS.

The full-time sicarios for the La Famila Michoacán and then later Caballero Templarios will have had longer training than an infantryman (11B) in the US Army for the past decade, at least, though the training will be in slightly different subjects, probably less professional and disciplined and certainly with less access to advanced military hardware for training purposes (though small arms and maybe a coupe of hundred rounds per recruit a week would be provided).

Not to mention that Vargas has always subjected his men to stricter standards, having enough authority for the past six or seven years to ensure that all of his sicarios have a full six month course of basic training, with better trainers than the norm and more ordnance to play with. And being a part of his personal force means continual professional development, with a 20 hours of week commitment to ongoing training.

So, I'm using sicario to refer to the full-time soldiers of the cartel, not just someone who sees himself as a criminal, carries a weapon and makes his money from some aspect of the drug trade. It's a fairly senior position, above any individual personally involved in retail drug dealing, street-level territorial disputes, the regular intimidation and beatings involved in extortion or even guarding most of the less important stashes, warehouses, labs or cover businesses.

Gang members, thugs or security guards for the cartels may aspire to become sicarios (or soldiers, if you prefer that term), but usually only those who have committed murders for their bosses and impressed them with their skill or ruthlessness are considered. And they still have to pass a selection process and then make it through the tough training camp. Caballero Templarios selection in the real world, at a period before Vargas became an independent warlord, used to involve multiple murders and mutilations, the butchery of the bodies and cooking them. The witness would not admit in court whether he ate of the food.

Only those who could murder, butcher and cook several people without hesitation or visible emotion passed the selection. Failures were sometimes killed as examples to others, to encourage future prospects to exercise better slef-control, but most were just returned to their previous duties as guards, extorters or members of gangs doing the bidding of the cartel.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I would expect that some of the older smarter ones have figured out some of the problems with each other's armour and filed them away for later use, but most of them are probably busy murdering people, taking meth, and fornicating.

Yeah, even if the actual killing takes fairly little time, the preparation and clean-up can really be murder. And there are those ca 20 hours of weeks of training they have to do, in TL8 urban guerilla and direct action small unit tactics.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Some of the lower-end armourers in eastern Europe are really good at bling.

Any suggestions for websites other than Armstreet?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by seycyrus

A few comments.

A small team created to work with the manufacture and production of exotic steels or other metals would likely consist of a few PhD Material Engineers with that specialization, a couple of technicians (BS level perhaps higher), and a machinist(decades of experience) or two.

Ok, if we don't actually want to develop any new materials, just work with some that are a bit less common than what most machinists tend to use, in an application that is exotic (i.e. making archaic-looking body armour that can equal the functionality of good modern ones)?

Vargas' team of developers are trying to use commercially known steel alloys and/or a treatment for hardening steel (flash bainite) to make a suit of full plate, probably backed with ballistic fabric and possibly strengthened with modern ballistic composites where it won't show, that looks awesome and provides protection against rifle rounds at least equal to military body armour.

I'm sure that a material enginner, material scientist or a metallurist would be useful in the design process. Would one be necessary, however?

What is it about running a workshop that machines high quality steel parts for plate armour, somehow attaches them together and uses machinery developed by others to harden the steel alloys, that a mechanical engineer cannot do?

In GURPS terms, what skills, specialities and familiarities that a mechanical engineer won't have are required?

As was discussed earlier, an ideal design team would also have someone who really understands historical body armour, probably an armourer who makes armour for re-enactors. A really good machinist-fabricator would also be a necessity.

One or more of the three should also be good at research (Computer Operation, Research (vital)) and that person or one of the other should be good at making professional contacts and communicating their requirements clearly to subcontractors (some of Administration (vital), Area Knowledge, Merchant (vital) or Writing), without either making anyone too suspicious or giving away information that could harm their boss (Acting, Diplomacy or Fast-Talk).

What other skill sets are absolutely necessary?

Originally Posted by seycyrus

Engineers verify microstructures and measure physical properties. They also propose new methods and solutions to the problems and difficulties that will be encountered.

Technicians run the mills, rollers, heaters and presses etc.

What is the educational background of someone you'd rate as a 'technician'? Work experience where?

Where would you find one?

Originally Posted by seycyrus

Additive Manufacturing isn't there yet. Porosity and density remain major issues, with the result that the very best parts produced on a small scale only having ~70-80% of the desired physical properties of materials conventionally produced. This is for "common" metals with "common" geometries.

Ok, so a titanium alloy made using additive manufacturing will actually be only slightly more useful as armour, by weight, than regular RHA steel?

Which means that additive manufacturing will be useful, at most, in something like making a thin inner layer of metal attached to all the pieces of stronger alloys made seperately, making a neat one-piece breastplate out of multiple smaller pieces made out of really strong materials.

Unless there is some other, better way to attach them to each other, in which case additive manufacturing will have no applications in this project.

Out of interest, what would be the ballpark price for a 3D printer or equivalent which could 'print' steel and titanium alloys, large enough to make a breastplate?

Tens of thousands of dollars (bought as a plaything, even if it ultimately didn't prove useful for the final product), hundreds of thousands of dollars (probably not bought unless it has very clear utility for something they are doing) or millions (not bought, at all)?

[seycyrus]

I will do my best to answer the earlier question in a later response. Note, I do not pretend to know how to equate the skillsets I see, into Gurps terms.

Originally Posted by Icelander

...
Ok, so a titanium alloy made using additive manufacturing will actually be only slightly more useful as armour, by weight, than regular RHA steel?

When I said "small scale", I did not mean in terms of production quantity. I am referring to the size of the parts produced. They have problems making quality pieces much larger than those needed for tension and compression testing. We are talking about pieces on the order of inches.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Which means that additive manufacturing will be useful, at most, in something like making a thin inner layer of metal attached to all the pieces of stronger alloys made seperately, making a neat one-piece breastplate out of multiple smaller pieces made out of really strong materials.

I'm afraid not. The joining of AM manufactured components to other materials remains one of the larger challenges.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Unless there is some other, better way to attach them to each other, in which case additive manufacturing will have no applications in this project.

My comment on AM was meant to convey the "no applications in this project" attitude.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Out of interest, what would be the ballpark price for a 3D printer or equivalent which could 'print' steel and titanium alloys, large enough to make a breastplate?

Tens of thousands of dollars (bought as a plaything, even if it ultimately didn't prove useful for the final product), hundreds of thousands of dollars (probably not bought unless it has very clear utility for something they are doing) or millions (not bought, at all)?

There are no commercial units available which could produce ballistic grade armor. If there was a breakthrough in the future, the cost would be more on the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Go ahead - you're much more up to speed in these names than I am.

Padre: "What name do you give your child?"
Papa Renteria: "Carlos Felipe Renteria Lemus."
Padre: "What do you ask of God's Church for Carlos Felipe Renteria Lemus?"
Mama Renteria (née Lemus): "Baptism."

His mother may address him with full name when he misbehaved and someone particularly devout may use his saint's name along with his first name, calling him 'Carlos Felipe', but it would be unusual to refer to him in any secular setting as something longer than 'Carlos Renteria' (First name + Surname), except on the most official of paperwork.

His friends have called him 'Caló' so long it's no longer an ironic nickname, just the name he is used to.

Originally Posted by johndallman

This all fits together nicely. So, Carlos is the vehicle expert, and was at one time the boss of the armour team, although they may have got out from under by now.

I expect Caló Renteria is still head of all automotive repair, detailing and enhancements, though this is a managerial position involving the ultimate responsibility for at least twelve smaller garages (mostly legitimate), several chop shops, several remote truck yards with refueling and maintainence capabilities, a couple of vehicular arsenals, one or more mobile workshops that do battle damage repairs and their main armoured truck / APC construction area, which he'll need to move periodically.

Not to mention having responsibility for maintaining their fleet of vehicles, which will be 200+ at any one time and there will be rapid turn-over, as leaving them behind, selling them off or having them be destroyed or compromised will be all too common.

He'll have subordinates that actually do most of the work, of course. They have a fleet manager ('Dio' Melchor), who used to do the same for a fair-sized logistics company, and they have a chief mechanic (Lizandro Acosta) who used to run a regional Policia Federal maintainence yard.

Still, Caló Renteria is the one who sets up the production facilities, analyses performance, improves workflow, does quality assurance and, when necessary, can run design, research and development work.

I imagine that who is in charge of 'Project Black Knight' will be determined by who Vargas likes best; Caló Renteria, the hypothetical armourer from the Ukraine or the machinist-fabricator from Texas.

One aspect of this is who he believes understands his requirements best, has the most passion for the project and is most congenial to Vargas' personality. Another, however, would be which of the three seems best at assimilating data from outside their original fields and thus the best person to have a complete picture. Also, he'll put someone assertive in charge, leaving anyone with a more retiring personality, even if that is clearly the smartest person involved, to provide advice rather than direct.

It's entirely possible for Caló Renteria to be an important figure in Caballero Templarios cartel operations, but not actually put in charge of the workshop at Vargas' home, but instead expected to provide all his expertise to be utilised and directed by a Ukrainian blacksmith/reenactor with no formal degree, whose passion for the project made him the new project manager when he took up residence.

Since the project would be small, compared to the operations of the CT cartel as a whole, it might be that the three people combining their talents could nevertheless find ways to work well together despite the odd 'command structure'. After all, if the Ukrainian armourer is smart and really wants the project to move forward*, he'll just 'assign' the parts of the project having to do with administration to Caló, without trying to tell him how to do them.

*Part of his pay is getting to make his own armour with all the nice machinery, tools and materials he assembles for the project, as long as they don't look as ornate as the one Vargas eventually gets.