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

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

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.

Yeah, I'm trying to reflect the dichotomy with Vyacheslav Lunov.

Superfically, he seems like a simple, cheerful, boisterous and brash fellow, a sort of rough-edged blue-collar steelworker from a long line of steelworkers, who likes loud music, engages in full-contact sports, drinks heavily and has about the same capacity for self-reflection and a rich inner life as a turnip. But at heart he's actually complex, passionate and Romantic, in every sense. It's just that his sensitive side has so far primarily found its outward expression through his art, the creation of beautiful technological artifacts considered by most people outdated and irrelevant.

If he were a wordsmith, he might write novels full of Sturm und Drang or compose epic poetry. But Vyacheslav has no facility for elegant language or a well-formed simile, so he hammers out his poems in red-hot steel, maybe not even consciously aware that he's pouring his soul into the metal.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by safisher

Agreed.

Of course, managing to get the desired material properties for all the sizes and shapes of the pieces that make up a full harness of Gothic plate might have taken months of experimentation with their new equipment. And necessiated the acquisition of new equipment, not previously considered.

Originally Posted by safisher

On general principle, I despise EP as too finicky. I don't want to do all the math -- that's the point of the DR in the first place. Ease of use!

Fair enough. Given that Armour Divisors and wounding modifiers for damage type call for exactly this kind of division or multiplying as part of any successful hit, I find that it doesn't add any real complexity for me.

Originally Posted by safisher

Second, re: DR, I don't hold that "cutting armor" was as hard as some make it out to be. In real life, if you hold up an fully armored arm and I whack it with a two- handed sword or axe I'll stand a good chance of breaking or dislocating your arm without strictly "cutting it." The cutting damage and bleeding might still exist, depending on the damage to your armor -- and there will likely be some! It depends on what a "point of damage" is.

I don't disagree, but note that with the very high damage GURPS gives for muscle-powered swung weapons at levels of ST described as being reasonable for athletes or professional warriors, especially with All-Out Attack (Strong), axes and two-handed swords do damage characters in armour, even using my harsher Edge Protection rules.

Originally Posted by safisher

If one guy did it buy hand laboriously in the old method in might take that long, but with all the labor saving methods of modern technology we are discussing, and a staff of basically unskilled people overseen by experts I'd surprised if it would take a week.

Assuming they don't need more than half-dozen to a dozen assistants for the body armour work, they'd probably make use of those of their experienced mechanics, welders or machinist-fabricators who either already had Machinist at skill 12+ or had developed it from defaults by working for years on constructing armour plates and other parts useful for improving and customising vehicles for cartel uses. Those would also have Armoury (Vehicular Armour) at skill 10+, with maybe a couple of naturals with it at skill 12+.

If they require more assistants, they'd need to pull in less experienced people or those whose skills were primarily in the Mechanic (Automobile) part of the work. Carlos 'Caló' Renteria, Vyacheslav Lunov and the two and three other members of the 'Black Knight' body armour design team should still be able to get people who know their way around the manufacture or extensive repair of steel devices, in one fashion or another, and have Machinist at around skill 10, at least for anyone doing work on sophisticated machines.

Of course, as most of the time consuming and difficult tasks will be concerned with devising modern methods to manufacture plate armour out of very hard and tough steel alloys, not necessarily the production of a very high number of armours, I expect that Caló Renteria only required a fairly limited number of less skilled assistants, practically speaking he was probably usually pulling the same few guys away from vehicular duties every time, those he trusts best and who seem to have aptitude for the most complicated Machinist work.

By its very nature, this is an ongoing R&D project, with the target for 'adequate' protection shifting ever upward as soon as they have a breakthrough in managing to construct a perfectly functional suit of armour from a harder and more protective alloy than they could a year or maybe even a few months before.

That means I see it as plausible that the newest suit Vargas has received will have been constructed from the most protective steel alloy they can work with at that time, like an alloy with the stats of TL8 'Ultra-Strength Steel', using some method which they've only recently developed and don't necessarily already have a streamlined assembly line process ready for.

Meanwhile, they may have streamlined a process to make simpler plate harnesses from flash bainite steel with the stats of TL7 'Steel, very hard' a year ago and could turn those out with much less trouble for anyone who wanted one all year, in between developing new methods for working better steel alloys into more intricate shapes.

Maybe the Texan machinist-fabricator could even do so on his own, considering that Caló Renteria has less need to line his pockets with extra income and Vyacheslav Lunov is primarily interested in making exceptional, beautiful armour, not in turning out rapid copies of the same design for profit considerations. Not that Vyacheslav wouldn't do it, if it didn't interfere with his goal of designing and building the ultimate late TL8 version of TL4 plate harness, just that the member of the design team who is motivated primarily by a desire for quick profit is probably the most likely character to have a side hustle going.

Originally Posted by safisher

I used in HT, where possible, two checks -- one was actual proof tests against known weapons, and the second, the measurement of the armor. I think any such work should use both. The problem is measuring against a standard sword or axe stroke...

Yeah, a lot easier to find data on ballistic testing than sword and axe testing. :-)

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Yeah, a lot easier to find data on ballistic testing than sword and axe testing. :-)

There's also not a lot in the way of standards for sword and axe blows to be used in testing.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Rupert

There's also not a lot in the way of standards for sword and axe blows to be used in testing.

Aye, and assuming a spherical armchair expert is probably not the best standard.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Icelander

....

Fair enough. Given that Armour Divisors and wounding modifiers for damage type call for exactly this kind of division or multiplying as part of any successful hit, I find that it doesn't add any real complexity for me.
...

Yep

Another way to do it split DR's which is already in the system, and means you can do the maths before hand and then just do the usual nice simple DR subtraction from different damage types in play. Of course you do have to take a view on what the various splits should be!

(I prefer splitting and adjusting DR as AD's can get odd situations with the way they scale)

EDIT: Although maybe a new thread for those who are interested in this, to avoid cluttering up yours

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Yep

Another way to do it split DR's which is already in the system, and means you can do the maths before hand and then just do the usual nice simple DR subtraction from different damage types in play. Of course you do have to take a view on what the various splits should be!

(I prefer splitting and adjusting DR as AD's can get odd situations with the way they scale)

EDIT: Although maybe a new thread for those who are interested in this, to avoid cluttering up yours

I guess, though obviously it is of some relevance whether 1-1.5 mm steel plate armour for the limbs ought to provide DR 3-5 or DR 6-10 against knife slashes and sword cuts.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I guess, though obviously it is of some relevance whether 1-1.5 mm steel plate armour for the limbs ought to provide DR 3-5 or DR 6-10 against knife slashes and sword cuts.

I agree (it's just this topic and the related 'how much ST should people have anyway', has the potential to derail stuff).

I think DR10 vs. cutting 1.5mm plate of the kind of steel your discussing works here, especially when that will include arming garments etc and design that will mitigate impact as well.

That's going to stop the vast majority of Hand held cutting attacks from regular people the wearer is likely to face. Even if they break out large two handed cutting weapons they need good rolls in conjunction with AoA(S) to have a chance.

A ST10 person with a small knife even if it's TL8 default fine one is hitting for 1d-2

let them swing a TL8 Fine Axe in two hands and it goes up to 1d+4

And that large range is fine to me, I have no issue with the axe doing better than the small knife, and some sheets of metal* will get beaten by the axe. It's just I also don't have much issue with the idea of decent armour of reasonable thickness being pretty damn resistant against both even if the axe still represents a greater threat than the knife.


One other thing on the point made about broken bones in arms held out statically to receive hits. The effect of impact being transmitted through armour into the target is complicated. Bullets and hand held weapons kind of operate at different ends of spectrum here (fast and light vs. slow and heavy)

On top of this the GURPS blunt trauma rules are somewhat limited (but then who really wants a whole secondary damage system on top of a primary one!)


Basically I'd say the kind of situation where this most comes up is going to be in the kind of situation where the target is unresisting or immobilised

Edit: however I do agree that if s such a weapon does do damage through armour it is more likely that it will be in the form broken bones, and other blunt force injuries than the blade actually cutting through the armour and on into the flesh and organs beneath*. So I do like the concept of EP converting Cut into Cr (I just don't particularly like the balance of when it does so, as plate is also designed to resist these kind of forces as well)


*well barring very thin plate and or very powerful attacks

*a very broad description that covers a huge array of things!

[Polydamas]

Sorry Icelander, I can't provide any more technical advice on this project! It has crossed from 'rambling about something I am passionate about' into 'unpaid work.' I hope I have given some cool ideas and some real-world benchmarks, as best as I can estimate them.

If you want, you could look at some real armour on the websites of the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Wallace Collection and divide up the parts of Vargas' into Plate and Segmented Plate, maybe using Dan's Loadouts book as a guide. The Segmented parts would have less DR for a given weight. But that is way too much work for me, especially since I could spend an hour and then have you decide it was not your exact vision of the armour or the rules!

Edit: Also, my quick-and-dirty writeups with one "heavy" thickness and one "light" are just that. They allow a quick sanity check against real weights and a quick estimation of DR, but they could absolutely be replaced by a writeup where every body part, and the front and back of some body parts, have different protection, if you think that would add enough fun to make up for the complexity. Me, I would be inclined to go with a no more than three different DRs, but you seem to like fiddly rules.

In these threads, however much advice and information people give you, you always ask for more.

Visiting Ecuador sounds like a great way to add some Area Knowledge, Contacts, or maybe Conisseur (Central American tequila) to your character sheet.

Originally Posted by Icelander

I guess fighting with live steel might be impractical if clad only in a light steppe raider outfit, even if there is a cuirass of good steel. Are there some genuine Cossack panoplies that would meet at least barely acceptable safety standards for coverage?

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?

I have heard some of the HMB/BotN/"to the pain!" fighters in eastern Europe wearing scale and brigandine based on Rus or Mongol kit (and maybe imitations of Polish hussar armour?) but to know the details you would have to check out their videos, magazine (!), and social media. It sounds like some suit themselves up in enough armour to be pretty safe, and some trust in speed and vodka and hidden sports gear, and the state of the art is continually changing.

Most armoured sports either set the level of violence at one where cautious people with a small budget can participate, or have a version for people with less kit, but I don't know if those guys do that.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Sorry Icelander, I can't provide any more technical advice on this project! It has crossed from 'rambling about something I am passionate about' into 'unpaid work.' I hope I have given some cool ideas and some real-world benchmarks, as best as I can estimate them.

Yeah, no worries. Thanks for the help.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

If you want, you could look at some real armour on the websites of the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Wallace Collection and divide up the parts of Vargas' into Plate and Segmented Plate, maybe using Dan's Loadouts book as a guide. The Segmented parts would have less DR for a given weight. But that is way too much work for me, especially since I could spend an hour and then have you decide it was not your exact vision of the armour or the rules!

Yeah, I'll probably end up doing that. After all, if the PCs fight Vargas, they aren't going to attack any areas that look the best armoured.

From a dramatic point of view, an ideal outcome would be a fight where Vargas could be wounded and thus convinced to flee, but not killed, because his armour protected him from truly serious harm. But only if that can be done plausibly and organically, i.e. if the likely end result of the design and manufacturing process really is armour that is protective enough to ensure that Vargas doesn't die from PC-related gunshot trauma to the face in the first turn of combat, but contains some weak points where the PCs can wound him once they've made some skill checks to identify those weak points.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Edit: Also, my quick-and-dirty writeups with one "heavy" thickness and one "light" are just that. They allow a quick sanity check against real weights and a quick estimation of DR, but they could absolutely be replaced by a writeup where every body part, and the front and back of some body parts, have different protection, if you think that would add enough fun to make up for the complexity. Me, I would be inclined to go with a no more than three different DRs, but you seem to like fiddly rules.

Out of four PCs, three of them have significant hand-to-hand abilities, up to supersoldier levels. Two of them are bando stylists who have skill 20 with machetes, kukris and heavy fighting knives of various sorts (one also trains FMA) and one is a gifted barroom brawler who has skill 16 with knives. They have ST 14 to ST 20, due to either supersoldier abilities or, in the case of the PC who thinks he might be Vargas' unacknowledged bastard son, because he can use his powerful telekinetic ability to enhance his own strength.

All three PCs have the Soldier skill and went through BCT, with two of them actually going on multiple deployments to Afghanistan, where they wore plate carriers and Level IV body armour every day for months. Two of these PCs still wear ballistic armour to work every day. So they ought to understand some basic principles of body armour and areas where TL8 armour is weak, though this might not translate too well to TL4 designs.

All of three of them also at least know how to fix their own motorcycles, do minor welding and other basic handy tasks (Machinist and Mechanic at skill 10+). So they might understand just how tough 1/4" armour plate made of hardened steel would be, even if they won't be able to visually identify DR 25 flash bainite armour plate from a more mundane DR 14 armour plate.*

Basically, if there is a combat encounter at all between the PCs and Vargas, it might well turn on the DR of armour gaps at various locations, if it's possible to aim at Chinks in Armour and how much of the armour's DR can be bypassed by grappling and ramming a knife into the articulated joint somewhere.

*Well, actually, with Per 20, all senses Discriminatory and Observation at skill 25, one PC might be able to tell pretty accurately where any weak points of a piece of armour might be. With his inhumanly accurate shooting skills, he will also be able to place shots anywhere he thinks the armour is weak (which he'll need, because it's not as if the PCs are packing any kind of armour-piercing ordnance, the best they have is 115 grain FMJ 9x19mm and 55 grain 5.56x45mm rounds).

Originally Posted by Polydamas

In these threads, however much advice and information people give you, you always ask for more.

Back when Colin Powell was the Secretary of State, there was a saying about him. He devoured intelligence reports, briefs and even gossip and rumours with such all-consuming voracity that anyone planning to visit him or even scheduled to have a phone call with him needed to prepare tidbits of information to "Feed the Beast!"

I suppose I share that with Mr. Powell.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Visiting Ecuador sounds like a great way to add some Area Knowledge, Contacts, or maybe Conisseur (Central American tequila) to your character sheet.

That it does.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I have heard some of the HMB/BotN/"to the pain!" fighters in eastern Europe wearing scale and brigandine based on Rus or Mongol kit (and maybe imitations of Polish hussar armour?) but to know the details you would have to check out their videos, magazine (!), and social media. It sounds like some suit themselves up in enough armour to be pretty safe, and some trust in speed and vodka and hidden sports gear, and the state of the art is continually changing.

Ok, so the two main HMB/BotN teams in the Ukraine use either 'European' ( not defined more precisely) or Italian (European) gear. One interview I read argued that it was much more difficult to find armourers who could make historical Eastern European armour designs and that the resulting armours were clumsier and harder to fight in. Evidently they find that not using 15th century plate harness in Italian or German designs imposes a significant competative disadvantage.

The really crazy thing is that Mexico has competed in the Battle of the Nations since 2014... and that about half of their fighters come from Slavyanskiye Voiny ('Slavic Warriors'), who fight in Eastern European kit.

So Vyacheslav is, if anything, more likely to be encouraged to wear Kievan Rus or Polovtsi/Cuman mail and mirror lamellar in Mexico than he was while he was fighting with Ukrainians in Kiev.

If the GM will allow it, I'll suggest that Vyacheslav and a few of the more naive of the sicarios are agitating that they be allowed to travel to Barcelona for the Battle of the Nations in April 2017 (the game is set in February 2017). After all, they'll argue, if none of them have active warrants or even criminal records, why shouldn't they be allowed to have a vacation in Spain?

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Most armoured sports either set the level of violence at one where cautious people with a small budget can participate, or have a version for people with less kit, but I don't know if those guys do that.

The sicarios? Nah, broken bones and cut up limbs are funny. :-)

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Icelander

From a dramatic point of view, an ideal outcome would be a fight where Vargas could be wounded and thus convinced to flee, but not killed, because his armour protected him from truly serious harm. But only if that can be done plausibly and organically, i.e. if the likely end result of the design and manufacturing process really is armour that is protective enough to ensure that Vargas doesn't die from PC-related gunshot trauma to the face in the first turn of combat, but contains some weak points where the PCs can wound him once they've made some skill checks to identify those weak points.

Out of four PCs, three of them have significant hand-to-hand abilities, up to supersoldier levels. Two of them are bando stylists who have skill 20 with machetes, kukris and heavy fighting knives of various sorts (one also trains FMA) and one is a gifted barroom brawler who has skill 16 with knives. They have ST 14 to ST 20, due to either supersoldier abilities or, in the case of the PC who thinks he might be Vargas' unacknowledged bastard son, because he can use his powerful telekinetic ability to enhance his own strength.

All three PCs have the Soldier skill and went through BCT, with two of them actually going on multiple deployments to Afghanistan, where they wore plate carriers and Level IV body armour every day for months. Two of these PCs still wear ballistic armour to work every day. So they ought to understand some basic principles of body armour and areas where TL8 armour is weak, though this might not translate too well to TL4 designs.

All of three of them also at least know how to fix their own motorcycles, do minor welding and other basic handy tasks (Machinist and Mechanic at skill 10+). So they might understand just how tough 1/4" armour plate made of hardened steel would be, even if they won't be able to visually identify DR 25 flash bainite armour plate from a more mundane DR 14 armour plate.*

Basically, if there is a combat encounter at all between the PCs and Vargas, it might well turn on the DR of armour gaps at various locations, if it's possible to aim at Chinks in Armour and how much of the armour's DR can be bypassed by grappling and ramming a knife into the articulated joint somewhere.

Well, Low Tech does a good job of laying out the weak spots in plate armour with Chinks in Armour, and I think I gave a decent overview of the parts which might plausibly be thick enough to make rifle rounds take notice. (Chest Front, Skull Front, maybe some other small areas close to the centre of mass). I have seen a secondhand report that the Avant armour in Glasgow (the one they usually use for diagrams of the parts of European plate armour) is 2 x 4 mm thick over the centre of the chest (although not over the whole Chest), and that weighs 57 pounds without some small pieces.

Because I know so little about modern tactical combat, and am not an expert on the ballistics of armour or bullet-resistant armour, I tried to give back-of-the-envelope estimates and not spoil them by giving too many details. I would try to get the overall weight right, and the resistance to bullets of the thick parts, the thin parts, and the double-layered-thick parts in the right ballpark, and not try to fuss about whether the greaves are a bit heavier or lighter than the upper arms, because GURPS can't hope to represent all the factors that go into designing real armour.