02-17-2018, 08:58 PM | #191 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: [Cutting-Edge Armor Design] Real World SCA-legal Armour and Ballistics Armour
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02-18-2018, 02:43 AM | #192 | |||
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: [Cutting-Edge Armor Design] Real World SCA-legal Armour and Ballistics Armour
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Under LT, if we give Plate + Heavy 1 on the Arms (50%) + Legs (100%) + Hands (10%) + Feet (10%: total 170%) they have DR 4+1 before modifying for metal quality and weigh 20.4 lbs before tailoring. If we give Plate + Heavy 6 on the Head 30% + Neck 5% + Torso 100% (total 135%) they have DR 9+1 before modifying for metal quality, and weigh 43.2 lbs before tailoring. If he borrowed some ideas from 16th century armour, he could add separate reinforcing plates to the Chest Front, Skull Front, and maybe whichever shoulder is most exposed in tactical combat using the Grand-Guard rule on LT p. 109. Reinforcements for the Chest Front were used in real 16th century field armour: apparently having two spaced layers helped against balls propelled by black powder. I would am for a total weight of no more than 80 lbs before multiplying for tailoring and for his kingly physique, but I don't have time to fiddle around and look for mechanical 'sweet spots' especially since those depend on what you assume the DR per inch is. And of course, all the pierced and filed decorations, gilt brass or solid silver rivets and mount points for tactical gear or a pimpin' plume, polishing bright as a mirror or bluing as dark as Vargas' soul, linings of blood-red velvet or hand-tanned and stamped leather, and etchings/engravings count towards Styling. Wrapping the straps in velvet and giving them gilt or silver ends can look nice. At rich-country prices, I would guestimate around 100k USD. At Ukranian wages, maybe 20-50k USD. Of course the prices of one-off special orders by rich patrons are hard to predict! And the extra thickness might well drive up the price, but not by an order of magnitude. I would probably make the bevor (throat) one of the ones of lames which collapse over one another, so Vargas can lower it for tactical combat, when shouting orders and getting his cheek and his rifle together are important, but raise it for fighting with swords. Vargas might be able to get Fine Mail for the gaps if his people ordered it early enough and understood that they need to pay more than the list price to make it worth the worker's time, or bought some original pieces and chopped them up. There are only a handful of people making mail like that who have studied how the original pieces were tailored, and their customers can't afford a fair price for the hours involved. Otherwise, modern riveted mail would usually count as Light Mail, often with -1 DR or -1 DX if it comes straight from India/Pakistan. I never played with welded 'shark mail/butcher's mail' to see how it performs. Quote:
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Making really good plate armour, the kind that makes you feel like a god, requires a weird mix of aesthetic sensibility and hard-headed practical engineering and craftsmanship, and a rapport with the client. With his contacts, Vargas might have some original Frazetta paintings still in Saddam's gilt frames around the hacienda, across from the shelf of first edition hentai rebound in that special leather that the maids don't like to touch. If Vargas has been emailing and Skyping with Ukraine, there are almost certainly copies somewhere within the American intelligence apparatus, but whether Onyx Rain has access would be up to the GM. You could have something where they know those files exist, but another agency has locked them for a drugs or human trafficking investigation and does not want to admit that it is just armour pron not a SINISTER FOREIGN THREAT. There are a couple of comments on fitting armour for special clients, and the relationship between armourers and clients, in PBS "Resurrecting Richard III' http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/resu...-episode/1934/ and some things about what a high-end reproduction project is like on the Nova "Secrets of the Shining Knight" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient...ng-knight.html Chris Gilman's "Talents I have Seen" could also be helpful https://diligentdwarves.blogspot.co....obert-mac.html Now off to make things with my hands, or hike in the fresh air.
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"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature Last edited by Polydamas; 02-18-2018 at 02:55 AM. Reason: Added one more link |
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02-18-2018, 06:51 AM | #193 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Expert Tailoring, Fluting and Masterful Tailoring at TL8
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But that gets us into how few stories portray blow-by-blow fights where armour works, and GURPS does not have mechanics to represent all the ways that being pounded on is not fun other than damage. So like some other areas of GURPS, it could do with a redesign from the ground up, but that would affect other parts of the system and require a team of experts to volunteer a silly number of hours. You and Dan and Doug and David Pulver sometimes do that but I am too busy.
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"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature |
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02-18-2018, 08:22 AM | #194 | |||||||||||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Cutting-Edge Armor Design] Real World SCA-legal Armour and Ballistics Armour
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What might be other reenaction periods and local styles of fairly full coverage armour that might be popular in the Ukraine and suitable for armoured combat? Quote:
There seem to be more of them around these last years than I remember noticing a decade or two ago, especially among the kind of young, rootless, economically unsuccessful, discontented and troubled men of Eastern European origin that I sometimes meet at work. Mostly they hate Muslims, not Jews, but otherwise, pretty much classic Nazi party line, search and replace 'Germany' with their home country. Vyacheslav probably isn't prone to active ethnic hatred and I imagine his hobbies and passion have made him more broad-minded than not, as he'd have found true lovers of craftsmanship and reenaction among people from all over. He still might hold some reflexive prejudice for ethnic groups he has little personal experience with and maybe use some less than acceptable (to the mainstream cultural arbiters in the modern Western world) language, from his upbringing and/or his sources of news, but I see him as good-natured enough to quickly ignore such views in practice if he meets a kindred spirit. Quote:
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Cute girl in the steamgirl.com getup. Which is unfortunately a really expensive subscription-based service, as otherwise it seems like it would be useful for NPC or PC 'casting' photos for games set in various different settings or time periods. Apropos of nothing (beyond noticing that Ugo Serrando is originally from Quito, Ecuador), my cousin in New York is marrying an Ecuadoran girl. Civil ceremony now, but they might have a 'proper' wedding next year, either in Quito or somewhere in Peru where her mother's people are from. Would be interesting to go. Quote:
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I think that 'handler' duties for El Jefe are not official, but are unavoidably shared between several senior lieutenants. Probably the head of security and counterintelligence, a polished Colombian with a professional intelligence background (can't look up his name now without losing text, is the most accomplished in the relevant skills, but no doubt men Vargas likes and trust more have greater success. Edit: Conflated two characters; there is actually one polished Colombian named Miguel Angel Zamora (de la Cruz), ‘El Diestro’ (“The Skilful”), who reached the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in Colombian Army, commanding a battalion of counterinsurgency troops in Cali and used to be an officer in AFEUR, and another foreign expert who is the head of counterintelligence, Gabriel Inocencio Mora (Olancho), ‘El Calificador’ (“The Qualifier” [Inquisitor who judges heresy]). Mora is from Honduras and used to be a military intelligence officer and later served in the Honduran Dirección Nacional de la Policía Preventiva, which is their organised crime division. In terms of military staff work, Mora is functionally the J-2 (Intelligence) for the CT cartel, but has less influence than he would wish, as Vargas finds him boringly cautious and has no personal rapport with him. Zamora is the J-3 (Operations and Plans) for their paramilitary operations, as well as serving as the effective second-in-command and the person Vargas worries most about having ambitions to eventually suceed him. Sargento Primero Guillermo Machado, the 'J-7' (Military Education and Training), in charge of the training camps and ongoing professional development in small unit tactics and direct action, is probably Vargas' most trusted subordinate, largely because he lacks all ambition to be more than the most senior NCO type. Quote:
And it's not as if Vargas' household sicarios are all calm, disciplined professionals. Most are, to be sure, because the former military trainers and unit leaders Vargas employs still believe in professionalism, but among his favourites there are definitely some talented killers with decidedly less regimented backgrounds. These might escalate an argument with Bad Temper on both sides to a knife in vital organ a lot faster than anyone who didn't grow up in a street gang or a mountain clan with generations of desperado ancestors might appreciate. If Vyacheslav had Bad Temper, he'd probably be either dead or involved in a deadly vendetta already. And his armoured sparring with sicarios would lead to resentments and bruised egos more than amusement, a measure of respect, mutual tolerance for eccentricities on both sides and some camraderie. I think I'd like to avoid Bad Temper, have him be generally accepted among the sicarios, even if considered a bit odd. Vyacheslav might instead have a quirk related to being passionate about his work and working out frustration by beating steel, either in the forge or while sparring with live steel. Quote:
Edit: I looked it up and Obsession doesn't include a Reaction penalty by default, but adding one to it using Delusion or Odious Personal Habit is indeed suggested. Quote:
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Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela! Last edited by Icelander; 02-18-2018 at 10:54 AM. |
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02-18-2018, 10:12 AM | #195 | ||||||||||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Cutting-Edge Armor Design] Real World SCA-legal Armour and Ballistics Armour
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The classic masterpiece from 2013 should be lighter, as I imagine that without personal experience, no one would believe that Vargas actually has inhuman ST for his weight and can actually wear 120+ lbs. of armour as easily as a strong and fit normal man can wear 60 lbs. Quote:
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And what about a visor that can be raised and lowered? What thickness can you make that? As thick as the rest of the helmet or inevitably thinner/less protective? Quote:
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02-18-2018, 10:16 AM | #196 | ||||||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Cutting-Edge Armor Design] Real World SCA-legal Armour and Ballistics Armour
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Vargas is reliably reported to be somewhere in his Juarez Valley territory, but he presumably keeps it a closely guarded secret where he is at any given time. He's bound to control several nice properties in addition to the hacienda where Vyacheslav lives (because the workshop is there) and his chief of counterintelligence is a talented professional, so it ought to be fairly difficult to establish from records and intercepts alone where exactly, within that fairly large area, Vargas has his homes, safehouses and important facilities. Informants and rumours probably give several 'probable' locations, but not his day-by-day schedule or any practical way to contact Vargas directly, without having to go trough layers of his organisation. Quote:
Two PCs are subject matter experts on Mexican/Latin American DTOs in general and Vargas' Caballero Templarios cartel, one a senior field agent in the ICE/HSI and one an analyst and technical intelligence specialist in the CBP. Both work in El Paso, with (newly minted) Special Agent Danny O'Toole, lately of the CBP Office of Intelligence and Investigative Liaison, specifically assigned to the Vargas desk at EPIC, with access to everything the DEA, CBP, ICE and, in theory, at least, every other US law enforcement agency, has on him. The military provides intelligence support for anti-drug operations at El Paso too, in the form of a Joint Task force with law enforcement there. Special Agent Ilana Rubio (the PC from ICE/HSI) used to work there when she was a young HUMINT specialist in the US Army and she still has good contacts there (and with the DEA, her first federal agency after the Army). Of course, the players suspect, probably accurately, that there are other factions within the US government than Onyx Rain and that some of these, most probably a conspiracy within the DoD and/or the CIA might know a lot more about Project Jade Serenity, Dr. Edward Vanderbert and Raul Vargas than they are officially admitting, let alone sharing intelligence on. But while the conspirators probably have their own ways of keeping tabs on persons of interest, they probably wouldn't have the power to block law enforcement agencies with a legitimate open investigation from access to communication intercepts from suspects that originate from computer programs and analysts at agencies not necessarily read in on Project Jade Serenity or Onyx Rain, let alone involved in any conspiracies connected to them. Not without showing their hand, at least. Vargas is, obviously, a sinister foreign threat. Last session, the PCs discovered something which seems to be a clue that the Caballero Templarios might be importing some of the precursor chemicals which you'd need to make one of the primary performance-enhancing drugs tested at Project Jade Serenity, back in 1998-2000. One PC, Dr. Michael Anderson, was part of the medical researchers who worked on Project Jade Serenity back then and he believes that Vargas might be trying to replicate the effects, perhaps develop the process further and avoid the still inexplicable long period of time which passed between the experiments and really measurable effects. In other words, maybe Vargas is trying to manufacture his own supersoldiers. Vargas and Dr. Edward Vanderbert, the driving force behind the experimental drug trials and the secretive inventor behind most of the drugs, had a preexisting relationship back in 1998-2000. Nobody is sure how they knew each other, but they clearly did. And Dr. Edward Vanderbert did go missing just as Project Jade Serenity was closed down as an embarrassing failure after Vargas' escape and desertion. Maybe the good Dr. Vanderbert eventually decided that working with national governments wasn't for him and what he really needed were other customers with the requisite deep pockets, but a more lax attitude towards things like 'oversight', 'laws' and 'medical ethics'. And even if Dr. Vanderbert is not in Mexico, but actually working with China, Russia or some less obvious potential future source of the villains of future 'Seasons' of Jade Serenity, he might have sold some of his secret formulas to an eager buyer who has personal experience of their functionality. And maybe either scenario would explain why Vargas 'only' has a $50,000,000 household budget, because he's committed the bulk of his resources elsewhere... Quote:
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Where in Central Europe are you hiking? Austria somewhere?
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Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela! Last edited by Icelander; 02-18-2018 at 04:06 PM. |
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02-18-2018, 11:49 AM | #197 | ||||||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: Expert Tailoring, Fluting and Masterful Tailoring at TL8
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There's quite a large gap between the TL7 'Steel, very hard' and TL8 'Ultra-Strength Steel', enough so that a more natural progression might also include a grade of TL8 steel alloy with a WM of 0.4 and DR/inch about 100-105 (50% better than RHA by thickness, ca 30% better by weight). Quote:
Nice. If that works with any kind of armour piece, it seems to me that they could get a full suit of TL8 'Ultra-Strength Steel' and it wouldn't even be that much trouble to make more. Quote:
So leather that gives DR 0 (+1 DR against cutting) can indeed protect as DR 2 against that knife, but still have DR 0 against a .22 LR round. It wouldn't protect against a full power thrust with a knife either, but I think that's not all that unrealistic. Quote:
If there were months of painstaking work on making every plate fit perfectly into the whole and ensuring that the the joints were fully articulated, performed with handheld power tools or some kind of machine meant for extreme precision, I can see going with less hard steels and/or a simplified design for the pieces knocked out for sale to sicarios. Okay, thanks. Quote:
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I've found that for 'AR500' steel by several manufacturers (TL7 'Steel, very hard' with up to 50% better performance against piercing), 'Flash® 500' (TL8 'Ultra-Strength Steel') and 'AR600' (better than TL8 'Ultra-Strength Steel', but not available as complex armour, only as 'Solid') from Flash Bainite and a variety of less protective steel in less scientific testing. I expect I could also find data on the various alloys that give DR similar to RHA steel and maybe up to 20% better DR by weight and/or thickness.
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02-18-2018, 01:12 PM | #198 | |||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Cutting-Edge Armor Design] Real World SCA-legal Armour and Ballistics Armour
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In terms of GURPS stats, this sounds like one of the ways to get similar performance to the various alloys of high hardness ballistic steel that perform better against piercing and cutting attacks than other threats. I'd probably call functioning armour from it WM 0.3; DR/inch 120-135 with DR against anything other than piercing and cutting reduced by 1.5, so that it would have effectively WM 0.45; DR/inch 80-90 against other attacks, making it comparable, if possibly slightly inferior to TL7 'Steel, very hard' against any other attacks than piercing and cutting. Earlier examples of battleship armour with very high hardness might be WM 0.4; DR/inch 90 against piercing and cutting, with the same divisor, for WM 0.6 and DR/inch 60 for other threats. Or just WM 0.3; DR/inch 120, with the DR against other threats halved, for the same WM 0.6; DR/inch 60. Quote:
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So is it easier to do with small pieces of limb armour of around 1.5 mm thickness than with a 6.6 mm thick breastplate? Or do these smaller pieces impose their own difficulties?
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Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela! Last edited by Icelander; 02-18-2018 at 01:59 PM. |
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02-18-2018, 02:16 PM | #199 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: [Cutting-Edge Armor Design] Real World SCA-legal Armour and Ballistics Armour
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So yes, smaller, thinner pieces have their own challenges.
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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02-18-2018, 03:38 PM | #200 | |||
Join Date: Oct 2004
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Re: Expert Tailoring, Fluting and Masterful Tailoring at TL8
[QUOTE=Icelander;2159560 Nice. If that works with any kind of armour piece, it seems to me that they could get a full suit of TL8 'Ultra-Strength Steel' and it wouldn't even be that much trouble to make more.[/QUOTE]
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Tags |
cutting-edge armor design, hema, jade serenity, pyramid #3/85, sca |
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