Ceramic Low-Tech Armour

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Of course if metals are rare doesn't that include Asbestos (which has either Magnesium or Iron)?

Presumably metals are not rare enough to cause problems with iron deficiency, so it may just be that exploitable ores are rare.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Sindri

If more attention spent on ceramics means better types leading to higher DRs that would be cool too.

This is certainly plausible. I think you'll have to use a bit of handwaving as to it's exact composition though (since you are talking about something that was never invented in our world).

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Sindri

Well I think ceramic armour would be cool but I don't have attachment to it's use. If it turns out that it's pretty much an alternative to stone without major unwanted side effects that's okay.

For what it's worth, and it's not worth much, ceramic tile comes in around the same Mohs hardness as jade (if not harder). If that's a useful proxy for whatever properties we'd need to look up for armour value, then that suggests that whatever kind of ceramic is "Ceramic tile" (talk about nonspecific...) would work "about" as well as jade - presuming it was vitrified the entire way through now that I think about it.

Which is possible at TL2 if you're lucky enough to be on the same track as the Chinese were, so that's something. The benefit ceramic has over stone is mostly that it is made to match the size and shape you need, unlike pieces of jade which come however you find them, and that it's essentially as common as "dirt", for certain values of dirt. You obviously need the right kinds of clay deposits, not just any old dirt, but it's still more common, less contested, and easier to excavate, than jade.

You can mass produce correctly shaped/sized clay tiles (with pre-punched lacing holes!), stamping them out with what amounts to a big cookie cutter. That's handy, in a way that other materials can't really match until much higher TLs. Not enough to make up for it's lack of durability, if you ask me, but still something to think about if you don't have metal and DO have problems that would want to be solved by metal.

Lacing it with rock wool is an interesting idea. What about natural polymers? I can't think of any offhand that would make for a useful "fibreglass" until you can actually make actual fibreglass... which probably requires metals tech anyways.

[DanHoward]

Jade seems to be a lot tougher than any ceramic available in low tech societies. The Chinese used it to make anvils. For LT ceramics I would just use the stats for stone armour in Low-tech. If iron is rare then what is wrong with bronze?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Jade seems to be a lot tougher than any ceramic available in low tech societies. The Chinese used it to make anvils. For LT ceramics I would just use the stats for stone armour in Low-tech. If iron is rare then what is wrong with bronze?

I know that jade is two materials: jadeite, and nephrite. Do they have the same properties, including hardness?

As to bronze, it could have a social purpose as worn only by the royalty. Or religious connection to a pacifist deity making it sacriligious to use for objects of war.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Sindri

And no TL 5 rifles are high enough velocity?

No one has answered this explicitly so I will.

TL6 begins at 1880 and smokeless powder is discovered at 1885. Nothing powered by black powder would be called "high-velocity" in modern parlance. Smokelss powder nearly doubled rifle bullet velocity.

So there were no high velocity TL5 rifles.

The efect of stone armor agianst projectiles was exploited in WWII to prodice cheap vehicle armor for cargo ships and landing craft. Called "Plastic Armour" and "Plastic Protective Plating" b the British it was formed from chips of hard stone such as granite held together by asphalt and backed by a thin layer of mild steel.

When the high velocity rifle/machine gun bullets hit the stone chips they broke up and this greatly limited subsequent penetration. the asphalt hjelped to contain the resulting fragments which were soemwhat dangerous by themelves.

Black powder rifle bullets and most pistol bullets do not have the ratio of kinetic energy to mass to phyiscally destroy themselves whens striking hard substances.

I think this is basically what Anthony was talking about.

[Mr Frost]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I know that jade is two materials: jadeite, and nephrite. Do they have the same properties, including hardness?...

Jadeite certainly appears harder {glassy appearance compared to the waxy nephrite} and feels like it to the touch , for what little that is worth .







Also , a shirt of Jadeite scale with each scale edged in gold leaf and perhaps each etched with a character that is also traced with gold which combined would spell out a protective spell or prayer would look so epically pimp it would divide Chuck Norris by zero .

[Sindri]

Well apparently this has turned into the thread for discussing metal scarcity in the setting I'm working on. I had planned on doing a thread devoted to that later but ah well.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

This is certainly plausible. I think you'll have to use a bit of handwaving as to it's exact composition though (since you are talking about something that was never invented in our world).

Hmm. I can do that but I was expecting that if it was possible it would take the shape of compositions that we have by now being invented earlier. 1 point of DR improvement for "ceramics of quality" makes it a better competitor against proofed paper.

Originally Posted by Bruno

You can mass produce correctly shaped/sized clay tiles (with pre-punched lacing holes!), stamping them out with what amounts to a big cookie cutter. That's handy, in a way that other materials can't really match until much higher TLs. Not enough to make up for it's lack of durability, if you ask me, but still something to think about if you don't have metal and DO have problems that would want to be solved by metal.

Lacing it with rock wool is an interesting idea. What about natural polymers? I can't think of any offhand that would make for a useful "fibreglass" until you can actually make actual fibreglass... which probably requires metals tech anyways.

Yeah I suspect a people with advanced ceramics would be able to find uses for it's flexibility in production.

Lacing it with things is interesting. There is probably something that you can add that will improve it's properties.

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Jade seems to be a lot tougher than any ceramic available in low tech societies. The Chinese used it to make anvils. For LT ceramics I would just use the stats for stone armour in Low-tech. If iron is rare then what is wrong with bronze?

As I said above I was planning on doing a thread on stuff like "the bronze question" but my current impression was that bronze largely handles itself. I want some people to use metal armour just like I want metal to be an option for anything that can use it I just want it to be rarer and more expensive. Not only is bronze harder to get a hold of and more expensive I believe that when it was the only decent metal for arms and armour around it wasn't necessarily available for purchase for whoever had the silver. I wanted part of the feel of the bronze age combined with other stuff. If you have units of bronze suitable for outfitting x warriors but x+y warriors then you might consider getting them the best alternative. I'd appreciate any comments on the plausibility of this so I know how to modify things.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

No one has answered this explicitly so I will.

TL6 begins at 1880 and smokeless powder is discovered at 1885. Nothing powered by black powder would be called "high-velocity" in modern parlance. Smokelss powder nearly doubled rifle bullet velocity.

So there were no high velocity TL5 rifles.

The efect of stone armor agianst projectiles was exploited in WWII to prodice cheap vehicle armor for cargo ships and landing craft. Called "Plastic Armour" and "Plastic Protective Plating" b the British it was formed from chips of hard stone such as granite held together by asphalt and backed by a thin layer of mild steel.

When the high velocity rifle/machine gun bullets hit the stone chips they broke up and this greatly limited subsequent penetration. the asphalt hjelped to contain the resulting fragments which were soemwhat dangerous by themelves.

Black powder rifle bullets and most pistol bullets do not have the ratio of kinetic energy to mass to phyiscally destroy themselves whens striking hard substances.

I think this is basically what Anthony was talking about.

Ahh, thank you. That raises the question if is it possible and worth it to try to come up with stats for ceramic's differing effectiveness based on velocity?

[DanHoward]

Ceramics have been around for thousands of years. If was suitable for armour then it would have been done. It wasn't - even in cultures that had little or no metalworking.

[gilbertocarlos]

Leather and cloth are almost always available, you can get DR4 with them.

If you really want to use ceramics, I would say 10% the cost of the metal armor, but fully ablative, so, maybe your ceramic plate will stop an axe, but only once or twice.