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

[Icelander]

I'm a fan of the 'Cutting-Edge Armor Design' in Pyramid #3/85. I'm still trying to get a grip on using it, however.

Has anyone used the system to stat out armour they can find information about in the real world?

If anyone has any write-ups of actual real-world armour, I'd really love it if you could post it in the thread, along with as much explanation for why you chose certain GURPS game-mechanical representations over others as you can be bothered with.

To take an example, what would a full 'Cutting-Edge Armor Design' look like for something like the SCA-legal Armstreet 'The Kingmaker'?

What about Re-Enactment Supplies 'Full Gothic Harness Without Legs'?

From Swords of Might, 'Ancient Armoury Wearable Knights Full Suit of Armor'?

Icefalcon Armoury 'Late 14th Century/ Early 15th Stainless with 301 Spring Stainless Harness'?

Can we get the GURPS stats to match observed performance, Cost* and Weight?

Going a little more modern, how would we stat a full suit (well, back, breast and sides of torso) of AR500 Armor Lightweight Level III+ Body Armor, as well as whatever plate carrier is necessary for it?

What about when worn with soft body armour, like AR500 Armor Hybrid IIIA?

Forumites who don't feel like doing my campaign prep work for me or who are not prepared to use the 'Cutting-Edge Armor Design' system for other reasons, are still invited to comment. I'd welcome thoughts on the real-world performance of SCA armour, for example, wisdom from those with experience of having such armour made or just general commentary vaguely related to the subject of detailed armour in the modern world.

TL8 SCA/Ren Faire Ballistic 'Black Knight' Harness

Finally, would anyone like to take a stab at making a suit of armour which looks sort of like a 'Black Knight' esque SCA or Renaissance Faire armour, but which incorporates soft ballistic weave armour instead of linen or canvas padding, where possible, and makes use of ballistic steel plates (at least for the upper torso, but elsewhere if practical)?

Bonus points if anyone can find links to manufacturers that might actually build the armour and/or deliver ballistic steel plates that can easily be incorporated into an SCA-legal suit by replacing the cuirass.

Weight should be in line with historical field harnesses, let's say something like 30-50 lbs. Designs weighing up to 80 lbs. may be considered if they are genuinely protective, over much of the important parts of the body, against standard mil-spec, surplus or common commercial 5.56x45mm and 7.62x39mm ammunition.

Let's shoot for a $3,000 or less design, making use of as much stuff as we can buy from Chinese companies**. Rifle protection on the upper chest and back and as widely as practical. At least decent knife protection over most of the body, pistol proof for the torso would be nice. The base design can use brigandine construction if that is much more convenient and/or cheaper.

It would be good to have a bulletproof helmet, if possible, but I doubt anyone is making thick sheets of ballistically proofed steel that has been manufactured in the shape of medieval-esque helmets.... I'm willing to be proved wrong, though. People often surprise you, wanting all sorts of crazy products.

A $5,000+ 'Black Knight' design and a $10,000+ 'Lord of Darkness' designs would not be out of line, either, if somebody finds that he's inspired to equip TL8 knights for his own campaign.*** The 'Lord of Darkness' suit may weigh anywhere up to 100 lbs., with up to 125 lbs. being suboptimal, but not impossible, if it adds significant capabilities.

I'll work up my own versions eventually, if no one proves willing to do the work for me, but I'd really appreciate some discussion that helped me benchmark the stats in 'Cutting-Edge Armor Design' against real products, real materials and real cost for both commercially available and custom-made protective wear in the years 2010-2018.

For inspirations for the looks, I'd say that Conquistador breastplates and morion helmets might be most appropriate, but the buyers won't be historians and will want actual movie-looking 'Knightly' gear, if possible. So, maybe Spanish reconquista armour for the authentic look (though I somehow doubt mail will fit their mental image well enough), 14th and 15th century Spanish brigandine, full-plate harnesses from Toledo or the ever-popular Gothic plate for the more expensive harness or possibly just a fantastical look.

Basically, what would crazy cultists/cartel gunmen from Mexico and Central America, who represent an extra-crazy splinter faction of the 'Caballero templarios' (Knight Templar Cartel), with an inner circle of 'Knights', think was cool armour?

Again, forumites who don't feel like actually submitting full stats are still encouraged to share their thoughts, concerns, questions or other comments.

Anyone with speculation on how plausible it is to have ballistic steel incorporated somehow into commercially available or custom-made re-enactor armour would be especially welcome. If my proposed prices are way off, that would be good to know, for example. And any suggestions as to how the cartel psychos could most plausibly have suits of armour for special occasions are appreciated. If there is no way they could get this in any plausible way and might, at most, be wearing modern ballistic vests with steel chest plates as well with plastic replicas of pauldrons and morion helmets instead, well, that would be valid input.

Edit: I'm currently considering flash bainite steel as the leading contender for the armour. This post summarises the facts I was able to find about its performance in GURPS terms. The website of Flash® Bainite, the company which invinted and marketed their particular process.

I realise that BHN 500-600 steel alloys, no matter how they are produced, will be almost impossible to shape into the contours necessary to armour the human body with a cool-looking plate harness. And welding FBA (Flash Bainite Armor) leaves weak areas at the joint. But you don't have to go for hardness that extreme to get better ballistic protection than TL4 proof breastplates, which demonstratably got DR 10+. So, does anyone have thoughts on the practicalities of using flash bainite to make black knight plate harness, in a private workshop, with an R&D, salary, materials and dedicated tools budget of ca $2,500,000?

With access to all the facilities of a custom car detailing facility with full machining and fabrication capability of a US Army Mobile Parts Hospital and, machinery from Flash® Bainite to perform their process. Note, this equipment is there for other reasons and doesn't come out of the budget.

*I'm fine with Cost being off by a slight amount, especially if Decorated, Luxury Pricing or Stylish Cost Factors (CFs) being included in the final price sounds plausible.
**With whom our hypothetical armour-desiring antagonists had cosy relationships, buying military and security products with forged end-user products, so buying ballistic armour plates from China should not run into legal issues. Of course, it would help to find manufacturers for the rest of the harness in China too, not only because it keeps costs down, but because it allows the buyers to use their shady contacts to avoid inconvenient trouble with regulations that ban the sale of ballistic armour to felons in some jurisdictions.
***I don't know, you could be playing 'GURPS Gotham' or something.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Going a little more modern, how would we stat a full suit (well, back, breast and sides of torso) of AR500 Armor Lightweight Level III+ Body Armor, as well as whatever plate carrier is necessary for it?

The 10x12" plate weighs 5.5 lbs and protects against .308 rounds, but not 5.56 AP rounds, so call it DR 23. Simple math puts 1 sqft of the stuff at DR 23 weighing 6.6 lbs.

Armor weight is SA x WM x CW x DR. CW of a solid plate is 1, weight is 6.6 lbs, DR is 23, and SA is 1 sqft. A little algebra and the WM of the stuff is 0.286 - call it 0.3 for simplicity. That's better than TL7 titanium alloy or TL8 ultra-strength steel, but not as good as TL8 titanium or polymer composite.

You can do similar math to get the CM, which works out to $20 - which is probably too low. I'm going to arbitrarily double it to account for the difference between a GURPS TL8 $ and 2017 USD.

It's DR 23, and 0.21" thick, so it has DR 109/in. Max DR on a human is 27 for a 1/4" plate.

You can do the same math for the 10x14", soft body plate but I'd just treat it as improved kevlar.

So all that works out to:

Polyurea coated lightweight steel armor: WM 0.3, CM $40, DR/in 109, Max DR 27, Notes -, Construction R/S.

A suit of the polyurea coated lightweight steel plate, worn over a suit of the AR500 Hybrid ballistic weave:
Steel armor: LSA 21.35, WM 0.3, CM $40, CW 0.8, CC 5, DR 24: 123 lbs, $24600
Ballistic weave: LSA 21.35, WM 0.08, CM $120, CW 1, CC 1, DR 10: 17 lbs, $2050.

Since armor weight and cost is linear with DR, we can drop the steel armor to DR 8, reducing the weight to 41 lbs, the cost to $8200, and count on the ballistic weave to catch stragglers. The combination is just over 1/4" thick, weighs 58 lbs, costs $10250, and will stop 5.56mm rounds and significantly slow down .308 rounds.

Unfortunately, you're already breaking the Lord of Darkness cost point. Let me come back on optimizing this stuff - I have some ideas.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

The 10x12" plate weighs 5.5 lbs and protects against .308 rounds, but not 5.56 AP rounds, so call it DR 23. Simple math puts 1 sqft of the stuff at DR 23 weighing 6.6 lbs.

By NIJ standards, Level III armour needs to be DR 25 to be actually rated to stop 7.62x51mm NATO from full-length barrels. Average damage is 24.5, after all.

Level III+ is not a recognised NIJ standard, but it is used by many manufacturers. Assuming that the tests were performed correctly, the highest damage round mentioned puts it at DR 29-30, by GURPS standards, stopping 7.62x51mm AP rounds (not APHC, and old-school AP puts it at 7d(2)*0.6 = 24.5(2)*0.6 = 49*0.6 = 29.4).

Note that some AR500 armours were recalled for failing to meet advertised standards, but the currently sold versions allegedly meet these standards, as they just had to go through independent testing. That said, I wouldn't mind DRs that were 1-2 points lower than they ought to be, on account of this being cheap and dirty ballistic armour from a disreputable manufacturer.

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Armor weight is SA x WM x CW x DR. CW of a solid plate is 1, weight is 6.6 lbs, DR is 23, and SA is 1 sqft. A little algebra and the WM of the stuff is 0.286 - call it 0.3 for simplicity. That's better than TL7 titanium alloy or TL8 ultra-strength steel, but not as good as TL8 titanium or polymer composite.

You can do similar math to get the CM, which works out to $20 - which is probably too low. I'm going to arbitrarily double it to account for the difference between a GURPS TL8 $ and 2017 USD.

It's DR 23, and 0.21" thick, so it has DR 109/in. Max DR on a human is 27 for a 1/4" plate.

I'm pretty sure that with a hardness of BHN 460-544, this abrasion resistant 'AR500' steel is not going to be easily shaped into anything other than Solid plates or, at most, very gently curving ones.

For the purposes of the design system, it looks like most of the commercially available AR500 steel armour is effectively Trauma Plates, which are usually Solid, i.e. Ceramics (which can only be Solid).

I actually don't know if there are steel alloys with DR this high available today which can be manufactured as articulated plate armour, as opposed to just plate inserts of high DR ballistic protection that you use to protect the most important 40% to 60% of your Torso hit location (using up to four plates, front chest, back and two sides).

On the other hand, I found real examples of 3/8" thick trauma plates made from this steel, so it looks like the 1/4" limit does not necessarily hold true for Solid plates, as opposed to articulated-armour Plate construction. I think ceramic trauma plates can be more than 1/4" too, so it has precedent.

Note that some adventurer useful gear costs the same or is even cheaper than when GURPS 4e was published. As such, I use a generic scale of GURPS $ = real-world $, but prices for individual goods may change.

I haven't made up my mind whether or not body armour prices generated by the 'Cutting-Edge Armor Design' match any particular year. In any case, let's not use any modifier to Cost unless we find that there is a need to apply them generically to all materials or specifically to types of materials we have discovered to have changed in price from the reference prices used in GURPS.

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Polyurea coated lightweight steel armor: WM 0.3, CM $40, DR/in 109, Max DR 27, Notes -, Construction R/S.

We've got price information on Solid trauma plates made from this material. Slightly less than 1 square foot with DR 23-30, depending on the validity of the testing, seems to cost $100-$200, depending on specifics.

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

A suit of the polyurea coated lightweight steel plate, worn over a suit of the AR500 Hybrid ballistic weave:
Steel armor: LSA 21.35, WM 0.3, CM $40, CW 0.8, CC 5, DR 24: 123 lbs, $24600
Ballistic weave: LSA 21.35, WM 0.08, CM $120, CW 1, CC 1, DR 10: 17 lbs, $2050.

Are you aware of any real world full-body suits made of Kevlar, aramid weaves or similar materials?

Would not wearing the same thickness as about Level II or Level IIA concealable vests over the entire body, limbs, joints and everything, not cause some flexibility issues? To say nothing of heat issues?

I'm prepared to apply such if appropriate.

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Since armor weight and cost is linear with DR, we can drop the steel armor to DR 8, reducing the weight to 41 lbs, the cost to $8200, and count on the ballistic weave to catch stragglers. The combination is just over 1/4" thick, weighs 58 lbs, costs $10250, and will stop 5.56mm rounds and significantly slow down .308 rounds.

Unfortunately, you're already breaking the Lord of Darkness cost point. Let me come back on optimizing this stuff - I have some ideas.

Jay-zus!

Do you believe that you could get this built in the real world for anything close to this price point? Are there even companies which would make a full-body ballistic suit, as opposed to protecting the important parts, as almost every commercial product I can find does?

I had imagined that most of the limbs, as well parts of the lower abdomen and maybe basically anything which needs to be shaped to the body, as opposed to utilising a gently curved Solid trauma plate, would be made from traditional steel, by some company marketing to re-enactors, because the extremely high DR hardened steel would be too hard to work into any kind of actual armour shape.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Icelander

We've got price information on Solid trauma plates made from this material. Slightly less than 1 square foot with DR 23-30, depending on the validity of the testing, seems to cost $100-$200, depending on specifics.

Right. DR 25 for 5.5 lbs at $110 for a solid plate works out to a CM of $20.

Cost = Weight x CM x CC.
CM = Cost / (Weight x CC). CC is 1 for solid, so $110/5.5 = $20.

Weight = SA x WM x CW x DR.
WM = Weight / (SA x CW x DR). CW is 1 for solid, and a 10x12" is 5/6 sqft, so 5.5 / (5/6 * 25) goes to 6 * 5.5 / 5 / 25 goes to 6.6 / 25 or 0.264. I'd originally calculated from DR 23 and got something closer to 0.3.

As far as working metals with absurdly high Brinell numbers, I assume you would work the metal while it's a lot softer and then case-harden the final form. You can (and people traditionally did) case-harden fire arm components, because you want to do the precision machining on low carbon alloys but have high carbon alloys for wear resistance in the final gun. If you can case-harden a revolver frame, you can case-harden a breastplate (though I am not a metallurgist and have only the vaguest idea of how you would do it).

I also suspect that armor like this is one of those things that is really expensive to buy one-off, but only moderately expensive to buy in lots of 100+. What your cartel would want to do is make a prototype or three out of low carbon steel, come up with a fake movie production company or similar cover story, and then have the cover company solicit bids for 100+ copies of the suit made from the proper materials. The companies who already have equipment to make metal in weird shapes and at high hardness levels will get back to you with a hopefully cost-effective solution.

Of course, if you can't afford 100 suits, you may be in a situation where can't afford to buy 10 suits, either, because you have to hand-make each one at great expense.

[Anthony]

The other alternative is to just add cosmetics to bog-standard ballistic plates.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The other alternative is to just add cosmetics to bog-standard ballistic plates.

Well, my original thought is effectively 'soft ballistic armour + high hardened steel sold as cheaper alternatives to ceramic ballistic plates', with SCA-legal steel armour being added to that, as, yes, more of less cosmetic accessories, with a 'gorget', pauldrons and limb armour in, say, 16 gauge steel that was fairly easy to work giving DR 3-5, depending on exact steel and the skill of the smith.

For example, this set comes in stainless steel or mild, cold-rolled steel. I'd give it either DR 4 or DR 5, depending on whether I felt it was better or worse than RHA. Having been modelled on historical armour might let it rate DR 5, for appropriately protective shape.

Maybe add some more soft steel plates in a brigantine cuirass that has the actual hardened steel as a centerpiece, to get the right look, give knife protection and prevent injury when meth-crazy 'Knights' inevitably start sword fighting at their 'business meetings'. Total cost, around $3,000, depending on how expensive it is to get something that looks like a gambeson made out of kevlar (and possibly some cloth covering).

This kind of get-up would be kind of a minimal bar in looking knightly for those who wanted to play at being inner circle, around the crazy leader and his most cultist followers.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Right. DR 25 for 5.5 lbs at $110 for a solid plate works out to a CM of $20.

Cost = Weight x CM x CC.
CM = Cost / (Weight x CC). CC is 1 for solid, so $110/5.5 = $20.

Weight = SA x WM x CW x DR.
WM = Weight / (SA x CW x DR). CW is 1 for solid, and a 10x12" is 5/6 sqft, so 5.5 / (5/6 * 25) goes to 6 * 5.5 / 5 / 25 goes to 6.6 / 25 or 0.264. I'd originally calculated from DR 23 and got something closer to 0.3.

Apparently, Ultra-Strength Steel in Pyramid is meant to represent materials that are genuinely cutting-edge in vehicle armour applications.

Unless I can confirm that the cheaper very high hardness Abrasion Resistant steels are equivalent in protective value against all threats as vehicle armours made from triple-hardened steels or nano-metric/nano-crystaline steels, I'd be loath to give equivalent or better stats to AR500.

We know the DR against piercing damage, but isn't it possible that such very high hardness steels are actually more protective against typical fast-moving, light penetrators made from, generally, softer materials, than they are against some other types of damage?

In other words, maybe a 5.5 lbs., almost 1 square feet, NIJ Level III certified plate of AR500 should have DR 25 against piercing (and possibly cutting), but only modestly better DR than an equivalent thickness and/or weight of TL6 'Hard Steel' would have against other threats.

I mean, should it resist collisions (cr), cutting torches (burn), HEAT (cr ex) or explosively-formed penetrators (imp) any better than the kind of steel used for TL7 and TL8 APC or tank armour?

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

As far as working metals with absurdly high Brinell numbers, I assume you would work the metal while it's a lot softer and then case-harden the final form. You can (and people traditionally did) case-harden fire arm components, because you want to do the precision machining on low carbon alloys but have high carbon alloys for wear resistance in the final gun. If you can case-harden a revolver frame, you can case-harden a breastplate (though I am not a metallurgist and have only the vaguest idea of how you would do it).

As I understand it, making hardened alloys of high-carbon steel, chrome-moly and manganese is something only very specialised suppliers do.

Machinists, smiths, speciality stores or custom workshops buy high hardness Abrasion Resistant steels, they don't make the alloys themselves. And it looks like you can only buy AR500 in sheets, targets, trauma plates, i.e. what 'Cutting-Edge Armor Design' calls Solid.

Maybe you can get some other kind of very hard steel made in specific shapes, but I suspect it would be very expensive to do so for a few suits of armour. Maybe if you were looking to buy enough of each part to make a line of wear-resistant power tools or Caterpillar attachments.

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

I also suspect that armor like this is one of those things that is really expensive to buy one-off, but only moderately expensive to buy in lots of 100+. What your cartel would want to do is make a prototype or three out of low carbon steel, come up with a fake movie production company or similar cover story, and then have the cover company solicit bids for 100+ copies of the suit made from the proper materials. The companies who already have equipment to make metal in weird shapes and at high hardness levels will get back to you with a hopefully cost-effective solution.

I think you are right here.

Which is why I think that only Raul Vargas, the undisputed leader of this surviving subgroup of the Knight Templar Cartel, has any chance to have a custom-made plate harness out of a steel hard and tough enough to have meaningful ballistic resistance.

The rest should find other methods of sort of looking like Knights, while being protected at least as well as if they were wearing tactical vests with trauma plates.

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Of course, if you can't afford 100 suits, you may be in a situation where can't afford to buy 10 suits, either, because you have to hand-make each one at great expense.

Well, there aren't 100 trusted inner circle lieutenants, bodyguards or leaders of soldiers, anyway, in this splinter faction of the original cartel.

There's probably about a dozen men close enough to the leader and crazy enough to buy into his 'Knight Templar' propaganda to the extent that they attend banquets wearing faux-medieval armour. Say about twice that who'll pay it lip service and attend wearing more-or-less medieval movie-setting appropriate clothing, but not functional armour.

And maybe thirty or forty loco gunmen who mix this sort of Ren Faire aesthetic with their norteño or narcocultura aesthetic in the hope of currying favour with the Jefe (or because they are crazy and have been with the Knight Templars for five years, which for some of them might have been since they were ten years old, so some of them probably swallow the entire 'Knights' bit whole).

Drug baron Raul Vargas is not going to finance full plate armour for all these men. He needs his money! For operating costs, for bribery and gifts to important people in allied Drug-Trade Organisations (DTOs) to increase his power, for investments in a huge real estate development that he hopes is going to make him a legitimate billionaire one day, etc. Not to mention absolutely ridiculous amounts of cocaine, methamphetamine, top-shelf booze and other luxury goods for personal use.

Vargas might be willing to pay for cool knight armour for his bodyguards and those of his lieutenants who take the 'Knight Templars' bit seriously, but that's always going to be less than twenty suits. But he is absolutely going to have a personal full plate harness that incorporates as much actual ballistic protection as possible, because while he is crazy, he is crazy like a fox. He likes stuff that skirts the line of 'Awesome but Impractical', but is actually somewhat effective, if much more expensive than a less cool way to do it.

[mlangsdorf]

Poking at this some more:

I wanted to link in a nice HTML table of the material cost and weight per point of DR by armor type, but the HTML isn't working. So linking here:
http://westmarchsaga.wikia.com/wiki/GURPS_CEAD

The key take-away is that for up to DR 11, polymer composite scale is 60% lighter than steel plate but only 10% more expensive: 0.24 lbs and $7.7 per DR per sqft, versus 0.4 lbs and $7 per DR per sqft.

So if you don't mind going for more of a Japanese samurai aesthetic than European knight, you can make your own armor out of resin-bonded kevlar scales. Mythbusters showed this is tedious but not hugely difficult*: buy sheets of resin-bonded kevlar, cut them into scales, drill holes into them, string them together with kevlar yarn. Assuming you can cut through 1/2" sheets of resin-bonded kevlar with a band saw (I think this is a safe assumption; we cut through steel pipe with a band saw in high school 20 years ago), this entire operation can be done with a high school machine shop.

Anyway, a DR 5 poly composite scale suit is roughly 26 lbs, $830. Plenty of cash and weight left over for a kevlar undersuit, which could be as simple as the best commercial vest you can buy and some home made leggings and sleeves.

As far as working thick sheets of kevlar goes, I don't think it requires radically specialized equipment. Powerful sheers and a sewing machine with a long needle and a lot of torque driving it through the fabric should do the job. There are a lot of companies that make kevlar vests, after all, and I don't think that they're buying crazy exotic equipment that only the US DoD sells. Find one that's going out of business and buy up their gear.

* The episode on paper armor which basically did the above process but with paper.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I'm pretty sure that with a hardness of BHN 460-544, this abrasion resistant 'AR500' steel is not going to be easily shaped into anything other than Solid plates or, at most, very gently curving ones.

You form the steel while it's red hot, and thus somewhat soft, and then cool it (hopefully in the correct way, otherwise it'll give much less protection than you expect).

I actually don't know if there are steel alloys with DR this high available today which can be manufactured as articulated plate armour, as opposed to just plate inserts of high DR ballistic protection that you use to protect the most important 40% to 60% of your Torso hit location (using up to four plates, front chest, back and two sides).

If you're willing to go to the rouble of serious heat-treating there almost certainly are, but forming then treating it will be damned expensive.

[mlangsdorf]

Ballistic black knight harness, take 2:
DR 20 polyurea coated light steel armor solid skullcap: 1.4 sqft, WM 0.3, CM 40, CW 1, CC 1, DR 20: 8.4 lbs, $340
DR 5 transparent laminated polycarbonate eyeslits: 0.1 sqft, WM 0.25, CM 50, CW 0.8, CC 5, DR 5: 0.1 lbs, $25
DR 6 hard steel plate neck and face: 1.3 sqft, WM 0.5, CM 3.5, CW 0.8, CC 5, DR 6: 3.15 lbs, $55
DR 20 polyurea coated light steel armor plate over the vitals: 1 sqft, WM 0.3, CM 40, CW 0.8, CC 5, DR 20: 4.8 lbs, $960.
DR 12F/6B hard steel plate torso other than vitals: 6 sqft, WM 0.5, CM 3.5, CW 0.8, CC 5, DR 9 (average for calculating cost/weight): 21.6 lbs, $380
DR 8F/4B hard steel plate arms, legs: 10.5 sqft, WM 0.5, CM 3.5, CW 0.8, CC 5, DR 6 (average for calculating cost/weight): 28.35 lbs, $500
DR 4 hard steel plate hands, feets: 1.4 sqft, WM 0.5, CM 3.5, CW 0.8, CC 5, DR 4: 2.25 lbs, $40
DR6 improved kevlar undersuit: 21.35 sqft, WM 0.08, CM 120, CW 1, CC 1, DR 6: 10.25 lbs, $1230

Total is 78.9 lbs, $3530. A little over weight and budget, but the protection is good. The important parts are completely resistant to 7.62mm rounds and the arms and legs are nearly resistant to 5.56mm rounds from the front. You can stand in a fire for 45 seconds without worrying about burning or heat. The biggest weak point is the eye slits at DR 5.

against bullets and axes (-4 DR against other damage types)
DR 26 over the skull and vitals, DR 21 over the rest of the front torso, DR 15 over the face and neck, DR 14 over the arms and legs from the front, DR 10 for the hands and feet and back of the limbs, DR 12 for the back torso.

An obvious way to save weight would be to replace the steel on the limbs with aluminum, but at 3.5x the cost of hard steel, it wasn't feasible for the $3000 budget. Dropping the limb armor down to DR4, front and back, would also save about 10 lbs and DR 10 is sufficient to stop 9mm bullets.

At the upper level of protection, titanium composite is 40% the weight of hard steel but 30x as expensive. Using titanium composite for the limbs would drop the weigh by 17 lbs, but would raise the cost by over $14000, so it's not really feasible.