Mithril Armor in Dungeon Fantasy

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Now tell me how to make mail armour rigid and still function like mail - I'll even let you use shiney super-strong ultra-light wire.

Don't need to. You just have it made by elves, and you wear it in dungeons while you fight demons and take treasure. A realistic "how" is an optional extra.

[DanHoward]

Elven armour and Mithril mail are two different beasts. Elven armour can be some magical construction that can do anything you want. Mail is mail regardless of what kind of metal it is made from. Mithril mail would actually be less capable of resisting crushing attacks than iron since it has less mass to absorb impact.

[RedMattis]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Elven armour and Mithril mail are two different beasts. Elven armour can be some magical construction that can do anything you want. Mail is mail regardless of what kind of metal it is made from. Mithril mail would actually be less capable of resisting crushing attacks than iron since it has less mass to absorb impact.

But it's mithril so it resists crushing attacks better anyway. Welcome to Dungeon Fantasy. :P

[Ed the Coastie]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

The Chinese worked out how to do it about 500 years ago. They had a type of scale armour with each scale shaped like the Chinese character for mountain (the armour was called "mountain armour"). When assembled and interlaced through each other the scales formed a star-shaped pattern. The construction flexes in one direction but not the other. When struck it "shock hardens" on impact. I've tried making a few reconstructions and the scales have to be precisely shaped and carefully fitted together but it works wonderfully. Low Tech will cover this variant.

Ooo...ooo...ooo...I am SO looking forward to Low Tech, then! I can see the Immortal Legion (the Berian Emperor's personal bodyguard) armored in this stuff, with the armor made of "Berian Silver"...

[Langy]

Maybe Mithral as a material automatically shock-hardens on impact or some such? Doesn't need to make too much sense, really. Even the least possible explanation should work in Dungeon Fantasy:p

[DAT]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

How can you make flexible armour more resistant to crushing?
...

DARPA is funding research at INEEL that is investigating a Structural Amorphous Metal (SAM) that temporarily hardens and thickens/constricts when impacted. Theoretically at least, tightly linked rings of this SAM would harden and constrict when impacted by a crushing attack. Adjacent rings would harden and constrict from the initial rings constricting and so on. This would cascade outward with the net effect of flexible links in the area around the impact site temporarily becoming like a ridged plate. This "plate" would allow the kinetic energy from the crushing impact to be spread over a larger area. After the impact energy is dissipated, the rings return to their original condition and the armor is flexible again. End result is a “flexible armour” more resistant to crushing.

The information I have is the properties of the SAM have been demonstrated. INEEL was/is working on increasing batch size and other production issues. The planned applications I am aware of did not include rings.

-Dan

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by DAT

DARPA is funding research at INEEL that is investigating a Structural Amorphous Metal (SAM) that temporarily hardens and thickens/constricts when impacted. Theoretically at least, tightly linked rings of this SAM would harden and constrict when impacted by a crushing attack. Adjacent rings would harden and constrict from the initial rings constricting and so on. This would cascade outward with the net effect of flexible links in the area around the impact site temporarily becoming like a ridged plate. This "plate" would allow the kinetic energy from the crushing impact to be spread over a larger area. After the impact energy is dissipated, the rings return to their original condition and the armor is flexible again. End result is a “flexible armour” more resistant to crushing.

I have been reading about this research for years. Chinese mountain scale would have cost them a lot less. Maybe Pinnacle wants to try their Dragonscale using the Chinese pattern ;) The above wouldn't work with a mail mesh though. In order to make mail flexible you need a fair amount of free play between the links. Making the weave tight enough to shock harden would mean that the initial mesh would be too rigid. It might work on the chest but nowhere that needs more flexibility.

[Camillus]

A quick look on the interwebs suggests that the Tolkein estate didn't trademark the term mithril (unlike Hobbit and Balrog) and as a result it (or something spelled very like it and referring to a metal) has appeared in a wide range of games and publications, including D&D (particularly Forgotten Realms), Final Fantasy, Everquest and World of Warcraft.

[DAT]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

I have been reading about this research for years. Chinese mountain scale would have cost them a lot less. Maybe Pinnacle wants to try their Dragonscale using the Chinese pattern ;) The above wouldn't work with a mail mesh though. In order to make mail flexible you need a fair amount of free play between the links. Making the weave tight enough to shock harden would mean that the initial mesh would be too rigid. It might work on the chest but nowhere that needs more flexibility.

Somehow I don't think Chinese mountain scale would quite work for the main application DARPA has in mind. ;-)

I only have a rudimentary knowledge of manufactoring mail. But if I remember the few factoids correctly, a very fine mesh allows a tighter fit for individual links, but the larger number of links lets the mail keep some of the flexibility.

If memory serves, INEEL was working with a number of different SAM materials (primary Ni, Ti, Zr, , and others), and the different materials had different properties. I would assume that the right one would maximize the ratio of contriction.

So a combination of a very fine mesh and the right SAM might still allow for the theroretical crush resistant flexiable mail. But I'll leave that to you experts to figure out.
-Dan

[Bruno]

If I had to some up with technobabble, I'd say it was made of some sort of non-newtonian shear thickening liquid, and instruct my players to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain and how you'd make wire out of it.