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

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Do you wish to name him and/or suggest some traits he might have or additional background? You could honour..., or mock, some acquintance who actually is an armourer.

As with all other NPCs, he'll also receive a 'casting photo', i.e. a link to a picture of an actor, model or even just random person found using Google Image Seach, who'd be have the appearance that we'd be looking for if he were being cast for a TV show. Basically, who does he look like?

No need to provide name, quirks or casting if that doesn't amuse you, just thought I'd offer if you wanted. Other forumites should also feel free to suggest names, quirks or casting photos for any other NPC implied by the discussion about how the CT cartel will develop Vargas' dream armour.

I might come up with something in the next few days when a crunch of deadlines is past.

There is one armourer from a rich country who spent decades in the fun-with-swords world until it emerged that almost everyone he had ever done business with said he owed them money, spent a year or two as a contractor in a country that ends in -stan, and ended up teaching college as an adjunct and trying to worm his way back into communities with resources ... but he does not have a website with sexy photos of his armour, and I don't know that he would jeopardize his hopes of more sweet government money by working for a Mexican cartel (or live in the same house as a business partner who solves disagreements by mutilating people and burning them alive).

Originally Posted by Icelander

With that in mind, what kind of tax free salary (with free room and board included) would he likely need to be willing to overlook the fact that he'd not only be working with hired killers for a drug cartel, he'd be living with them?

I mean, yeah, passion for the project and the chance to have a workshop he never, in a million years, could have afforded on his own, would have been powerful motivators. But even if the worst of the crimes the Caballero Templarios are responsible for aren't usually committed at their Jefe's home, anyone living there for more than a year is going to see and hear things that most people would find it very hard to rationalise away.

Ok, so ballparking from how long it took to have my armour made and how much I paid, a wild-ass-guess about how much of that is shop space and materials, and that Polish GDP per capita is five times Ukranian GDP per capita, a one-man armouring shop in Ukraine might earn 4,000 Euros a year after expenses. That might well be an underestimate due to unemployment and the grey economy, but I think "thousands" is the right order of magnitude, given what I said about "rich-country armourers do well to earn rich-country minimum wage." So I imagine that offering 30,000 or 50,000 Euros a year tax-free, with a shop and supplies paid for, would have been enough to get at least one armourer in Ukraine to consider it, even before the civil war and the Russian occupation of the Crimea.

That might change after they find out what being on call to a sociopathic gang leader is like, whether they like sex workers and nose candy, or can't get over that thing that the boss did in front of children.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Ah, but I don't need perfect answers, just improvements on the plausibility of whatever I could come up with thinking of these things by myself. SJGames forums are sure to have someone inordinately interested in almost any geeky subject, making them perfect for such brainstorming.

Yes, I try to give 'good enough for gaming' answers, but even those take a bit of time and research!

[Polydamas]

Keeping with your original idea of a Ukranian armourer ...

Lets have Vyacheslay Lunov of Mariupol, born 1988-ish. He got involved in the fledgeling medieval combat scene as a teenager, started making armour because he could not afford to buy it, and after high school and his military service (maybe an assistant mechanic or armourer?) he went to work as an apprentice in a armour workshop in Kiev. Battle of the Nations held its first event in 2009, an American began collecting free photos of armour in manuscripts in 2010, so life was good. He loved the spiky, intricate German armour of the end of the 15th century, including the film armour inspired by it in LotR or 1612, and if Alan Williams said it was not very good metal, his Gothic armour would use the best metal on earth and solve all the problems with cracking in those little pierced decorations. Some of his experiments with hardened steels and heat-treatments failed expensively, especially because he could not get some of the high-tech tools and materials which the fighters from western Europe and America wore, but he always had enough money to eat, fight, and keep hitting steel. He might have to make simplified, sporty armour for now, but one day he was going to be famous and making amazing things. The only problem was that he had trouble relating to people outside his medieval battle cronies: he didn't understand some of the things which the scholarly armourers wrote about how armourers really made things in the middle ages or why it is hard to be sure how armour in a tiny illumination was really made, he quarrelled with his shopmates when they wanted to just hang out or needed to be showed something again and again which was obvious, and he was not very good at languages, so had trouble doing business with clients in western Europe and North America. But after he opened his own shop in 2012, he could always throw himself into a marathon armouring session, or go onto the field and hit Belorussians with a halberd then sit around the fire with his friends.

In 2014 the troubles broke out, and he found himself on the front lines of a civil war which he blamed on politicians in big cities far away. His Czech business partners took the opportunity to drain their shared accounts and stop answering emails after a couple of SMSes mentioning EU banking regulations, and his girlfriend vanished into a militia. And then he started to get emails from the secretary of a Mexican businessman who wanted a private armourer like Emperor Maximillian or Henry VIII, and he told himself that all the great armourers worked for princes who were hard men, and that some of his Polish brothers in arms had gone to Iraq or Afghanistan and seen some messed-up stuff and come home with things which maybe did not belong to them, but they had an awesome adventure.

Things were good at the beginning as he played around with his new toys, but by 2018 he is not a happy camper: he has figured out that Vargas and co. are monsters, and that his American partner is much better paid despite not knowing anything about real armour, and is worried that either Vargas, the feds, or a rival cartel will kill him. When he is not working he is usually buzzed on vodka or weed and sometimes tries other things to help him sleep. He partly stays out of momentum and partially out of fear. With his bad Spanish and lack of contacts outside of the Templars, he does not know whether he could get to an airport and on a plane without being turned in by one of the Jefe's informers or arrested for overstaying his visa and locked in a back room until a van from the cartel arrives. Also, he does not have a very clear understanding of politics outside of Ukraine: he gets his news from Vkontakt, Ukranian streaming TV, and the Mexican radio in his shop. He has a vague idea that American spies would want to cut out his kidneys, implant a tracker, and use him to target a predator drone at Vargas, or that the cartel could send a sniper to kill him in a European or Brazilian airport like in Jason Bourne. And he is not sure if he has a home to return to, or what it would be like to come back rich after hiding from the troubles which are not quite over yet.

Advantages: High ST, respectable DX, IQ 10-11; about 3 levels of an artistic Talent; high Armoury/TL 4 (Body Armour), Artist, Machinist, Smith, Metallurgist, etc.; medium Broadsword, Polearm, Wrestling, etc.; a point or two each in several military-related, camping-related, and small-business skills; Spanish (Accented), English (Broken)
Disadvantages: Workaholic; Overconfidence (15); OPH 1 (puts his foot in his mouth); Bad Temper (15); Heavy Drinker but No Hard Drugs (quirk), sensitive to social slights (quirk), dislikes reading (quirk)

(back on the weekend)

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I might come up with something in the next few days when a crunch of deadlines is past.

Very good. That will almost certainly be quite soon enough, the GM is claiming that he is swamped with work, coursework, three or four different new sports and moving again.

What mental image I had of this NPC was of someone young and athletic. I immediately thought of Cossack hairstyles, very short hair on parts of the skull, stray lock or braid, sort of 'steppe punk' look, when thinking 'Ukrainian'. I've noticed a lot of such hairstyles when looking for pictures (for other games) of Eastern European armour, horse warrior outfits and Tartar vs. Cossack warfare. Blond, for contrast with almost every other NPC there, and handsome, because PCs should always be provided with as many potential love interests, romantic foils and fanservice personnel as possible.

My thought was that he'd have been young, barely a year or two out of his conscript service, when he first worked on an order from Vargas (through a flunky) in 2011-2012 or so. I don't know when Ukrainians do national service (and can't check on this iPad without losing the text) or how long, exactly, but I assume that would make him around 19-22 years old, depending. An apprentice armourer, maybe someone who always wanted to do it professionally and who devoted a lot of his spare time as a teenager to it as a hobby, maybe working part time as a gofer, assistant or junior apprentice.

This would make him 24-29 years old at the time of play, in February 2017. Most likely about 26-27, assuming he had quite a lot of experience as a hobbyist, assistant and apprentice when he first started to try to figure out how to make rifle-proof steel harness for Vargas.

My first thought was to make him surprisingly likable, decent and honest, without malice or vindictiveness, if perhaps also cheerfully violent, somewhat reflexively (male-)chauvinistic, thoughtless and reckless. Maybe someone who wishes (or thinks he wishes) he lived in a world where he could mount up and ride the steppes under an endless blue sky as a freebooter and raider, sporting a wolfish grin and fine furs, sword and bow (or gun, I guess) in hand, robbing wicked Tartar chiefs and fiendish Manchu noblemen, rescuing exotic princesses and generally living out the better kind of pulp historical fantasy.

If you have another idea, please, I'm all ears. Just so long as he's interesting. There are enough dull, but plausible NPCs in Vargas' band. Let's have one more exotic than merely murderous. Someone who plays at at imaginary wars and views himself as a warrior, but has discovered that he doesn't actually want to fight in a real war, as those always seem to kill more innocents than evil foemen.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

There is one armourer from a rich country who spent decades in the fun-with-swords world until it emerged that almost everyone he had ever done business with said he owed them money, spent a year or two as a contractor in a country that ends in -stan, and ended up teaching college as an adjunct and trying to worm his way back into communities with resources ... but he does not have a website with sexy photos of his armour, and I don't know that he would jeopardize his hopes of more sweet government money by working for a Mexican cartel (or live in the same house as a business partner who solves disagreements by mutilating people and burning them alive).

Ah, but Raul Vargas is muy hombre. His unwavering certainty in himself, legitimate badass credentials, magnetic force of personality (Charisma 2 to 4, depending, Tough Guy Talent 3+), sincere enjoyment of all the simple, masculine pleasures of the world, zest for living and larger than life legend make him someone that young, impressionable people who consider machismo a positive thing are very prone to idolising.

And Vargas does not object to being idolised. He just rarely bothers to exert himself to care about the feelings and happiness of those who are drawn into his orbit. But as long as it does not require any particular sacrifice from him, he can be very generous, affable, charming, seductive and exciting to be around. Very high Carousing, high Sex Appeal despite looking, well, like Danny Trejo (ugliest Mexican alive), and high Fast-Talk.

His Bully and Sadism will generally be turned on those he dislikes before those who amuse him, so as long as they stay in his good graces, his cronies may fear him (who doesn't?), but they'll usually be safe from any actual harm. Unless they disappoint him, bore him, annoy him or cause him to doubt their loyalty, of course, but them's the breaks in the court of an absolute despot.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Ok, so ballparking from how long it took to have my armour made and how much I paid, a wild-ass-guess about how much of that is shop space and materials, and that Polish GDP per capita is five times Ukranian GDP per capita, a one-man armouring shop in Ukraine might earn 4,000 Euros a year after expenses. That might well be an underestimate due to unemployment and the grey economy, but I think "thousands" is the right order of magnitude, given what I said about "rich-country armourers do well to earn rich-country minimum wage." So I imagine that offering 30,000 or 50,000 Euros a year tax-free, with a shop and supplies paid for, would have been enough to get at least one armourer in Ukraine to consider it, even before the civil war and the Russian occupation of the Crimea.

That might change after they find out what being on call to a sociopathic gang leader is like, whether they like sex workers and nose candy, or can't get over that thing that the boss did in front of children.

Yeah.

Well, I figue he will like occasional recreational drug use, for one thing because it's a lot easier to rationalise cartel sicarios as honourable warriors fighting against a corrupt system if you don't believe that the Mexican or US government possess an ethical leg to stand on when it comes to the War on Drugs and the whole prohibitionist agenda.

You can accept the killers and thugs as guys like you if you blame all the violence and brutality on a government policy as ineffective as it is hypocritical, to label those who merely seek to escape lives of grinding poverty, by providing something people clearly want, as criminals.

Force men to live outside normal society, without the protection of laws, courts and police, without the mechanisms of official adjudication of disputes and the curtailing of cycles of private and clan vengeance, and men will live as men have always lived in societies without effective and legitimate centralised authority. By the sword and the knife. By the code of machismo and the law of vendetta.

And naturally he likes sex and he likes girls. He is a young, healthy man, with physical hobbies and an unexamined, reflexively traditional view on gender roles. And even if he's not villainous, real life has plenty of examples of young men in strongly masculine subcultures, like the military, sailors, oil workers, miners, etc., especially those who live and work away from their families and any other reference culture they accept as legitimate, who rely nearly exclusively on sex workers for their sexual and emotional needs. Very few of them ever seem to find out whether the sex workers willingly chose their lives or are free to leave their work.

That being said, if, for example, our armourer NPC had but recently formed an emotional connection with one of the girls who frequent the hacienda, and if, perhaps she had confided in him about the 'recruitment' the girls go through and what El Jefe does to some of them... well, I certainly wouldn't object if our GM wanted to complicate our mission...

Should a man from considerably East of La Mancha offer his services (and intimate knowledge of Vargas' home) to our brave party of adventurers, in exchange, obviously, for their word of honour to aid him in getting his Dulcinea/prostitute/sex slave to safety on the US side of the border, it could not help being awesome. Especially if he refuses to acknowledge any kind of non-combatant status and keeps using a default Tactics skill derived from some hodgepodge combination of basic Soldier skill from his short conscript service, Games (HMB) and Hobby Skill (Cossack Reenactment).

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Yes, I try to give 'good enough for gaming' answers, but even those take a bit of time and research!

Which I'm certainly grateful for, but you should know you are always welcome to make unresearched, spit-balled comments whenever you don't have time or energy to research. There is nothing wrong with posting just to ask questions about the questions, to comment that something looks wrong, without necessarily having research to back it up or to geek out without feeling pressured to do homework.

But, of course, whenever anyone is willing to do homework, I benefit, I rejoice, I thank you all! ;-)

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Keeping with your original idea of a Ukranian armourer ...

Lets have Vyacheslay Lunov of Mariupol, born 1988-ish. He got involved in the fledgeling medieval combat scene as a teenager, started making armour because he could not afford to buy it, and after high school and his military service (maybe an assistant mechanic or armourer?) he went to work as an apprentice in a armour workshop in Kiev. Battle of the Nations held its first event in 2009, an American began collecting free photos of armour in manuscripts in 2010, so life was good. He loved the spiky, intricate German armour of the end of the 15th century, including the film armour inspired by it in LotR or 1612, and if Alan Williams said it was not very good metal, his Gothic armour would use the best metal on earth and solve all the problems with cracking in those little pierced decorations. Some of his experiments with hardened steels and heat-treatments failed expensively, especially because he could not get some of the high-tech tools and materials which the fighters from western Europe and America wore, but he always had enough money to eat, fight, and keep hitting steel. He might have to make simplified, sporty armour for now, but one day he was going to be famous and making amazing things.
[... ] But after he opened his own shop in 2012, he could always throw himself into a marathon armouring session, or go onto the field and hit Belorussians with a halberd then sit around the fire with his friends.

In 2014 the troubles broke out, and he found himself on the front lines of a civil war which he blamed [...]

Things were good at the beginning as he played around with his new toys, but by 2018 he is not a happy camper: he has figured out that Vargas and co. are monsters, and that his American partner is much better paid despite not knowing anything about real armour, and is worried that either Vargas, the feds, or a rival cartel will kill him. When he is not working he is usually buzzed on vodka or weed and sometimes tries other things to help him sleep.

Great! You are quite right that he must, of course, be a devotee of Gothic armour.

Does that mean he'd have to do re-enacting around an appropriate period and cultural milieu, or can you mix and match; be a fan of Khlit the Cossack, Conan the Barbarian, LOTR and Alexander Nevsky?

Also, how long does an apprenticeship last? Wouldn't he have spent some years working for someone else, even after becoming a competent armourer in his own right, as he was young, didn't have capital or an established reputation, etc.?

He moved to Mexico no earlier than 2015, as Vargas wasn't really in a position to house anyone until maybe the second half of that year. Very fluid situation, changes of allegiances and becoming his own master in name ad well as fact. He would have gotten his current home in the Juarez Valley in September 2015 or so, but with August where he knew he was settling down for good as the patrón of a profitable plaza (drug territory) and time during that month for re-organising and setting up for the future.

That would have been a good time to make arrangements about something they had discussed many times during design sessions online, frustrated by having to do everything at one remove, without the person who had all the ideas about the armour having access to any advanced tools. Vyachevslav would have been hand-making armour in the Ukraine from softer steel than what Vargas wanted and sending it over for Caló Renteria, his mechanics and machinist and the senior technician, the Texan machinist-fabricator, to try to heat-treat, to copy from harder steels, etc.

Play is set in February 2017, so he has been there for about a year and a half.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

He partly stays out of momentum and partially out of fear. With his bad Spanish and lack of contacts outside of the Templars, he does not know whether he could get to an airport and on a plane without being turned in by one of the Jefe's informers or arrested for overstaying his visa and locked in a back room until a van from the cartel arrives. Also, he does not have a very clear understanding of politics outside of Ukraine: he gets his news from Vkontakt, Ukranian streaming TV, and the Mexican radio in his shop. He has a vague idea that American spies would want to cut out his kidneys, implant a tracker, and use him to target a predator drone at Vargas, or that the cartel could send a sniper to kill him in a European or Brazilian airport like in Jason Bourne. And he is not sure if he has a home to return to, or what it would be like to come back rich after hiding from the troubles which are not quite over yet.

He's right. Especially if we assume both Spanish and English at Broken, with maybe a fair technical vocabulary about metallurgy, steelworking, fabrication and smithing, but a thick Ukrainian accent, atrocious grammar and poor vocabulary about the myriad of things he's not interested in. He couldn't talk himself out of a paper bag with airport security or border officials. Not to mention that the road to Ciudad Juarez (and airports, El Paso and the US) has a military roadblock, manned by soldiers that he's sure to have heard are on the CT cartel payroll.

And, yeah, he has no reason not to expect the worst from American spies, as there are sure to be rumours that Vargas is a defector from their famous Fuerza Especial and a wanted fugitive from the US, hunted by nearly supernaturally skilled killer SEALs in black helicopters, like the ones who got Osama bin Laden.

On the other hand, he might have had great-uncle who go live in Brighton Beach. Some cousins who live there now. Say it's not so bad. Cops are soft and judges softer. Almost never get murdered. More money in working garage than stealing back home.

If Vyachevslav was witness against cartel boss, he'd get new identity, like in movies. Maybe move to California, make proper armour for more Lord of Ring movies. Is good.

Of course, if Vargas really wanted, he could probably have a man killed in Brazil. California too. That would be easier. He was born there, grew up there and he knows a lot of people who come from Michoacán who moved there. Europe, however, probably not.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Advantages: High ST, respectable DX, IQ 10-11; about 3 levels of an artistic Talent; high Armoury/TL 4 (Body Armour), Artist, Machinist, Smith, Metallurgist, etc.; medium Broadsword, Polearm, Wrestling, etc.; a point or two each in several military-related, camping-related, and small-business skills; Spanish (Accented), English (Broken)
Disadvantages: Workaholic; Overconfidence (15); OPH 1 (puts his foot in his mouth); Bad Temper (15); Heavy Drinker but No Hard Drugs (quirk), sensitive to social slights (quirk), dislikes reading (quirk)

Mostly fits. I especially like his poor language skills. What we could do, actually, is use that as an explanation for why he got to know Vargas, not just a flunky, while he was still living in the Ukraine.

Vargas was an early recruit to Delta Force in 1977-1979 or so. Before that, though, he might have served in a Special Forces Group, as he probably didn't go directly from an airborne soldier to Delta (and he was never a Ranger). He spent his career mostly in the 7th SFG (A) after Delta and I frankly just assumed he'd started his career there. But what if he didn't? What if he initially served in a different SFG and when he went to Monterey, to the Defense Language Institute, the Army, in their infinite wisdom, entirely ignored his bilingual Spanish and assigned him to learn Russian?

I believe that a significant number of Ukrainians know Russian and despite Vyacheslav's poor facility for languages, maybe Russian was close enough to his native language to stick better in his head. Maybe having ethnic Russian friends and relatives helped. So maybe Vargas's secretary was not having any luck trying to communicate with someone who spoke awful English and no Spanish. And Vargas got impatient enough to write the next email himself, in quite good Russian, and soon found that using a phrasebook, dictionary and a feel for the language he picked up by becoming a connoisseur of Ukrainian porn, allowed him to adapt his Russian to more-or-less quasi-Ukrainian communication that worked better than trying to speak English with Vyacheslav.

Bad Temper and Sensitive to Social Slights sound pretty dangerous around Vargas, though... Maybe better if he's slightly Impulsive?

Come to think of it, a near inability to be offended by subtle slights would be better. It would explain how he has not provoked a meth-addled killer into murdering him over some status tiff, which Vyacheslav didn't realise woudln't escalate to fighting, but murder. If he's basically oblivious about status and doesn't take part in their vying for favour at court, they'll all view him as crazy, but he'll provoke much less jealousy that way, as well as if he is basically good-natured and fun.

As a matter of taste, I'd express his extreme dedication to his work as Obsession, not Workaholic. To me, Workaholic means that you'll perform any work you are assigned with the same intensity and fervour, but will not even have hobbies. Obsession about his craft allows Vyacheslav to devote the same passion to his fighting as his armoury, but to be pretty indifferent to most other things, including work that he technically had to do, but had nothing to do with being the best armourer he could (like all the things he had to do before, filing taxes, doing administrative work, turning out cheap decorative junk to make a living, etc.).

Originally Posted by Polydamas

(back on the weekend)

Great!

[seycyrus]

Not really sure what to say here. This is my work. The names, places, testing performed etc. are part of what I do, at the doctorate level and beyond.

Thought I could provide some insight, oh well.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by seycyrus

Not really sure what to say here. This is my work. The names, places, testing performed etc. are part of what I do, at the doctorate level and beyond.

Thought I could provide some insight, oh well.

It isn't as if you are the only person to have some professional knowledge of armour in this thread.

Dan Howard is a historian with a focus on classical studies and who has been a researcher in experimental archeology for years. He's a published author on Bronze Age military equipment and he actually makes replicas of historical armour as part of his research. He's also, of course, the author of the armour parts of GURPS Low-Tech. safisher (S. A. Fisher) is one of the authors of GURPS High-Tech, including the armour stats. His MA degree is in Education and he's a Technical Writer, but he also teaches defensive tactics to law enforcement personnel. It's long experience with that, as well as his service as an infantryman, that explain how he comes to have extensive knowledge of the ergonomics and use of current body armour.

Several posters on the GURPS forums also work in trades like welding, metalworking or machinist-fabrication. I'm not sure if any of the posters in this thread are among them, but I wouldn't be surprised if one or two of them did. Granted, working as a defence attorney, in computer science or as a programmer might not give much professional insight into armour design, but I wouldn't rule out some posters having experience of CAD/CAM/CNC/3D printing, for example, not to mention the likelihood of a hobby or former career touching on fabrication or body armour.

Polydamas is a doctoral student of military history, I believe, has written papers and articles on historical armour and their manufacture and also has personal experience with reenactor armour. I don't know the credentials and experience of everyone else, but I wouldn't rule out that they had some relevant knowledge. Rupert has been a student of some sort for generations, I think, though I don't know of what or whether he keeps switching fields or if he's a graduate student of something extremely complicated. Anthony Jackson really likes math, but whether as a hobby or professionally, I have no idea.

Crakkerjack is a mechanical engineer working for a company designing new materials. Douglas Cole has a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern and for almost two decades he has worked as an engineer, materials scientist, project manager for mechanical R&D and special projects lead with a 40,000 man company specialising in computer hardware. Unfortunately, I don't think either of them has posted in this particular thread yet, but they've been a part of many prior discussions of the art and science of armour and its representation in GURPS.

In any event, I'm looking for several methods to make armour which fulfils Vargas' requirements. He'd have had many failures in the early stages, using different kinds of materials and designs. I can stat out several approaches and then have the end result armour be the one which best suits his requirements, with the other either abandoned at the drawing board or perhaps built, but performed inaquately, was too clumsy to wear, didn't look cool enough, etc., so it's kept as a back-up. If you are aware of materials which are clearly superior for the specific needs we have here, please suggest it and we'll see what its stats would be.

Just remember that we are not just seeking maximum protection for minimum weight, but armour of a certain appearance and function for live steel fighting, which can also grant adequate protection (NIJ Level III or better for at least vital areas of torso and skull) without too much bulk or weight. The weight should not be more than 120-125 lbs. under any circumstances (and then only for NIJ Level III over a lot of the body), with 80-85 lbs. a more desirable weight that could be the goal in an ideal world, but rather a heavier armour than one that is too bulky.

Describe the specific ceramic or other composite materials which you think would make a better material to make articulated plate harness from. Please give a description that is detailed enough (or provide links to sites), so we can get all the technical data we'd need to assign GURPS stats.

These materials or armour plate made from them have to be legally available* for purchase or other acquisition by a cover company for a cartel in Mexico, probably a car detailing business, ideally as easily as 4130 steel. The machinery and tools to work them has to be useful for something else as well, which would justify it being purchased with cartel operating funds. Fortunately, I imagine that if the machinery could be used to make more typical trauma plates, it would be quite useful enough. If the machinery is not useful for anything other than making Vargas' armour and similar armours, it probably shouldn't cost more than $300,000.

Protective value by thickness is more important than by weight, as the intended wearer is probably at least twice as strong by his weight than a human. Weight will slow him down, yes, but armor thickness of more than 3 mm (roughly 1/8") would probably make it extremely hard to make articulating joints for his limbs. Even for the chest, we want to try to avoid using rigid material over 6.6 mm (ca 1/4") thick, as plates that are any thicker make it all but impossible to bend properly. Or to fight with a sword with any dexterity.

This thickness pertains to the rigid layer alone. The internal spall liner / padding / ballistic protection, made from ballistic polymer, can be as thick as any robust historical armour padding /arming doublets (I could find examples between 2-18 mm). I think that for the flexible layer, we shall not want much over 1/8" (ca 3-3.5 mm) for the limbs, not over 1/4" (ca 6.6 mm) for the body. Though I suppose some added thickness over the upper chest wouldn't be out of the question, if it's needed to give better ptotection against deformed rifle bullets, fragments or spall that penetrate the outer layer.

Obviously, the material has to look like historical armour. That is, after all, the primary goal and the protective value is added value. That means being able to take Gothic flourishes, fluting and decorations. And the material can't chip or mar too badly when hit with swords, thrown into walls or chopped with axes.

What specific ceramic were you considering? And what methods are used to work it into complex shapes?

The specific rules I'm using, the 'Cutting-Edge Armor Design' from Pyramid #3/85 make it impossible to form the ceramic-based materials that are given stats there into complex shapes, like an articulated plate harness for humans. The materials used in trauma inserts were probably assumed to be too hard for such shaping to be practical, and, in any event, if the materials used in SAPI and similar was practical for armour plate shaped to the body better than SAPI, ESAPI or XSAPI, one would expect to see it appear in such configurations, as any soldier can explain how uncomfortable the thick trauma plates that make no concessions to their shape tend to be.

But technology marches on and there were probably a lot of materials and composites that were either not considered for the article or had to be left off the table for space reasons. I don't mind adding new grades of steel to the table and if you can give me enough information on the ceramic based materials that can be moulded into form-fitting shapes for armour, I will add them to the table as well and see if such shapable ceramic works better than steel for the intended use.

*Consider that body armour may be illegal to possess for civilians, in some jurisdictions, is often illegal for felons, and is generally made from proprietory materials that may be subject to official secrets acts, especially if they have been certified or adopted by a national military. Companies that make body armour or light armoured vehicles are often regulated somewhat heavily. This would, obviously, be a problem for a cover business. By contrast, many steel alloys are available without anyone asking questions and Flash® Bainite sells their machinery and licenses their process to a wide variety of clients, most of whom are not heavily regulated by the government. Just because steel can be used as armour doesn't mean that it's subject to as much invasive scrutiny from governments as the newest developments in military issue body armour.

[safisher]

Originally Posted by Icelander

safisher (S. A. Fisher) is one of the authors of GURPS High-Tech, including the armour stats. His MA degree is in Education and he's a Technical Writer, but he also teaches defensive tactics to law enforcement personnel. It's long experience with that, as well as his service as an infantryman, that explains how he comes to have extensive knowledge of the ergonomics and use of current body armor.

My doctorate is in American History, including original research on body armor in the American Civil War. I am also a blacksmith, gunsmith, and armorer -- have a coal forge and a gas forge in my workshop. I can forge weld and make Damascus steel. (I'm currently building a flintlock from scratch to make a blunderbuss; my previous gun project was building an AR-15 for my brother.) I run a blacksmithing club for the university; my colleagues include engineering professors, with, of course, very elaborate labs and shops.

But more important than any of this to this discussion is an understanding of GURPS and how to relate it to historical or contemporary armor. The kinds of questions gamers ask of material experts, like Douglas Cole, are not easily answered by non-gamers. You need to understand the game and the benchmark assumptions the game has made. This is the part that people trying to answer these questions often struggle with the most. GURPS has its own kind of intellectual systems to master.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by safisher

My doctorate is in American History, including original research on body armor in the American Civil War.

In light of this new information, you will be pestered relentlessly until agreeing to write one or more of GURPS Hot Spots: American Civil War, GURPS Hot Spots: Go West! Frontier Adventure 1820-1890, GURPS Loadouts: Cowboys and Indians or GURPS Loadouts: From Bushwhackers and Jayhawkers to Johnnie Reb and Billy Yank. :-)

Originally Posted by safisher

I am also a blacksmith, gunsmith, and armorer -- have a coal forge and a gas forge in my workshop. I can forge weld and make Damascus steel. (I'm currently building a flintlock from scratch to make a blunderbuss; my previous gun project was building an AR-15 for my brother.) I run a blacksmithing club for the university; my colleagues include engineering professors, with, of course, very elaborate labs and shops.

From experience with forging armour, exactly which modern fabrication methods would be clear improvements over classic TL4 to TL5 methods?

That is, what parts of making a harness of Gothic plate (or something similar) can you do unequivocally better with the kind of high quality, but perhaps not massive, facbricating or AM machines that would be part of a workshop sized for about 3-5 people, but with a budget of $500,000 or so for all the tools and equipment?

What modern manufacturing method would yield similar results as forging a particular piece of armour, but be much easier and faster?

We've been over the maximum performance of modern materials and I think I have a pretty good idea about how to stat them out in GURPS, based on the data I've gotten. But I still have to figure out how the armour would be built.

There are definitely practical limits as to the hardness and toughness of steel armour that can be made in a classical blacksmith's forge, with period methods. So, when we want to exceed these limits, we're going to be making the armour using some more modern construction method, even though we want it to look as close to a hand-made plate harness by a master armouorer as humanly possible.

Our team consists of a classical armourer, a mechanical engineer, a highly skilled technician (machinist-fabricator) with experience as a US Army machinist (MOS 44E), working at the Mobile Part Hospital in Kuwait, and maybe a couple of eager young graduate students of materials science, materials engineering and/or metallurgy, who are available for consultation and part-time work. We also have as many mundane machinists and mechanics as we want, with skill 8-13 for most of them. We probably wouldn't want anyone who isn't among the best, most reliable people at the cover businesses and the vehicle fleet of the cartel to be anywhere near this, so we'd be looking at skill 12-15 in Machinist and Mechanic (Automobile and Heavy Wheeled) and skill 10-13 in Armoury (Vehicle Armour) and/or Blacksmithing.

There is also a chief mechanic who has skill 14+ at a lot of skills having to do with fixing police cars with little in the way of resources (so he made a lot of spare parts) and coming up with improvised ways to discreetly armour trucks or hiding a smuggling compartment in various vehicles. Say Machinist 14+, Mechanic (Automobile) 15+, Merchant 14+, Scrounging 16+ and maybe good Blacksmithing if you need it for advanced welding and forging of primitive armour plates. Probably a point or two in Metallurgy by now, too.

If necessary, work can be done in the massive facility used to custom modify combat vehicles for the CT cartel. But Vargas would prefer that this is only done if some very large machine, impractical to install in a 'home' workshop (still easily the size of a four car garage), is required for a given method of construction or at a certain stage in making the armour.

One method that they will try is building the armour with AM, by printing various steel alloys and then trying to transform either the outer surface or the whole thickness into flash bainite. This will either make for the best armour of anything they try or it will be beyond their technical capabilities and remain their elusive goal, with various armours with imperfections from failed attempts to use flash bainite with compound steel armour made with AM.

But what were they trying before they got any tools to perform the flash bainite process?

What is the late TL8 equivalent to the blacksmith's forge for a fairly small custom workshop?

If you have a beautiful hand-made suit of plate armour that Vyacheslav Lunov made in 2012-2013, but you know that even with his very hard work at hardening it in a TL4 forge, it won't provide enough protection, how do you go about trying to duplicate it as closely as possible with manufacturing methods that are quicker, easier, but turn out an equally fine product (maybe even using harder steels or other materials)?

Is this when you turn to AM? Or do you use simpler, more reliable and more familiar CNC machines, at least first?

What other modern construction methods sounds viable for steel alloys that are more protective than RHA steel?

Obviously, no matter what you did, you have a device large enough to fit a full suit of armour into for micrometer precise measurements and making digital design files.

Also, let's say that some of the technicians there want to make some extra money by making HEMA/HMB/SCA-legal armour for their friends. Not necessarily using any expensive materials, though if it's not that expensive to run the breastplate through flash bainite, they might do it. Just DR 3-5 armour for the limbs and maybe DR 4-7 for the torso, pauldrons and head. Not 100% coverage, avoid complex articulation or restrictive joint coverage and rather have gaps to be covered with flexible armour around the back of the knee, elbow, wrist, palm and maybe even part of groin/Abdomen.

It would be good if this looked at least a little like real armour, though they are not going to be spending months to get the right look. Just something they can make from regular steel, using digital design files (which may have been streamlined, dropping any flourishes that add time or complexity) and as easily and fast as possible.

What technology would they be using to make these?

Originally Posted by safisher

But more important than any of this to this discussion is an understanding of GURPS and how to relate it to historical or contemporary armor. The kinds of questions gamers ask of material experts, like Douglas Cole, are not easily answered by non-gamers. You need to understand the game and the benchmark assumptions the game has made. This is the part that people trying to answer these questions often struggle with the most. GURPS has its own kind of intellectual systems to master.

Very true.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Icelander

What is the late TL8 equivalent to the blacksmith's forge for a fairly small custom workshop?

At late TL8, a blacksmith's forge can be relatively small and gas powered (particularly a sword forge, not as relevant for this). A forge the size of a traditional smiths forge can reach much higher temperatures, by using modern fuels and electric forced air circulation.

A TL8 blacksmith can use a mechanized hammer - much of the work of shaping can be done with relatively little ST and (importantly) FP loss, meaning that larger and more ambitious projects can be undertaken, and completed in less time.

A TL8 blacksmith has access to powered grindstones operating at speeds a TL 4 blacksmith could only dream about, and since they're powered, the smith can use this technique longer than ever before. Or just grind shapes out of blocks of steel, if the whim takes them - but more likely they would use things like welders and cutting machines to do this sort of cutting, which isn't particularly available to a TL 4 smith.

At the edges of TL8 blacksmithing, you start bleeding into a machine shop, with drill presses and so forth.

These are TL8 hammers, forges, anvils, chisels, grindstones, drills, and buffing rags. I'm not sure any of them give skill bonuses but they do offset penalties from various kinds of things (some will offset haste penalties on specific steps, and most prevent penalties that accumulate from FP loss). Some enable projects with materials you could never work with at TL 4.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Bruno

At late TL8, a blacksmith's forge can be relatively small and gas powered (particularly a sword forge, not as relevant for this). A forge the size of a traditional smiths forge can reach much higher temperatures, by using modern fuels and electric forced air circulation.

A TL8 blacksmith can use a mechanized hammer - much of the work of shaping can be done with relatively little ST and (importantly) FP loss, meaning that larger and more ambitious projects can be undertaken, and completed in less time.

A TL8 blacksmith has access to powered grindstones operating at speeds a TL 4 blacksmith could only dream about, and since they're powered, the smith can use this technique longer than ever before. Or just grind shapes out of blocks of steel, if the whim takes them - but more likely they would use things like welders and cutting machines to do this sort of cutting, which isn't particularly available to a TL 4 smith.

What kind of professionals would have Blacksmith/TL8 in the modern world?

A lot of things are still made from steel, but a lot of them seem to be made with automated processes that rely on Computer Operation, Computer Programming, Engineering, Machinist and some less skilled people who perform repetative tasks where there would otherwise be bottle-necks. Also some preventive maintainence and repair of the machines that actually perform the work, probably Mechanic in some cases.

Does anyone at a steel mill or any place doing steelworking need Blacksmith/TL8?

Does almost everyone? If it's confined to specialists, who are those specialists?

Would you use it as the base skill for welding? Do welders who make simple things from sheet metal have it?*

What skill do most of the people who work in a factory making something out of steel have?

Some Professional Skill that is not Blacksmith, like Professional Skill (Assembly Line Worker)? Or Machinist? A required specialty of Mechanic? An optional specialty of Blacksmith or Mechanic?

Basically, if you want people who'll have a good background to pick up the practical aspects of, and preferably decent defaults for, Armoury (Body Armour and Vehicular Armour)/TL8, where do you go to find them?

*The closest I get to having even a glimpse of personal experience of steelworking are a couple of years as a watchman on board a freezer trawler when it was in port, doing unskilled work in connection to repairs and rebuilding in dry dock and a summer working at a place where we would weld such massive pieces as replacement bulkheads, hatches and other simple metal things required on ships.

Originally Posted by Bruno

At the edges of TL8 blacksmithing, you start bleeding into a machine shop, with drill presses and so forth.

I should hope that a lavishly appointed workshop for the research, development, design and eventual production of the dream armour for a wealthy drub baron, with a budget of up to $500,000 for buying everything they'll need in the way of tools, equipment, machines and materials, should bleed into the capabilities of a machine shop.

Originally Posted by Bruno

These are TL8 hammers, forges, anvils, chisels, grindstones, drills, and buffing rags. I'm not sure any of them give skill bonuses but they do offset penalties from various kinds of things (some will offset haste penalties on specific steps, and most prevent penalties that accumulate from FP loss). Some enable projects with materials you could never work with at TL 4.

Indeed.

What kind of tools would an armourer be likely to use with the hardest, toughest steel alloys that could be shaped into armour that still looked TL4-ish?

Laser welding, maybe. What would you use to shape the hardest tool steels? Or any other high hardness applications where you need shapes more complex than flat sheets?