[Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

As noted in other threads about one of my current campaigns, my PCs are trapped in a section of London's East End in 1888. They were attending a wake at a fairly substantial town house on Whitechapel High Street, an island of quiet luxury just a minute's walk from squalid misery in the side streets around, when everything changed and strangeness reigned.

Some unimaginable catastrophe took place on the afternoon of Friday of 2nd November, 1888. First, the streets were enveloped in choking, thick fog, excessive even for Victorian London. Strange creatures roamed the fog and many things, living and unliving, were twisted all out of recognition. When night fell, the fog abated for a short time around midnight, showing that the very stars were altered, with most of them blinked out of existence and only a few constellations shining brightly. All who saw them were disquieted, but those savvy to occult significance were even more worried, as the stars formed clear symbols for all the worst decans of Hermetic astrology.

The strange creatures and twisted survivors out on the streets do not seem to be eager to penetrate the sanctums of home and hearth, where families inhabit a dwelling they have made their own. Houses of worship and holy ground seem to give them pause as well, particularly if the faithful and their ministers are around to add their prayers to the sanctity of the ground. Anyone walking the streets or staying in inns, doss houses, taverns or other ground not counting as home, however, is prey to the monsters outside.

The worst gangs of armed criminals roam fairly freely, the dangers of monsters and mutation of their bodies being outweighed by the chance of loot. Some of the less reckless or more civil-minded among East End's criminal fraternity have banded together with other survivors for mutual protection, however, even taking refuge in churches and subjecting to the discipline of priests and churchwardens.

It has now been around 36 hours since the catastrophe. There are no news of anywhere to the north of Bethnal Green Road and the survivors that the PCs have spoken with have rarely any direct knowledge of what is happening even a block north of Whitechapel and Aldgate High Street. The PCs themselves have scouted south, to find that the Thames is not the Thames and that whatever is beyond the dark and terrifying waters of this new river, it is not London. In any case, strange grey men patrol around the railways around the defunct Minories Stations and beyond that, there is a ragged army of criminals and foreigners who have taken over the Royal Mint and are besieging the London Tower.

Walking west Aldgate High Street seems to cause some misdirection or memory loss, with a few survivors who have gone there having come back from the east, claiming that they found themselves coming down Whitechapel Road. The stories they tell of the London Hospital add to the terror every survivor feels at the thought of going further east than where Whitechapel High Street turns into Whitechapel Road.

This means that the PCs and whatever survivors they have collected together in the St. Botolph's church by Aldgate station (near Mitre Square and Butchers' Row), at the corner where Houndsditch and the Minories meet Aldgate High Street, now live in a section of the East End which is for all practical purposes bounded in all directions:

• By a two to three block zone north of Aldgate and Whitechapel High.
• By Fenchurch Street Terminal/Station to the west.
• By the ruins of the burned St. Mary's Church on Whitechapel High Street / Whitechapel Road to the east.
• By the railway tracks at that run past the closed Minories Station (currently Victoria Rail Depot / Royal Mint Street Depot).

PCs being PCs, the party has determined to sally out of their island of (relative) safety at the church to prevent a mass human sacrifice by whatever mysterious occult overlords appear to be in control of the army of criminals by the Royal Mint and the Tower of London.

One of the PCs, Col. H.E. Wilkinson, has rooms near the Royal Mint where he keeps his expedition gear and is confident that his gun cabinet will furnish adequate means to tackle any foe. The others have some captured weapons, melee and ranged, and they have managed to arm a few refugees from a gun cabinet in the town house, as well as shotguns and pistols that an armed band of kidnappers working for the villains was carrying.

More arms are urgently needed, however. The citizens' militias that are springing up among such groups as the allegiance of patriotic and civic minded criminals with the Anglican churchwardens of St. Botolph's church, Jews of the Great Synagogue, the German Catholics in Whitechapel and the Irish Catholics of Father MacManus' congregation cannot go unarmed as they patrol the streets and send out foraging expeditions to bring back supplies.

Also, the player of Father MacManus has asked Reza Aisenstadt, the wife of Jacob Aisenstadt, the respected kosher butcher of Butchers' Row in Aldgate, to sew him some armour out of butcher's aprons. He wants a thick inner layer of tough leather and then he wants to protect his chest and back with something metal, wrapping the final product in another layer of leather.

I had thought that finding some iron or steel chains, wrapping them tightly around the Chest hit location and linking them together with some small metal links or even nails that are bent for the purpose could answer.

The total weight of the armour can be around 60 lbs. It does not need to cover the legs, other than the very top of the thighs that will naturally be covered if some protection for the Abdomen and Groin is provided with an apron that hangs down below groin level. Wrapped chains around the forearms would be good too, in order to be able to parry knives and swords.

I expect that as layered armour, it will result in a DX penalty, but the player does not want more than -1 DX. The outer layer of leather might therefore be Light Leather or perhaps count as integral in the layer of metal, as it is merely meant to provide a material to sew the metal reinforcing into place.

Here is what armament the four PCs are currently carrying. There are about a dozen survivors at St. Botolph's church who wouldn't be completely useless with a firearm, but haven't got one yet. Among the congregation of the Great Synagogue, who are also the people who live around Aldgate, there are also several dozens who could use firearms if some were acquired. The PCs and teams of survivors in foraging parties must therefore scour the area for weapons, armour and shields as well as food, water, medical supplies and other supplies. This post discusses the kind of threats that foraging parties most often face, along with what that means for their armour requirements.

This post is about what self-defence weapons one could expect to find lying around. I also had some thoughts on nearby police stations.

1) What weapons can I expect to be found in this area of London's East End in 1888?

--- 1a) Where would one find them?

---- 1b) Would immigrants from Germany, Russia, Ukraine or Poland be likely to own any firearms? What about those of them who are veterans of a European military?

--- 1c) Is there any place near Aldgate High Street where you could expect to find ammunition? Are there gun stores in the East End?

2) Are there any blacksmith shops or foundries within the area specified in 1888?*

--- 2a) Assuming there are, what is the nearest area with one to the St. Botolph's Church in Aldgate?

--- 2b) How much could be done to improvise weapons and armour from the typical contents of a foundry or blacksmith's shop in 2-3 hours?

3) What are reasonable GURPS stats for Father MacManus' proposed armour, assuming that he finds chain of various thickness and something to link the chains together and that Reza Aisenstadt is a fine seamstress who has a lot of leather and protective leather aprons available to her?

--- 3a) Could the sewing be done in an hour, two or three or would it inevitably take longer? She'd be starting from clothing that already counts as armour; leather butcher's aprons, layering them and together to make armour and then sewing an outside covering on to keep the chains in place.

*I have period maps, but they do not specify types of shops. Someone who lives in London or is familiar with its history, particularly East End's history, might know where there is a street where blacksmiths traditionally worked there or about any foundries that might have been founded in the Victorian era, but survived into the 20th century.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

A wide assortment of knives and cudgels, as well as various occupational tools that can be easily adapted to combat, including but not limited to hammers, shovels, picks, axes and hooks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Icelander (Post 1850191) --- 1a) Where would one find them?

Primarily in businesses, as well as in the hands of people who are prone to using them on others (notably knives and cudgels).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Icelander (Post 1850191) ---- 1b) Would immigrants from Germany, Russia, Ukraine or Poland be likely to own any firearms? What about those of them who are veterans of a European military?

Possibly; by this era, veterans are unlikely to have owned their own weapons or be officially permitted to take them home, but some do anyway. Also, there's the possibility of weapons used in some less official conflict, which will often be obsolescent, even to flintlock muskets.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Icelander (Post 1850191) --- 1c) Is there any place near Aldgate High Street where you could expect to find ammunition? Are there gun stores in the East End?

Probably not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Icelander (Post 1850191) 2) Are there any blacksmith shops or foundries within the area specified in 1888?*

Almost certainly; I don't know about foundries, but there were small smithies, farriers, and the like scattered throughout the East End.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Icelander (Post 1850191) --- 2a) Assuming there are, what is the nearest area with one to the St. Botolph's Church in Aldgate?

Can't help you there; I'd go with GM fiat.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Icelander (Post 1850191) --- 2b) How much could be done to improvise weapons and armour from the typical contents of a foundry or blacksmith's shop in 2-3 hours?

Depends on how improvised you're talking about; taking some sheet iron and cutting it to roughly the right size is pretty quick, anything more fitted/complex is going to be harder.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Icelander (Post 1850191) --- 3a) Could the sewing be done in an hour, two or three or would it inevitably take longer? She'd be starting from clothing that already counts as armour; leather butcher's aprons, layering them and together to make armour and then sewing an outside covering on to keep the chains in place.

Per my husband, who is a tailor, what you're describing would take the better part of a full day, even if MacManus and some others are available to do some of the donkey work for Mrs. Eisenstadt. If the Eisenstadts have any daughters who have learned from their mother and can work in parallel, you might be able to cut it down to 12 or so hours, but not less than that.


*I have period maps, but they do not specify types of shops. Someone who lives in London or is familiar with its history, particularly East End's history, might know where there is a street where blacksmiths traditionally worked there or about any foundries that might have been founded in the Victorian era, but survived into the 20th century.[/QUOTE]

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Yes. A decided lack of firearms.

Yes, indeed, the first armed people that formed the nucleous of resistance to monsters, apart form the PCs, were public-minded criminals who did not wish to see their working girls, johns, neighbours, customers and clientale murdered.

Would railway stations or warehouses have any possibility for firearms or ammunition? Presumably the military uses railways to move weapons and ammo...

Also, what are the London Commercial Sale Rooms west of Mark Lane, extending to Mincing Lane? They purport to be for the public sale of colonial produce, but what does that actually entail? What is located there?

Would you find it plausible that I'd posit an old-fashioned farrier and blacksmith on Aldgate High Street?

And that I'd have a smaller shop run by a more modern and forward-looking German Jewish immigrant in the north part of the Minories?

Well, while later on there may indeed be time for more proper smithing, at the present, the PCs have only some 2-5* hours to prepare for a raid on a literal army of criminals and other unsavoury characters at the Royal Mint, where they are holding almost a hundred women meant for sacrifice at midnight.

They may be able to take some stout survivors who have the proper experience and skills with them, especially if they are able to provide more arms and armour to the citizens' defence teams who stay behind to defend the more helpless refugees.

At the very least, it would be good if the dozen or so people they take into battle have some armour against knives and perhaps improvised polearms. At best, chest protection that will stop shotgun pellets or small pistols would be wonderful.

*Depending on how little time they intend to give themselves for the actual fighting.

Mrs. Aisenstadt has six sons, four daughters and three daughters-in-law, not to mention some dozen or so nieces or nieces-by-marriage. All can sew and many of them make part of their living by it. One of her elder sons has a leather goods store that is next to the butcher store of her husband and his wife is very good at working with leather, almost as good at the senior Mrs. Aisenstadt herself.

There are also more than sixty female refugees in St. Botolph's church (out of some one hundred), as well as some two hundred female Jewish ones (out of almost five hundred). Most of the Jewish women can sew and despite 'prostitute' being the most common profession among the Anglicans survivors from Whitechapel, there are not a few among them who can sew.

Father MacManus asks for his armour at around 4 o'clock in the day. Of course, it is still Sabbath at that time, but given that this is a matter of life-and-death, Mrs. Aisenstadt, at least, is inclined to interpret the matter leniently and start work immediately, not waiting for two more hours for it to officially end.

The other PCs have all left for their various tasks before 8 o'clock and it would be best if Father MacManus could leave too. If absolutely necessary, he can start out at 9 o'clock, but absolutely no later.

What could he reasonably expect to have finished in that time? Remember, it is okay if the final product gives -1 DX and it does not have to be pretty or comfortable for long periods. We were aiming for 60 lbs. of total weight, but assuming that some good metal chains or other ways to protect the chest area are found, I think the player would actually be okay with 100 lbs. if that means that his chest armour can stand up to pistol and shotgun fire.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Presumably that depends on the weight of leather, the quality of fit, and the quality of stitching. Taking leather sheets, making holes in them with an awl, wrapping it around the torso, and lacing it together with heavy cord shouldn't be too time consuming (though simply cutting any material suitable for armor is going to be quite time consuming). If you want to shape it so it actually has good coverage and fits well, it's a lot bigger task.

However, I would suggest forgetting about general improvised armor, other than heavy clothing (DR 1 vs cutting) and instead constructing improvised shields.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

I beleive that those are stored in military depots, with rail spurs, but I could be mistaken.
Produce generally refers to plant-based foodstuffs, and crops generally. In 1888, you'll probably be seeing a lot of tea, spices, and such from India.
Yes to both.
Given the available hands and resources described, that's probably enough time to rough-cut a pair of sheet-iron rectangles to be strapped on front and back of the torso. Since you've got 2+ blacksmiths, the other shop can probably slap up some bracers for you out of chains and iron bars; they'll be heavy, and they'll chafe like mad, but for the short term that won't matter, and they will turn knife cuts and stop things with teeth savaging your forearms, which appears to be what you're after. That'll also save your seamstresses some work, and with that many hands, you can definitely put together a sort of basic cuirass. Sew two aprons together back-to back, put a big pocket on each one and slide some sheet iron in, put iron rods down the existing pockets in the skirts, and you've got something near as good as what Ned Kelly wore. It'll stop knives and hand weapons, and most pistol rounds, although I wouldn't bet on it against a good rifle. Say probably DR ~5, with a roll of 6 on 1d bypassing the armor on the chest and a roll of 5-6 bypassing the skirt, in both cases leaving only the DR 1 from the leather (Most of my books are still packed, so I haven't got a comparison handy).

More time-consuming than you might think, actually.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Yes, but they are most unlikely to have left them parked in railway sidings in a city overnight, on grounds of both safety and theft. Commercial manufacture of military weapons was a substantial industry in Birmingham, but the gun-makers of London were selling sporting arms to the wealthy, and weren't based in your area.
Likely colonial produce, apart from tea and spices, would be fabrics, artworks and similar geegaws. The UK did not import arms from its colonies until things got desperate during WWI; exporting to them was much more the idea.
More likely in a side-street off it.

Armour, Shields and Expected Threats
 

The player is resigned that there will be gaps in coverage along the sides, covered only by, at most DR 1* leather used to connect together the two thicker areas of layered aprons. Also, fit will be as good at it can be in 3-5 hours, not as good as actual purpose-made leather armour could be.

Is there any reason why 30+ lbs. of wrapped chains around the chest area would not be practical armour, in particular if a seamstress is available to make a leather undergarment (and any cloth needed) and sew a leather covering above?

How much DR could that give? Is treating it as Cheap Heavy Mail with the Banded option reasonable or too generous?

Are there any better options, in the timeframe that Father MacManus has? Assuming that a foundry and an ironmonger's shop are both nearby.

No doubt there will be some improvised shields, but those do not go too well with the most effective weapons that the survivors have available, i.e. shotguns and rifles. Also, they require some training to use alongside most of the effective improvised weapons, such as polearms, mauls, axes and such.

I imagine that fixing knives to poles will be an eary priority for refugees with some military knowledge unable to find enough firearms. Skill with a bayonet is fairly transferable to spears, bills and glaives and the wide variety of bladed instruments available will give plenty of polearm heads.

On the other hand, anyone who proposes to leave his home or the safety of holy ground, for example members of the foraging parties, will have to contend with a lot of threats that do crushing, cutting or impaling damage. Crushing and cutting is probably most common; usually 1d-5 cut to 1d-3 cut from flesh-eating rats and pigeons, crazed pecking fowl and chickens, but with 1d-2 cut and up to 1d+1 cut or more being far too possible in the case of horribly twisted feral cats and larger fowl, carrion eating wild dogs, demonic pigs escaped from slaughterhouses and even stranger things.

Some of the criminals and other unfortunates who roam the streets have grown monstrous teeth and claws and even spiked stingers; with 1d+1 cut or 1d imp being not uncommon damage from them. Criminals who lack such natural weaponry usually carry razors, knives, cudgels, hammers and cleavers, doing anywhere from 1d-3 cut to 2d cut and 1d to 2d+1 cr. There are also twisted horse-beasts with tentacles or glowing eyes, most of them with huge hungry mouths full of teeth. Those do 2d+ cut and 3d+ crushing.

The organised groups of kidnappers who appear to be working for the villains tend to have firearms, with most carrying pistols that do 1d pi- to 2d pi+, but some having stolen shotguns doing 1d-3 pi- up to 2d-1 pi. There are a few with old breech-loading muskets with Snider conversions (3d+2 pi++) or even older muzzle-loaders (4d pi+ to 4d+2 pi++), but there are probably not going to be any practical armour designs that matter against such weaponry.

Just to survive against the most common threats of feral and twisted animals, however, DR 1-2 armour for the legs is extremely practical. Criminals with claws or melee weapons make that same DR 1-2 elsewhere also a very desirable acquisition. If one could have DR 3+ over vital areas, it would not be a bad idea, either.

Particularly for a ST 20 PC about to deliberately head into danger, against all sorts of hostile creatures.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Yes, that is correct.

I was thinking that if any UK-made weapons were going to be shipped from the docks in London on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, they might have been moved by rail to a station near the docks. If they were there by 3 o'clock Friday, they could not have been moved out of the area again, because the boundaries of the affected area do not allow anyone to exit into the rest of the world.

How likely is it that a shipment of weapons or ammunition, either military/governmental or commercial*, would be shipped from the London Docks?

And would such weapons or ammunition be moved by rail to the Fenchurch Station first or would they be off-loaded from a train somewhere else?

*For example, something for sale in the colonies or perhaps being ordered by a British company engaged in Empire Building, such as the Imperial British East Africa Company or the British South Africa Company (newly incorporated at this time, not yet the recipient of a Royal charter).

I was thinking that if it was a huge building full of very valuable tea and spices, not to mention potentially silk and artworks (or even diamonds and gold), it might have armed guards.

Very good.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Military weapons are stored there, yes, but the question is, does any weaponry or ammunition go through the London docks? London is a huge port and the colonies probably buy a lot of ammunition and firearms from England.

Anything that was at Fenchurch Station, Shadwell Station or the Royal Mint Street Depot by 3 o'clock Friday would be still somewhere in the area. Could this include a shipment of firearms or ammunition?

That, of course, would be wonderful. And it might even be possible to wrap chains around the sheet-iron rectangles, in order to increase DR and cover weakspots at the sides. That could count as Cheap Mail-and-Plates.

Just so. And they won't chafe if he wears cotton padding under thick leather long gloves.

Now, now, Dan Howard says that New Kelly's armour was DR 12+. I doubt that Father MacManus can get there in the time he has.

The design sounds good, though. Perhaps just put iron rods down for the front pocket, because it sounds awkward to have flapping stuff behind you and painful to fall on.

This sounds good. Depending on how thick and heavy we want to go, wrapping the chest in chains remains as an option.

What about helmets? Aside from a leather skull cap with DR 1*, which can probably be obtained, are there any other possibilities? Does a policeman's helmet give any useful DR?

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

A large shipment of military arms is unlikely, simply because they didn't happen all the time. Some sporting arms are positively likely, but finding them will be a problem: the docks and warehouses are large.

There were train lines onto the major docks and to warehouses, owing to the lack of vehicles more capable than horse-drawn carts to move goods by road.

I don't think Fenchurch Street Station has ever been somewhere goods were transhipped on a large scale. It is a passenger terminus and doesn't have much room for a goods yard.

If so, not many of them, and they'll have revolvers.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

It's unlikely that any of your armor will be much more than DR 1*.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Why?

Granted that it will be heavy and uncomfortable, is there any reason to assume that sheet iron encased in leather would not give more DR than that? Or steel chains and iron bars wrapped around a character between two layers of heavy leather?

Carrying sufficient armour into battle to protect against military weapons at TL5-6 is not all that practical, but that's not really because DR 5+ is so difficult to achieve.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

I would think it because cloth/cloth like armor isn't that effective (There a few exceptions, Like the silk vest interwoven with steel plates.)

I well however state that you can likely "Enchant" armour if you got an magic system worked out for that.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Because that's the DR of the base material (leather) you're using for armor, and you aren't going to get something usable and multi-layered in the time frame you have.
Sheet iron has more DR than that, but you aren't making brigandine in your desired time scale.
It's unlikely that you can work DR 5 metal plates with hand tools, at least in the time you have available. Typical 20 gauge steel (e.g. auto body panels) is probably DR 2; I don't know what would be present at your time period, but in general anything with high DR is only going to be worked with heavy industrial machinery or large amounts of time.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Yes, but there has been no suggestion that anyone expects to get decent DR from cloth armour. There is a lot of metal in 1888 London and it is likely that the best improvised armour consists of some of that metal sewn into a leather or cloth backing. If there is not enough time to sew it carefully into it, just putting a sheet of metal into a pre-existing pocket, like that of a butcher's apron, seems like it would give more DR than just light or medium leather on its own.

Well, as it happens, the only spellcaster that is on the PCs' side (that they know of) is Reggie Woodsworth. And he just walked into the Royal Mint, converted into the headquarters and lair of the villains, in the guise of Arthur Machen*. Reggie has been received with icy politeness and is now sitting down for a nice pre-sacrifice dinner with the apparent leader of the army of criminals besieging the Tower of London, one Atreus.**

*Whom the villains appear to wish very much to sacrifice at midnight in the Tower of London.
**Six feet tall, athletic and military in bearing, wears clothing fit for a gentleman under a military great coat, carries a sword and revolver with the air of one accustomed to their use and wears a metal mask that hides his head. Once he sits down to eat, it becomes apparent that the smooth and unmarked lower part of the mask can be removed from hinges attaching it to the upper part, leaving a domino half-mask whose design suggests a tiger's eyes. This reveals a magnificent mustache and a masculine jawline, framing a thin-lipped cruel mouth.

Atreus is tanned enough to suggest colonial service and his bearing suggests Army, Navy or perhaps some form of colonial police. There is also something about him remniscient of those hard, ruthless and resourceful men employed by Whitehall and the Colonial Office for the rougher kinds of secret diplomacy. Reggie is nearly certain that although Atreus takes great care to display the manners, speech and demeanour of a gentleman, his origins are a deal more humble than he'd like. All in all, there is something about his genteel and disciplined jack-booted ferocity that strikes Reggie as almost Prussian, though no trace of a foreign accent can be determined.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

In a few hours, it is possible to layer a lot of paper over your chest area to get DR 4+. And that's the worst case, if you don't have anything better than paper.

Obviously, you can't get good DR over anything that must retain flexibility and mobility, that's what you need actual Armoury skill and long construction times for, but covering the front and back of the Chest or the forearms and shins with some rigid materials, ideally iron or steel, sewed into a backing of leather or cloth doesn't require any great feats of craftsmanship.

No one is making new plates of any size. The intent is to find pre-existing metal objects, preferably a sheet about the size of a human chest, and sew it into a pocket on a butcher's apron. Other suggestions are using chains, bars and whatever is usually found in an ironmonger's shop to provide DR, sewing something around it to keep it in place.

Obviously, individual pockets for a lot of smaller plates is never going to happen in a few hours, but protecting a good part of the frontal Chest hit location doesn't require a design that complex.

And, again, while 30+ lbs. of chains wrapped over heavy leather backing around the Chest are probably much worse than purpose-made armour, I can't imagine that they'd grant only DR 1*.

There probably ought to be DR 1 plates or platters that it might be possible to layer, but hopefully there are thicker metal plates of useful size around a foundry or ironmonger that are used for something at the late 19th century. Didn't Victorian people use iron sheets for strengthening carriages, reinforce doors or something?

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Sure, but in the end, you're looking for materials that can be shaped in a couple of hours with light industrial tools, and 'DR' and 'light industrial tools' are incompatible goals.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Its not impossible that someone might have a shirt of butted mail, a steel helmet, or a thick quilted jacket hanging in their study or parlour. There were plenty of people wearing and fighting in these in 1888. Sadly the South Kensington Museum with its Indian and Oriental arms and armour is in the wrong district, and so are the townhouses of rich collectors.

Edit: One of the colonials has compiled a report on the weapons carried by the infamous Tongs of San Francisco.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

A clawfoot bathtub, carefully smashed, could provide the plating ...
And instead of chain and nails, why not use cutlery ? Heavy spoons are easy to find by the dozen,and are properly shaped to be sewn on in an overlapping 'scale brigandine' way...
You will end up looking and moving like a dalek, however.

An inverness coat or a coachman buff coat, with thick leather panels sewn on would offer good protection against bite and claws. Adding metal bits and I am not sure the protection afforded would be worth the DX penalty.

You may also ask around for families with a ancestor who fought at Waterloo... There must be some cuirass lying around carefully polished.

This is french, but I imagine the equivalent existed on the other side.
http://www.musee-armee.fr/fileadmin/...se-fauveau.pdf

Celjabba

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Since this is one of the rougher parts of London, would the police stations have any firearms?

Perhaps you could have some improvised tower shields/pavises that some of the stronger guys can shove with, a second rank can use spears/polearms, and a third rank can use firearms/bows/crossbows to shoot the primary threats.

You should be able to improvise molotovs and such with common items, if nothing else you should find lamp oil.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Probably already looted but if there are any pawnshops you should find weapons there, sloppy looters might have grabbed guns but missed boxes of ammo under the counter. Any place with a commercial kitchen should provide cleavers and large knives.

Police Stations
 

I've been trying to find what police stations there are within the affected area and it seems that only a few smaller satellite stations are there. They'll have a few pocket revolvers available to policemen on night patrol upon request, but no other weapons. Edit: The number of revolvers at each station is somewhere between six and twelve, with twelve being more likely for large stations near where the Ripper scare is taking place in 1888.

Anyone who has precise information on the police stations in Whitechapel in 1888 would be a wonderful help. I'm sure this information can be found among copious Ripperology files online, but I still haven't found a one-stop resource.

Edit: I've done better now and can confidently state that the Leman Street station, HQ for Division H, is within the affected area. It is likely that the Spitalfield station on Commercial Street and the Arbour Square and Shadwell stations are within the area too, but there are no reliable news of those areas, so it is unclear what their status is. Division H consists in its entirety of almost 700 constables, detectives, sergeants and officers, and it has been reinforced with extra uniformed constables and civilians sworn in to aid in keeping the peace. The Bishopsgate station of the City of London Police is also most probably within the affected area and very close to the St. Botolph's church where the PCs have set up with other survivors, but so far, only a few policemen who were out on patrol have been seen and no one the PCs spoke with has made contact with any police station.

I cannot find any source for it, but I would expect that Leman Street Station and maybe the Bishopsgate station of the City of London Police might have a supply of extra cudgels and perhaps even other Victorian Metropolitan Police weapons, such as swords and Webley M.P. revolvers. I don't know about rifles with bayonets, however. Sir Charles Warren, the Commissioner, had been accused of militarising the police and responding excessively to riots, and it is true that newspaper accounts of the time described and pictured the government response to riots on Pall Mall and at Trafalgar Square with policemen driving the crowd at bayonet point, but I just don't know if the Met really had access to such military weapons.

The Bishopsgate station of the City of London Police is located next to the City of London Police Hospital, so it would be very useful to send an expedition up Houndsditch and two blocks up Bishopsgate Street, to establish contact. There might be anywhere from 15-60 cops there, but any able bodied man who doesn't shy away from conflict is a help.

The lack of training in such methods would be a serious drawback. Even military veterans or rough-and-ready characters who have sought their fortunes on the various frontiers of the Empire will have no training and little experience with shield wall tactics.

Seasoned street-fighers might be familiar with the concept, but I should think that ordered ranks and shoving with shields would be much rarer than two packs of men with bludgeons coming at one another along a street.

Oil, strong spirits and other flammable items are not hard to find.

I've been wondering if explosives could be obtained. Some dynamite would be welcomed by the PCs. They've made common cause with a Fenian revolutionary since drifted into a criminal lifestyle, still in possession of five sticks of dynamite, and are eager for more.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Depending on the business in the area you may find odds and ends to make improvised explosives, don't forget things like carbide lamps and all the street gas powered lights, with a bit of time, and care, you maybe able to make local gas pockets before the pressure drops too low.

Shield wall tactics, true; but some of these guys are probably rugby players, while not ideal, they ought to have some basic idea of what to do from the scrum.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Making it a particularly useful weapon is a skill check (though not an especially difficult one) -- making something that burns is no challenge, making something that doesn't burn the thrower, stays lit when thrown, ignites the spilled material after it breaks, and sticks to the target instead of running off into the street requires at least some skill.
It wouldn't be especially surprising to have either a construction company or a (likely illegal) fireworks factory in the area.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Not any better than a leather skull cap; police helmets were made of cork at that time, and while it might be good for an extra point of DR vs Crushing attacks, it's not really serious armor. It's not impossible that a well-prepared hoodlum might have a steel skullcap, though.


Not proper brigandine, but the half-assed coat of plates I described above is better than leather alone, and a lot better than nothing.



At least one of the smiths should have a set of bench shears, which can be used to cut sheet metal in straight lines, which is all that's needed.
Boiler plate should answer perfectly well for the purpose, and be easily available.




Things that can be 'smashed' conveniently tend to make poor armor.
Because that will take far, far more time than they have available, and provide less protection than previous suggestions.
Nothing you could do to an inverness coat would make useful armour out of it, and nothing they could probably do to a buff coat in the time they have would make it better armor than it is already. (Also, afaik, neither coachmen nor anyone else in this era were prone to wearing buff coats, they being a piece of military apparel some centuries out of date at that time.)
[QUOTE=Celjabba;1850340]
You may also ask around for families with a ancestor who fought at Waterloo... There must be some cuirass lying around carefully polished.

This is french, but I imagine the equivalent existed on the other side.
http://www.musee-armee.fr/fileadmin/...se-fauveau.pdf
The likelihood of anyone in the East End having Cuirassiers in their ancestry is basically nil; those troops come from the gentry, in the main.


There are probably few if any guns in an East End pawnshop at this time.
That involves a lot more work (and hence time) than they have available; just organizing something like that could easily occupy 2 hours, let alone actually doing it. Mrs. Eisenstadt and her daughters are already accustomed to working together, and have got all the non metallic materials immediately to hand. Also, the focus is on armor because one of the PCs wants some, and hasn't got any.
I wouldn't waste the blacksmith's time on weapons of any sort; practically every tradesman's already got better means of doing someone harm than that ready to hand. If spears are wanted, you may as well save time and attatch existing knives to poles directly.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

What kind of DR would boiler plate that is capable of being cut by bench shears have?

Would it be DR 3?

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

As noted, the East End, in particular this poor and benighted area of the East End, is an unlikely place to find people who own heirloom armour or collect historical artifacts of any kind. That is not to say that there are not some middle class homes along the Whitechapel High Street and Aldgate High Street (as opposed along the side alleys and streets), but they are very much a minority of the population and, in any case, probably not the sort of middle class families who'd have inherited much of anything from an ancestor from the gentry.

If they ever came into possession of museum armour, foreign suits of armour taken as trophies or any valuable memorabilia of Waterloo, they'll have likely sold it to someone wealthier than they are, in order to afford more immediately useful things. The more prosperous citizens of Whitechapel are tradesmen and hard workers who feed large families and invest spare capital in their businesses, not the idle rich and decadent who have the luxury to collect valuable objects as a hobby.

Wouldn't wearing several leather coats always tend to make useful armour, in the sense that it would give at least DR 1 and possibly more if you could accept a lot of weight and some DX penalties?

Given enough time, taking shoe, boot or even saddle leather and layering it over the chest would make for useful armour, in the absence of something metal. As several posters have noted, however, sewing metal protection into leather, canvas or cloth will likely tbe the best solution, assuming that the PCs have time for something like that.

Yes, mutatis mutandis, I expect that the Cockney, Irish and Jewish gangs of Whitechapel will carry something like this. Sailors at the Docklands will be fond of knives and there will be rough Irish and Lascar sailors or dockworkers with plenty of useful melee weapons at hand.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Icelander wanted armor plate to insert in a chest pocket, probably bulletproof if horribly heavy, and a bathtub could be a good source of it.
Of course, wrought iron or steel sheet is preferable to cast iron, but finding and cutting it will be harder.
I am certainly not advocating making any kind of fitted armor with it, just armor plates.

My mistake, I used the wrong name.
Whatever you name the full-lenght leather and fur coat a coachmen wear under the london rain at that time is what I mean. It should provide a convenient basis for the kind of armor Icelander described. Strong enough not to tear under the weight of reinforcement, and ample enough that it won't restrict mobility when made semi-rigid by thick leather addon.


Celjabba

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

I was surprised to see that so many arrested Chinese carried revolvers given the cost of one in the 1870s.

Victorians did like a parlour full of knick-nacks, and I am not sure that a shirt of Persian mail or a native cavalryman's jacket was worth much in England in 1888. Egerton mentions that after the Sudan War all the bazaars in Cairo were full of swords and muskets and quilted coat priced as junk or tourist kitsch depending on what the seller thought they could get away with. But its not my period ...

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

AFAICT, a good set of bench shears you'd be looking at rolled plate iron up to ~1/4' (6 mm) thick, possibly a little thicker if you've a good set. Per the Basic Set, that puts you at DR 10-12 for the parts actually covered by the plate. There's a reason I compared it to Ned Kelley's suit. He used ploughshares rather than boiler plate, but he was in the Australian bush, not the world's preeminent industrial city.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

I'm not at all certain what one would find in a pawnshop in 1888, apart from the obvious 'shonky shops' that many residents no doubt get their clothings from.

An illegal firearms factory and/or a match factory would indeed yield useful stuff in the form of black powder and phosphorous. Both are probable, albeit most likely not on Aldgate High Street or Whitechapel High Street, but rather further north or south, in the smaller side streets.

As for how to make improvised explosives and incendiaries from street lights or common industrial products in workshops and smaller factories, I invite suggestions for methods and for attendant game stats.

What kind of explosive or incendiary device could you make by tapping street lights or carbide lamps?

How could you use yellow phosphorous?

What else goes boom or burns fiercely and would be easy to find in Whitechapel workshops?

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

A 2'X2' sheet (Which is enough to cover most of the chest area) of 1/4" wrought iron is going to weigh around 40 lbs, so that's 80 lbs for back and breast. You can probably keep the bracers and iron down the skirts below 20 lbs, though, so that'll keep you under your 100 lb upper limit.

PCs' current armament
 

It strikes me that the following exchange from the campaign thread is more properly belonging to this thread:
Well, in the case of Col. H. E. Wilkinson, there is a whole thread devoted to his gun cabinet. Col. Wilkinson still hasn't been able to get to his rooms on Cartwright Street to claim his full arsenal, but fortunately, the adventure began at the wake of an old service acquintance who had a gun cabinet stocked with military and sporting weapons acquired during his own extensive colonial service. From there, Col. Wilkinson was able to obtain a Greener Elephant Rifle in 8-bore, a couple of Martini-Henry rifles (gone to arm refugees) and a shiny new-fangled Lebel rifle from the continent, among many other goodies that he has distributed among the survivors at St. Botolph's church. He has mostly relied on the Lebel and the Greener 8-bore double, with his own cavalry saber and Webley pistol for close quarters.

Father MacManus has a massive silver-plated cross that is not only a powerful holy object of considerable antiquity, but also surprisingly well-balanced for use as a bludgeon. This has been his primary weapon. He has also been provided with salvaged firearms; a 10-gauge single-barrel bush shotgun with a fairly short barrel, loaded with 'lion shot', i.e. nine big pellets and a heavy powder charge, and an American Smith & Wesson No. 3 revolver in .44 Russian. He has gotten good service from his heavy cross and been reasonably satisfied with the 10-gauge, but has not fired the S&W revolver.

During early sessions, he strapped to his front a heavy oak plate from a table to serve as improvised armour, as well as using a stool as a shield, but he now plans to obtain some better improvised armour, as per thread. He is also considering having Otto Hirschsohn, a Jewish ironmonger and craftsman in the Minories, cut down the barrel of the 10-gauge and cut the stock off, so that he can more easily carry it as a sidearm. Two Best Quality Greener 12-gauge sporting doubles retrieved from a gentleman's gun cabinet might also be destined for similar treatment, if only to remove the choke from the long barrels.

Reginand St. John Woodsworth III is not much of a gunfighter, but he carries a beautiful sword-stick, as a fashion statement if nothing more. He also possesses a deringer-type gun, as well as a pocket pistol for self-protection. Both are custom-made and extremely fancy, but not much use for an actual firefight. Then again, neither is Reggie Wordsworth. So far, his contribution to combat has been mostly the use of ritual magic he has prepared beforehand, but he has on two or three occasions fired a Webley No. 1 R.I.C. in .442 RIC and/or a Lancaster Howdah pistol in .476 Enfield, usually with no more effect than startling foes into seeking cover.

George 'the Teapot' Frankton does not like firearms, but he has a collection of sharp knives concealed on his person, one long, heavy and intimidating blade with a knuckleduster built into the grip, an honest-to-God butcher's cleaver, a knobbed cudgel with a concealed spike at the other end and for all the other PCs know, razors built into various articles of clothing. He also seems to have metal plates sewed into his clothing over vital areas.

A street urchin by the name of Jimbo Moss has been adopted by the PCs and provided with some weapons for self-protection. His diminiutive size somewhat limits the weapons he can wield, but if ferocity could make up for weighing (at the very most) 95 lbs. sopping wet, Jimbo would carry two elephant guns, one in each hand. Little Jimbo used an old Allen pepperbox with little success during initial encounters, but with patient instruction, Col. Wilkinson has managed to teach him to fire a Adams MkIII in .450 Adams with reasonable accuracy (i.e. might hit a barn). Now, it only remains to teach him when not to fire, as he has already grazed two PCs with friendly fire during desperate melees.

Common self-defence firearms in the affected area
 

The same for this post:
Indeed so.

Though I note that the Docklands would not be an unreasonable place to find all sorts of foreign-made merchandise, including the Apache pistol (more properly, the Dolne Revolver Combine). The primary problem is that it is not very useful. The pinfire cartridges are hardly powerful enough for self-defence at any range over a couple of feet, there is in any case no mechanism to aim them for longer shots, the folding dagger blade is ridiculously short and as a knuckleduster, it is encumbered by a plethora of moving parts. Finally, the all-things-to-all-men design means that it is actually harder to conceal than a proper pocket pistol, a proper dagger and a proper knuckleduster.

One thing to keep in mind, however, is that carrying a pistol for self-defence was not only socially acceptable, it was encouraged by society. Any man who had occasion to walk rough areas at night and who could afford one would probably have a pocket pistol.

The problem with finding a lot of them in the East End is the part about being able to afford one. I do find some references to 'cheap German revolvers' in period sources, but have so far been unable to find what weapons those might be. The German revolers in High-Tech: Adventure Guns are military models, chambered for a heavy round and not at all inexpensive. Indeed, most of the weapons I find there are worth several month's of full time work pay for a typical East End worker and thus unsuitable for ownership except by the prosperous among them. I am very desirous to find whether there were pocket pistols in smaller calibers than .442 RIC or .450 Adams, which might be less expensive and more common.

I do think that many of the survivors, especially those male survivors who were merely passing through Whitechapel at the time of the catastrophe, will carry some form of self-defence weapon. Let us not forget that at this precise moment in time, the prosperous citizens of the area were banding together into vigilante bands to hunt 'Saucy Jack' and I imagine that most everyone connected to a Vigilance Committee would go about with a pocket pistol, sword stick, a stout cudgel or a knife. Even if less than 5% of men outside were carrying a pistol, the brutal self-selection inherent in weeding out those not capable of surviving an attack by a stray cat twisted into a demonic flesh-eating creature, or perhaps a gaggle of rats, would insure that those armed in some fashion were more likely to reach sanctuary in a church.

However, few will have carried spare ammunition and most will have already fired their weapons in order to kill or scare away feral creatures or other survivors, twisted or crazed through some mystical means. There will thus be plenty of empty pocket pistols, but those are no good for defenders unless more ammunition can be found.

Good point. I note that in Adventure Guns, I can find evidence that the British Bulldog was widely copied in Belgium, Germany, France, US and elsewhere. Many would be in .450 Centerfire, as well as .320 Centerfire and .380 Centerfire near the turn of the century, but I don't know if there were earlier rimfire versions and what chamberings those used. There exists some Continental 8mm revolver cartridge that would use same or similar GURPS stats as .32 CF, but is not interchangable with it, but I'm not sure whether foreign copies of Bulldogs that were sold in England would be chambered for it.

It is not noted in HT:AG that the S&W No. 1 in .22 Short was copied by others than the initial maker, but I am confident that this gun was, indeed, copied in Belgium and elsewhere. How common it was, however, I do not know. It might be that .22 Short was a common pocket pistol round, but if so, I have not yet found evidence lending direct support to such a contention.

I understand that British double-barreled boxlock pocket pistols in a variety of calibers would be typical cheap self-defence weapons. I imagine that .320 CF and .380 CF would have been somewhat popular, in addition to the more effective calibers of .44 Short Rimfire, .442 Enfield, .442 RIC, .450 Adams, .455 Webley or .476 Enfield. The 24-bore (or the .577 Boxer) would be the apogee of the self-defence calibers, unless one were to carry a howdah pistol in .577 Snider.

The Colt Model 1849 Pocket in .31 Caplock would be a very desirable pocket pistol in the previous generation and if it was copied in Europe (and perhaps existed in cartridge conversions), it might still be around as a cheap alternative to modern weapons. In much the same way, pepperbox revolvers like the Allen that the PCs have already found are fairly likely to be a cheap alternative to more modern double-action revolvers. I don't know the names of any prolific manufacturer selling on the English market, however.

The S&W No. 2 Army in .32 Short and the Colt .41 House Pistol ('Cloverleaf') would both be very practical self-defence weapons if they were easily available in London and/or copied in Europe. I don't know if they were, however, or who made them if they were copied.

The bigger Lefaucheux Mle1854 and S&W No. 3 revolvers are also noted in HT:AG as having been very commonly copied in Belgium, Germany and elsewhere. They could be carried by those who desire something bigger than a pocket gun.

If they were reasonably common, copies of cartridge conversions for the Adams, Colt No. 5 ('Paterson') and Colt Navy might be reasonable weapons for poor-ish, but protection-minded sailors or vagabonds near the dock to have acess to. Alas, I have no information on whether Belgian, French, German or British gunsmiths made cheaper copies of these that would be available as out-of-date and economical arms in the late 19th century. The nearest I can figure are the various calibers available for the Tranter revolver, which came in a variety of them, including .36, .44 and .50. They were made in caplock, rimfire and centerfire versions, but I'm not sure about the common calibers for the latter two.

Father MacManus' Proposed Suit of Improvised Monster-Hunting Armour
 

Ok, so even if we assume that the nearest sheet iron is not as thick as all that and that it would take hours to cut in any case, it is not unreasonable to suppose that DR 6 sheet iron might be available in a convenient size to cover the Chest(F) area*.

So a leather coat (and some cloth padding) might be the underlayer for the armour, with a pocket (probably taken from a butcher's apron) sewed on in the front to hold a piece of sheet iron to cover the upper chest area. Then you might wrap some combination of light and heavy chains around the chest area (wrapping some light chains up over the shoulders to help hold this), perhaps securing them together with rivets, bars, bent nails or whatever else you have time to do. Finally, finish up with quick-and-dirty sewing to secure two leather butchers' aprons as the outer layer, front and back.

Add long and thick leather gloves that you find somewhere and wrap the forearms in chains, with some bars or rivets inserted on the outside edge. Wear high leather boots, as thick as possible, and if you have time, have someone sew iron bars into the shins and other leather reinforcements anywhere you can.

The result will take forever to take off, result in at least -1 DX and weight between 60-100 lbs., but should be quite protective. DR 2 (3 against cut) or so for the shins and forearms, DR 3+ for the Chest area and DR 8+ for part of the frontal Chest hit location. Most of the rest would be DR 1*.

*I think that Father MacManus is much more likely to need frontal armour than anything else, with his typically selfless and aggressive approach whenever innocents are in danger.

Re: Common self-defence firearms in the affected area
 

My main source is Hogg and Walters Pistols of the World, and .22 Short and .22 LR were indeed common calibres for pocket pistols, along with .320 CF and .38 CF. Lots of these guns were in pretty feeble chamberings, because their purpose was intimidation, rather than actual shooting, and low cost was important in the competitive market.
This doesn't seem to have been a brand-driven market. The same guns, from the same factories, were available via many distributors who put their own names on them. Consider the 1990s market in cheap-and-nasty personal computers; it seems to have been like that.

Re: Common self-defence firearms in the affected area
 

The .22 LR is a brand-new cartridge in 1888 (it dates from 1887), but .22 Short and .22 Long would be common enough. There were several types of .32 and .380 black powder cartridges, but I'm afraid that I don't know which of them would be popular in England in 1888.

I do have a feeling that the .320 CF and .380 CF were fairly newish, with rimfire cartridges probably used in cheaper, older models of pocket pistols. There was a .320 European (or .320 Bulldog) that appears to have been introduced in 1870 specifically for the Webley Bulldog, which is either another name for, identical to .320 CF, or at least uses the same GURPS stats.

Do you have any French or German small bore black powder loadings that date to the 1870s in your books?

Very true.

Yes, that fits with what I have been seeing online.

Re: Father MacManus' Proposed Suit of Improvised Monster-Hunting Armour
 

It's actually just possible that Mr. Hirschsohn has got one of the new arc welders (on the market for a couple years at this point), which will make that type of fastening go a lot faster. It won't be fun for the good father, and it will make taking it off and even bigger nightmare, but the leather and padding should keep him from taking actual damage while being welded into his suit. He might have some minor burns on exposed skin from sparks, but unless Hirschsohn screws up significantly it shouldn't be enough to make up even 1 HP of actual damage. Thick leather gauntlets will be part of several flavors of tradesman's gear, and shouldn't be hard to locate at all.

Re: Father MacManus' Proposed Suit of Improvised Monster-Hunting Armour
 

Heh.

Because of prior injuries* that threathened to incapacitate the good Father, Reggie Woodsworth has subjected him to a ritual that makes him incapable of feeling pain.**

*Sustained in breaking a window and falling to the street, tumbling from a carriage as it crashed dramatically and a cut to the cheek and a stab to the stomach.
**Immunity to Pain (High Pain Threshold + immunity to any degree of pain) mitigated by the Disadvantage Numb.

Re: Common self-defence firearms in the affected area
 

The nomenclature was not well established. Barnes has 320 Revolver originating in 1870 for a Webley revolver, and used in other British and European pocket revolvers. It "served as the inspiration for" the 32 Short Colt, and is apparently nearly identical in performance. I think this is the same as the 320 European/Bulldog, and I suspect this may be the same as the 320 CF, since there's nothing else in Barnes that looks especially plausible.

In much the same way, the 380 Revolver was also created for a Webley revolver in 1868-70, and was copied as the 38 Short Colt. Performance is apparently about the same as 38 S&W.

The rimfire that seems most plausible is the 32 Long, introduced by S&W in 1861, and used in lots of revolver brands including Webley. There's also the 32 Short, used in lots of revolvers, but with no European brands noted, along with the 38 short and 38 long rimfires, ditto.
not a one, sadly.

Re: Common self-defence firearms in the affected area
 

I doubt I'll break anything if I assume similar stats.

HT:AG lists a 7x15mmR Lefaucheux, an 8x9mmR Gaulois, a 7.6x29mmR Mauser and a 9x25mmR Mauser. No idea how common any of them were at the time.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

This fits my thinking. I expect that pole weapons would be most broadly useful for anyone who is not armed with firearms. Improvised bombs and incendiaries are also very good.

I don't know if rugby experience will be common, given that the area of East End in question is populated nearly exclusively with immigrant European Jews, Germans, Poles, (internal migrant) Irish and sailors from a variety of nations. Any born Englishmen there will be poor Cockneys more likely to play real football than rugby.

Remember, football is a gentleman's game played by thugs and rugby is a thug's game played by gentlemen.

Experience in street-fighting as teenagers will be fairly widespread among a certain segment of the survivors. Mr. Frankton's Swell Coves are used to fighting the Nichols gang, the Lascars and Chinese of Limehouse and the nasty John Bull gang, the Faugh-a-Ballers and the Dosset Street Rats. Not to mention drunk sailors, soldiers and slumming gentlemen.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Shield walls;

The lack of training was why I did not assign them weapons, in the SCA this made the learning curve much faster, and this was hobbyists, real world be killed or worse will help even more. Note that the opposition is equally untrained, equipment poorly handled is better than none.

Gas and carbide;

If there are depressions or other low points in the local topography you can get a gas pocket that you can light when the opposition is drawn into them, my Dad worked on a minor gas line leak/explosion when he was a fireman in L.A. while unlikely to do significant physical damage to anyone, it may shake the nerves of unprepared troops. The carbide was intended to make the molotovs burn hotter, and to be harder to extinguish.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

This may be a few years off for your purposes, but football and rugby were often played by the same team. Often in the discussion of setting up a game one of the decisions that had to be made was which rules to use.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Just some random stuff.

I'd guess that a certain player is wishing that he'd taken you up on the offer of that Maxim now.

Some of those very inexpensive Bulldog revolvers were very slow to reload. As to availability, even the inexpensive ones were still a lot of money to many people. I seem to remember reading in some reference book that the low end ones were running around one pound sterling or so, but don't hold me to that. It would be no big deal to find one and a box of cartridges in the desk of numerous gentlemen's study.

Still really wish I was playing in this game, it looks to be a lot of fun and right down my alley.

Edit - Oh, and CF originally stood for Central Fire, not Center Fire. I'm not sure when it changed over.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

If I'm one of the leaders of the rabble, I want to win this battle, not work over the learning curve for the next one. I'm not going to saddle my boys down with complex weapons when simple ones will do, and I'm not going to hand them weapon suites which need 3X training when I can hand them ones they can use in basic fashions.

I'm also, especially when it comes to newbies, a big fan of strategic offense, tactical defense. I don't want my newbies with cudgel-and-shield charging the other guy, I want them with 7' spears behind an improvised barricade letting THEM charge US, while some friendly folks lob incendiaries down at them from overhead windows. Finest kind.

Errr ... what did you think I was talking about, if not armor?

First off, I guess you're not all that knowledgeable about low-tech sewing: even if no mechanical sewing machines are available (and in that decade, they probably would be), making just one of those strip-tubes would take a hack seamstress -- or sailor -- about five minutes. (Hell, it doesn't need to be put together with quilting stitches -- I could do it in five minutes.) A full-scale "hauberk" out of them, if you've got a half-dozen working, might take a half-hour, tops. Preparations? Grab some lengths of chain, grab some canvas.

It takes a whole hell of a lot less time than cutting up sections of boiler plate, it'd be much more flexible, and a good deal less likely to crack the ribs of the wearer, which imperfectly fitted bouncing 20-40 lb sections of boiler plate are altogether too likely to do.

The Military Situation for Survivors
 

Well, most of the survivors are not going to be fighting any organised opposition in battles. They take refugee on holy ground and teams of foragers who leave this relative safety in order to gather supplies must face threats in skirmishes. Those threats are most often animalistic feral beasts, but may be other survivors twisted into beast-like humanoid forms, who may retain their human intelligence. It is against the feral small beasts and twisted criminals with claws and fangs that improvised armour, shields and polearms would be most useful.

The army of criminals that are trying to take the Tower of London number in the hundreds* and no refugees at any of the churches in the neighbourhood are going to go anywhere near the Tower or the several strongpoints around it now in criminal hands. It appears that it is not merely a disorganised band of criminals, but is being commanded by an inner core of mercenaries, revolutionaries and organised crime figures, and armed with several hundred breech-loaded military rifles, an unknown amount of dynamite and some stranger weapons. Artillery might not be out of the question, certainly there have been some muffled explosions echoing through the fog during the day.

There are also beast-men and strange monstrosities among the criminals and there is reason to believe that clay statues that have recently appeared in the Royal Mint are golem-like creatures that will fight for them.

The survivors near Aldgate have been troubled by a flying column of criminals seeking to kidnap women for unknown, but surely nefarious purposes. Those were armed with a mixture of hand weapons, pistols, shotguns and one or two military rifles. As soon as some veterans among the newly immigrated Russian Jews discharged old muskets (and the odd Berdan) and pistols at them, however, the criminals left to seek easier prey. They might return, however, and the Anglican survivors in St. Botolph's only have two rifles, several pistols and several shotguns.

Forming a shield wall against such foes is ill-advised, however, as if they return they will probably bring a sizable contingent of armed men.


*PCs have only seen just under two hundred around the west side of the Royal Mint and manning barricades on King Street, but judging from noise coming from elsewhere and what they've heard criminals speaking about among themselves, there are hundreds more on Great Tower Hill and Little Tower Hill, reinforcements resting in several buildings around the Royal Mint and the Upper East Smithfield and more reinforcements coming from the Docklands.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Yeah, I think that the often repeated admonishment to gentlemen to not go unarmed east of the Aldgate, as all the hardened burglars and other criminals were now carrying weapons, might not be as hyperbolic as it first seemed. The newspapers quoted policemen saying that burglars and robbers 'usually had revolvers in their pockets' and many commentators were concerned about the influx of 'cheap German revolvers' into the hands of poor immigrants, Irish and Cockneys. Not that it was illegal to own a firearm without registration or licence at the time, though there was some (fairly recent at the time) legislation that required a gun licence for shooting game.

Yes, I'll grant that at 12s to £6, many of the more useful revolvers in HT:AG are out of the price range of the typical resident of the East End. On the other hand, anyone not actually living on the street had to have an income enough over 20s* to be able to afford food as well. The very, very bottom of the income scale would be the lowest wage recorded for a match girl, which was 6s a week, but a more typical salary for adult women working in a match factory would be closer to 10s per week and would even reach £30 in annual earnings for full time around this time.

In period sources, early social workers and budding social scientists say that prostitutes claimed an income of £4-£10 per week, though that might be a good week. Even a broken-down 'unfortunate' in her forties, like 'Long Liz' Stride (Elizabeth Stride, neé Gustafsdottir), while she was living hand-to-mouth and dodging landlords at doss houses to spend her pennies on gin, could afford to pay a fine of 5s rather than spend 5 days in lock-up. This suggests that the income for even a slow working day was more than a shilling.

Men appear to have valued their time even higher, with a fairly high proportion of East End men given a choice between a fine and a few days of lock-up electing to pay up, with the apparent value being around £2 (40s or GURPS $ 120) per week that they did not have to spend in lock-up. This would be unskilled workers who committed very minor crimes, i.e. public drunkenness, stealing a mug from a tavern, unruly behaviour, etc. Women accused of running a brothel appear to have cheerfully paid £2 or more to get out immediately their case was heard and stop losing money, even if the alternative was to add only a few days to the few days they had already been locked up.

This means that if it was perceived as important enough, many working class people in the East End, and even those among the quasi-criminal poor who were doing well. could save up for a self-defence weapon worth anything from a few day's labours to maybe more than a month's earnings. This would translate into a bludgeon worth 1s-2s, through knives at 5s to 10s to a small pistol worth maybe £2 at the very most (GURPS $240), with the sweet spot for self-defence pistols likely being around 6s to 15s (GURPS $72 to $180).

That would not only buy a cheap boxlock deringer-type double in a small caliber, it might be enough for a wide range of revolvers, both Cheap in GURPS terms and ones that were cheaper than name-brands, but still counted as Good in GURPS terms. According to HT:AG, GURPS $130 buys you a copy of a Bulldog revolver in a full-power .45 chambering and that means that pretty much any smaller chambering using a similar frame, made by similar manufacturers, is going to be even cheaper.

*The price of 30 nights at a doss house.

I absolutely would not object to it if a player wanted to find something like this. A use of Wildcard points for a skill which covered Scrounging, Merchant, Connoisseur (Weapons), Expert Skill (Military Science), Current Affairs (Whitechapel or People) or Area Knowledge (Whitechapel) would have done it. So would a use of Serendipity. Even a good skill check against some of the above skills, assuming reasonable time to search.

But given that an overwhelming majority of the people who live there were not born there, usually come from other countries and live, on average, with each family sleeping seven to a room, not many of them have ancestors who did military service for the United Kingdom, brought back souveniers and had space to store them. Some Cockneys might have fought, of course, but given that they are subject to the same massive overcrowding, they are not likely to have held on to many mementoes that require a parlour to put up.

There are some middle class houses on the Aldgate and Whitechapel High Streets, usually built before the area was quite so crowded with recent immigrants, but most families who inherited such houses have moved somewhere more congenial to their middle class values and are renting out all their rooms to Irish or foreign immigrant families.

Ironically, the most likely house to find all sorts of strange mementoes is the house that the PCs have spent most of their time in during the campaign, the town house of Dr. Stanley (deceased [twice]). He bought a house on the Whitechapel High Street and instead of making alterations to use it as a rental property for working class families, he had the insides renovated as a fairly grand town house, with servants' quarters, wine cellar, library, dining room, smoking room, study, parlour and all sorts of other Victorian non-sense. It is not clear why he was so keen on making his home amidst the squalor of Whitechapel, but he lived there ever since he got back from the Afghan War.

In Dr. Stanley's house, there were many mementoes of years in Africa, including the Sudan, as well as some sub-Saharan items. He had war clubs, spears, knives, swords and muskets around. There might well be some armour as well. The PCs didn't stay around in the trophy room to check, in light of the gibbering tentacle monkeys, the maid with a rhino's head, the Cockney gargoyle, the minotaur, the giant spiders and so forth.

Tools for metalworking
 

I intend for Mr. Hirschsohn to be a metalworker and tinkerer from an industrial center in Germany, emigrated to London in the early 1880s, and finding a position as an assistant in an established ironmongery in the Minories, Solomon Ironmongers. Otto Hirschsohn ended up marrying Mary Solomon, Joseph Solomon's daughter, and became a junior partner in the ironmongery. After the old Joe passed away last year, the shop belongs to Otto Hirschsohn, but he has not changed much in the outer store.

Otto Hirschsohn is very interested in new technology and inventions, but his store is primarily an ironmongery, not a full foundry. He will have all the tools necessary to make repairs and perform some tinkering in the back, but he won't have anything for industrial scale production or even, I imagine, the equivalent of a blacksmith's foundry where everything must be made by hand, instead of being bought in and at most assembled there.

There is a small blacksmith's workshop at the farrier's some 300 feet away, but the smith there is old and traditional.

What does this imply in terms of available tools?

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Yes, a brand-new Maxim gun would certainly be of considerable use to Col. Wilkinson right about now.

On the other hand, considering the extreme danger that Jimbo Moss, the street urchin turned gunbearer for the Colonel, has managed to pose to everyone around him while only armed with cast-off pistols argues powerfully that no one should ever expose that fierce hooligan to something with the destructive power of a Maxim gun.

One shudders to imagine what happens once he sees dynamite used. Sure as the Queen's bloomers are royal unmentionables that budding Tamurlene in miniature will do his very damnedest to contrive to steal some of the remaining sticks and try his hand at exploding something or someone.

A pound sterling is actually within the means of middle class and lower middle class inhabitants of these and neighbouring areas, so it is far from implausible that many of those caught out on the street would have one.

If a Bulldog in .44 costs around 20s it is not implausible that smaller, less powerful single-action revolvers in .22, .32 and .38 are available for 12s to 15s or so and cheap boxlock 'derringer' type guns are less than 10s. This means that it is economically entirely feasible that even streetwalkers and pickpockest might be able to afford one if they saved up.

Whether they often did, however, I do not know. But I note that a gun would likely be available at prices comparable to fines that many poor citizens of the East End, habitual criminals or not, paid out of hand to escape a few days in lock-up. In 1888, especially with the Ripper-scare going on, it might not be all that surprising to see many of the area's more successful criminal fraternity packing a pocket pistol, instead of, or in addition to, their knives.

The last session was really fun and the next session promises to be even more so, given that two PCs have come up with plans that fit their characters admirably and promise to allow some very period-appropriate scenarios.

I am especially happy that Reggie Woodsworth disguised himself as a potential sacrifice victim and turned himself in to the villains. His dinner and post-dinner session at cards with Atreus, the commander of the villainous army, promises to be a wonderfully Victorian piece of interaction, all painfully polite, with subtle gradations of classism and snobbery.

Mr. Frankton's pretended betrayal of the rest of the PCs and promise to supply some thirty of his hooligans (along with four kidnapped virgins) to Atreus for his attack on the Tower also promises some great fun. The PCs are hoping they can convince some thirty of the survivors to form an armed band* that can accompany them to the rescue attempt, turning on the villains at a strategic moment to enable the PCs to rescue the intended sacrifices.

*Which also makes it rather imperative that they find arms for some thirty men.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Shouldn't thirty men come with sixty arms, for free?

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

This is definitely a situation where PK's Cheap Firearms house rule would be applicable. I had forgotten that the normal Cheap modifier for equipment (High-Tech p10) isn't allowed for clothing, armour or weapons.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Seriously though, I wonder why you couldn't glue together paper, or soak leather in wax to harden it. Maybe even wax paper, for that matter, or cloth.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Figuring out how to do that well is probably the work of weeks (paper mache is not good armor). Doing it at all still probably takes longer than they have available.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

All you have to do is fold paper. Like, newspapers? Take a news paper, spread it out, then start folding it. I can't recall off hand how many folds or layers that is, but if it's about a half inch thick, it will stop lower powered small arms and buckshot. A .22 is stoped by about an inch of non folded paper, with .32 penetrating a whopping 1 and 1/8th of an inch. 8" of paper is atleast DR 15, as it reliably stops M-16 rounds at 20yds, while 9mm penetrates around 7". So 1" of paper might be DR 2, Rigid. If it gets wet it's worthless, and it will tear up over multiple hits. But it's cheap, dirty and nasty.

They teach people how to do it in prison, the native americans used shields made from paper and paper armor, the Chinese used paper armor. The Colonel, with his diverse knowledge of colonials, could very well have learned about paper armor at some point. The Criminal types might know some dirty trick where some bloke folded a paper and had it in his breastpocket, and it saved his life from a stabbing.

The glue or wax isn't a necessity, as it mostly a sealant for paper. It's an expedient way of layering cloth without a lot of time to be spent sewing it up. Cut it in rough panels, glue it, layer, glue, layer, glue, put weights on it, wait, rivet it together. Well within the 5 hour window proposed.

There's also likely to be metal rubbish bins around somewhere, and those can be cut by the iron workers and riveted into shoddy armor. Or, presuambly, taking the chains and cutting them into sections, then threading barstock through them and forging a stop on the barstock so it doesn't come out of the chains. You just created crude plate armor. I would ditch the idea of "wrapping" it around the torso, as that's implausible without a complicated shoulder harness. A DR3 plate covering the torso is probably doable for 20lbs and a bad it. It's not great, but it's not bad.

Paper, however, has the advantage of being readily available, as well as being an essentially non-skilled task: you need to be able to fold paper in half. Depending on how big your starting paper, you might not get very big plates. But bind those together somehow(the glue is useful here, but rivets are plausible too with a leather facing on the outside), and you could make a quick and nasty buff coat that should give around DR2.

Now, it won't last long in fog or water, and prolonged beatings wil lquickly tear it apart, but it could work well against claws.

Leather is also readily available, and you can just boil it to harden it up. Boil the leather, let it dry, wear it. DR1 or DR2 is certainly within reach in hours.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

You're not going to fold inch thick realms of paper, and the gluing will take longer to dry and solidify than you have.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Re Blacksmiths: there's always the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. It casts large bells, but there'll be metal and tools in plentiful supply (and the foundries, which someone may think of a use for.)

In any case, what a great place for an encounter.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Take a newspaper, spread it out, then start folding it until you can't fold it anymore. You will probably end up with something about a half inch or so. Wrap it in cloth(well, I would use ducttape, but that's an advantage I have). That should be about DR1. If it's an inch thick, it's enough to stop a .22. That's around DR3-4 on the high end. You don't even need to fold it, honestly, though that helps. A book an inch thick will stop a .22.

This isn't something that requires a lot of brains or specialized equipment: prisoners in prison can do it with improvised tools, and it's enough to stop buckshot at decent ranges. Homeless people do it too(you can learn how to make a lot of things out of newspaper when you are homeless), and it works fine.

And I think you might be overestimating the time it takes glue to dry. Especially if you can apply pressure and heat to it. Which, you can. But like I said, the glue isn't even necessary.

I also wonder if tar paper was something in use around this time period. It's over a hundred years old, but I honestly don't know if they were using it back in the late 80s. If they were, and if you can find a store of it, I don't see any reason why you couldn't layer it sufficiently thick to provide DR 1 or 2, and it's water proof! It's MUCH more flammable, however. Well, it takes more to catch on fire, but when it goes, it stays going.

But yeah, this doesn't have to be any more complicated than folding up an 8 x 10 panel of paper, then riveting it to leather or cloth. It won't hold up for a prolonged period of time, but it is probably the easiest armor to make in the world.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

All of those are possible, especially for the foraging teams. Father MacManus, however, is a champion of the survivors who intends to go into maximum danger and feels he needs as much DR as can be arranged. He also has lots of barter available and for those among the survivors who still accept silver and gold, he has almost £80 in gold sovereigns and silver crowns and half-crowns.

Simply put, he is willing to trade a lot of valuable stuff for the best armour he can get in five hours*. And as he is ST 20 and is currently carrying less than 25 lbs. once he has shed the oak table he was using as chest armour, he can wear quite a lot of metal and leather. We had thought to aim for Light encumbrance and though he'll probably be carrying spare weapons and ammo for his friends and want to leave some room for looting, he can easily afford 60-100 lbs. of armour weight.

*Though if it could be ready in three hours, it would greatly aid the other PCs, as they could get help from the good Father with their preparations.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Well now, I'm gonna tell you like I tell customers, you can have any two of Cheap, Fast, or Good. You have five hours, right? Take a great coat, rivet plates of half inch or inch thick paper to it in strategic locations for DR 2 over most of the body.

Then rig up a breastplate from chain and barstock, and you have a nice little panoply in four or five hours.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Cheap is not much of a consideration, at least not at the scale at which reinforced leather, coats of plates and even Cheap plate is valued in GURPS. In GURPS $ terms, Father MacManus has already distributed among the survivors food, clothing and weapons worth around $5,000 if he had tried to sell them, but he never thought of demanding anything for his service to survivors. All the same, it is likely to create a sense of obligation among at least some of the survivors and some of those or their families will have useful skills or have collected items which would be useful to make armour. The good Father has also personally rescued 20 survivors from violent criminals or monstrous roamers of the streets, giving medical attention where needed. Finally, he has defended St. Botolp's church and the refugees therein from a monstrous attack, suffering some injuries in the process.

His help so far has been concentrated on the survivors at the Anglican church, because the PCs have only recently made contact with the neighbouring Great Synagogue and the Jewish survivors who have congregated there and in their homes nearby. The Jewish survivors, however, can at least see from his treatment of the Anglicans* that he's sincere in his desire to help survivors, regardless of their faith. Added to which, he has pre-existing good relations with several rabbis among the Jewish survivors and is known in the neighbourhood for instilling in his congregation values of tolerance and brotherly love towards all men, whether co-religionists or not.

Without thought of payment, several dozen Irish and Anglican survivors whom he has helped would jump to provide the good Father with any necessary assistance in girding himself for battle, especially as he's going out to rescue a group of women from the neighbourhood. The professional leatherworkers and blacksmiths among the survivors find their skills in high demand, though, and so I've had Mrs. Aisenstadt demand payment for her work and materials in kind** and I expect that Mr. Hirschsohn and Mr. Carlton (the farrier) will do the same.

Payment, however, should be easily available to Father MacManus, as he has a rainy-day store of coinage representing a year's labour for a craftsman. There are those among the survivors who do still accept silver and gold, perhaps because they can foresee a future in which precious metals remain precious, and the ca £80 possessed by Father MacManus is worth around GURPS $9,600. Buying from the enterprising souls who still accept coinage any articles of barter that leatherworkers, seamstresses and smiths desire for their work will not be a problem for the good Father.

And since he does not expect to survive the coming confrontation and only wants to make sure he lives long enough to rescue those poor women from being sacrificed by heathens, he is not likely to mourn if he had to spend all his life savings on girding his body for holy struggle. He intended the money for charity in any case and there is no charity more worthy than saving lives and souls from the ungodly.

*Who are not his congregation, as Father MacManus is a Catholic, and in any case consist of many criminals and prostitutes as well as the working poor.
**She'll take, among other things, food, more leather, tobacco and alcohol, arms for her sons and nephews and metal for armouring them.

Why use any paper at all? Even without the ironmongers and the farrier's, there are leatherworkers, saddlers, harness-makers and shoemakers who make boots, belts, saddles and harnesses a-plenty. Metal buckles, hames, horse brassers and many other pieces of metal are available, in addition to a wealth of steel and iron chains and probably a wide selection of other iron/steel objects in the ironmongers.

Gratifying, of course. Will the sides of the Chest hit location have only DR 2 or can they somehow be covered enough to give DR 3+?

Twisted and monstrous thugs retaining a semblence of their human intelligence and cunning will likely seek to claw or stab uprotected sides of the body if they see a breastplate in front.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

This is a question of bear arms and those don't grow on trees. They might be used to climb trees, but that's a different issue.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

I wouldn't hesitate to allow Cheap (Unreliable) and Cheap (Inaccurate), for around -0.2 CF to -0.4 CF each.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Paper requires no skill. Not even default, just no skill. It's probably the quickest way to get good DR with no skill at armoury. If you had the time, you could cobble up rough suits of brigindine, but I believe you stated that time is of the essence?


The barstock/chain thing can probably make a good front and back cover. You could continue the chain around the sides, but I would give reduced protection against impaling/piercing.

Well, them's the breaks. You want better armor, spend more time. I excel at cobbling kit together, but five hours is a short amount of time to get anything done. I understand you have the money to throw at it, but the real resource needed is time. And you are short on that.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

Mythbusters Ep 139

Improvised armour
 

I expect that Ten-Hut! skill of Col. Wilkinson includes knowledge of Chinese paper armour, at least to the extent that he's heard of it, and that the Criminal! skill of Mr. Frankton includes knowledge of how to use Scrounging to make improvised shank-proof prison armour from paper.

Is that also how seamstresses would make it?

Oh, Father MacManus' player also wanted a metal shield!

He could use the metal lid of a rubbish bin, couldn't he? No assembly required. What would be the stats for that? How heavy is a Victorian era rubbish bin covering? How large is it? How thick is the metal?

But, but, wrapping it around the torso looks so improvised and cool!

Also, it gives DR to the sides as well as front-and-back. Plus, the restrictions on motion provide a handy way to explain a -1 DX penalty for the entire armour, which the player had already stipulated he was fine with.

Couldn't a seamstress or ten working with some leatherworkers and a harness maker modify a horse harness in time?

Ok, we've got around a hundred women with Sewing 12+ and some two hundred with Sewing 10-11.

We've also got more than a dozen professional leatherworkers and one farrier with Smith (Iron)/TL5 at skill 15, his assistant with skill 12 and Mr. Hirschsohn with Smith (Iron) / TL6 at skill 18 and Armoury (Body Armor) / TL6 at skill 15. Mr. Hirschsohn also has a junior partner, a Mr. Levy Shteinberg, with skill 13 in Smith and skill 12 in Armoury (Body Armour).

Using a fully-stocked foundry that is unfortunately not located on the street where the survivors and the PCs are holed up now, Mr. Hirschsohn made the excellent metal plates that line the vest and bowler hat of Mr. Frankton, for a modern brigandine. That happened several years before the start of play.

Assuming that as many as possible work on Father MacManus' panoply, how many other suits of armour could they whip up in five hours? And what kinds?

Heavy boots and shinguards, maybe DR 2 leggings, ideally reinforced with metal for DR 3 vs. cut, would be perfect foraging wear. Good for the rats that go for foot bites. Forearm guards and heavy gloves are also good to avoid bites.

How heavy are the heaviest boots that are kept in stock likely to be? Those will have been scrounged immediately for the foragers and most likely improved by sewing metal stuff to them.

Re: Improvised armour
 

Sounds plausible to me. Also, if MacManus or someone has history, they might be able to recall that various nomads used rawhide and leather for armor.


Well, I don't think so. They could certainly perform the task, but I wouldn't assume they would go that route at first.

I would figure it is probably around 2-3mm of tin or aluminium, so what, DR 2-3ish? Probably around 5-10lbs at the heaviest. I would have someone rivet an armstrap and handstrap on the inside of the shield.

But doesn't improvised and cool, that is plausible, look cooler? Instead of wrapping around your torso, imagine suspending the chains over the shoulders, then running barstock through the chains to give them a rigid covering over the front and back. You are now suspending the weight from the shoulders itself, so the armor is self supporting. You can have chains link the sides if you want side armor. And yeah, it'd probably be worth atleast a -1 to DXC.

I suppose.


I think McManus's panoply(a heavy great coat with plates of paper riveted to it as the arming coat, with the chain/barstock back-and-breastplate) is probably something that could be cranked out in four hours or so.

Reinforced cloth and paper armor can probably be cranked out in a few hours per harness. That probably takes two to three seamstresses and leatherworkers.

Good heavy leather boots intended to be used by craftsmen in semi-industrial work? DR 1 and 2, flexible, is likely. Rather than harden the boots themselves, I would consider riveting plates of hardened leather.

Re: Improvised armour
 

There are many Catholic priests who are amazingly educated and erudite, being not only shepherds of souls, but also scholars of theology, history and languages. Father MacManus is the other kind. His Latin is famously incomplete, not even good enough to read the Gospels, so he relies on his painstakingly learned-by-heart catechisms. As for History, his knowledge of it is spotty and parochial.

Reggie Woodsworth, however, is a well-rounded dilettante and counts some works of anthropology and history among his eclectic study material. He has Lore! at skill 14 and Science! at 12, one or both of which I expect would cover knowing about various primitive arms and armour, though he couldn't make them himself.

I would assume that the heavy preponderance of seamstresses among the survivors means that their methods would be utilised for most of the improvised armour.

There are a lot of sewing sweatshops in the area and even those women who do not work full time in them will at minimum usually repair their husband's and childrens' clothes and often enough pick up some sewing work on the side.

Sounds good. If we're riveting stuff to the covering anyway, it might be good to layer some heavy leather, wood and canvas to it as well, to reduce the odds of weapons penetrating shield.

I don't doubt that a 25 lbs. medium shield would meet with the player's approval, especially if it gave a decent chance of stopping a pocket pistol round.

That sounds good. Any way to combine this with an actual solid piece of sheet iron as a breastplate, at the very least for the vitals?

Brilliant.

There is a near-infinite supply of cloth and canvas, given that several of the closest businesses dealt in such and most of the women there do some sewing at home to earn extra money. I imagine that heavy leather with pieces of durable canvas riveted to it will do admirably as an arming coat, with no need to mess around with paper.*

*While the teams of foragers, who will flee from armed foes, can rely on waxed paper because their threats are mostly animalistic predators, Father MacManus will at some point fight men with guns and dynamite and likely use home-made explosives made from black powder, yellow phosphorous, oil and carbide. Anything too flammable is contraindicated.

The big bottleneck are trained leatherworkers. Most of the seamstresses are used to working with cloth and only a dozen people are professionally skilled leatherworkers.

The PCs would like to arm and armour thirty people in less than six hours, hopefully less than five, and they'll only be there until MacManus' panoply is ready. Of course, the survivors themselves have had 36 hours to pull together some anti-animal armour, so heavy boots, leggings, gloves and suchlike were probably already made.

The deadline for whatever trick the PCs will pull to rescue potential sacrifices is ten o'clock, which is seven hours from the time they reached the survivors with more supplies, but the other PCs left at seven to do various PC heroic stuff. McManus really needs to be ready to go by eight or so, but it's okay if some of the other suits of armour are not ready until nine or so.

The effort for the Jewish survivors can be coordinated by Isaac Aisenstadt*, a veteran of the Imperial Russian Army who has had an interesting life and career, clearly being a respected and feared figure among the immigrants from Odessa. Mr. Frankton can also leave two of his older lieutenants among the Swell Coves there to represent his interests.

Mrs. Merrimac, the Churchwarden for St. Botolph's has also taken charge of the Anglican survivors, ruling as sole tyrant over the other churchwarden, the verger and the church committee. She approves of rescuing women, even if they are sinners, so I imagine that she will bend her considerable will toward assisting the PCs in their endeavours.

*Who will be in charge of what arms and armour the thirty men need. Actually carrying out the work will be controlled by his sister-in-law, though, as Mrs. Aisenstadt will not be gainsaid in her managment of her large tribe of daughters, nieces and daughters-in-law.

What about sewing leather or canvas pockets in front of them, so iron bars or chains can be attached to the shins in order to give better DR for the front of the leg?

I actually imagined that three or four iron bars (or any short length of metal) could be attached in a similar way to modern shinguards for association football and then light chain could be wrapped around the lower leg, attaching it with string, leather or canvas bindings or rivets.

That would give very good DR against cut, which include most claws and animal bites, giving good service against twisted feral rats, cats and dogs.

'course, it would likely give a penalty to Move, but given that foragers have to rummage around in dark warehouses and storefronts where cannibalistic rats may lurk in every shadow, it's probably worth taking every precaution against being All-Out Attack (Strong) bitten by a frenzied, suicidal attack rat the size of a terrier.

The stronger shinguards would be useful when teams of foragers would get a seconds warning from the hissing before a swarm of feral cats or a pack of attack dogs attacked them and manage to form line to defend against them, sweeping with their improvised polearms and kicking the creatures when they got near.

A fighting dog twisted into a demonic creature can reaching a biting damage of 1d or 1d+1 cut, more on an All-Out Attack (Strong). DR 3* against cut is far from excessive protection for such threats.

*Which in my houserules counts as DR 6 against many cutting attacks.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

In reality, militia were generally unarmored other than perhaps heavy cloth (DR 1 vs cutting), and they had more time to prepare than you're talking about, so I'd be highly skeptical of anything better; Verjigorm is being extremely optimistic. Getting DR 1 vs cutting is trivial. Getting more is possible, but with penalties that are likely to exceed the value of the DR unless you don't actually have to move.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

In reality, claws and teeth are very rare threats for militias and after early TL4, no armour practical for regular people matters much against military weapons. People who work with fighting dogs or other animals likely to bite often did and do have heavy leather protective boots, gloves and leggings.

Also note the difference in industrial capability at pre-gunpowder warfare eras and at TL6 in 1888 London, expressed in GURPS by an order of magnitude higher Starting Wealth.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

TL 1-3 militia also lacked substantive armor. Your main advantage is large quantities of bulk materials that don't easily make more than padding.

On reflection, if you don't mind armor that has to be assembled in place and can't be removed without a saw, the same technology used for a plaster cast might work; plaster of paris-based designs will harden within the desired time frame, can be reinforced with metal, and it's quite plausible that the required skills are present. My experience with trying to use paper is that trying to layer enough paper to have DR, without glue, will be a gigantic pain, and if you're going to use glue, fabric will dry faster.

Re: Improvised armour
 

Not aluminum. It's too early for such uses.

Re: Improvised armour
 

You are doubtless quite right. Now I'm wondering whether metal trash cans will be found at all in a poor neighbourhood like Whitechapel. Galvanized iron was fairly recent at the time and I don't know how expensive galvanized tin was.

Could actual outside rubbish bins have been a feature of posh houses, with less fortunate neighbourhoods having to make do with an untidy pile that the dustman shoveled into his cart?

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

You might find some inexpensive or obsolete firearms around there. Cheap often poorly made Continental typically Belgian copies of various revolver designs often in rimfire , were the Saturday night specials of the era and were withing the budget of some in that district

You might find old pinfire revolvers ,service arms and the occasional old sword or even a flintlock or relic weapon the like as well.

More modern cartridge guns will be scarce though. They weren't regulated but that level of poverty is its own gun control

Also coshs or life preservers as they were known (GURPS calls these blackjacks) weren't uncommon and i suspect knuckle dusters were available.

Re: [Low-Tech/High-Tech] Looting and Improvising arms and armour in Victorian London
 

[pedant]The Chinese used barkcloth armour, not paper. Barkcloth is more like felt than paper[/pedant]

Do you guys have any idea how heavy an inch thick pad of paper is? Don't bother with paper; there is plenty of iron around during the time in question. But boiler plate is useless as armour; it is made from cast iron and is way too brittle. You need plate made from wrought iron. Ned Kelly's armour was made from plough mould-boards. Armour made from scavenged iron is faster to make and a lot lighter than paper.

Re: Improvised armour
 

"Tin" as sheet metal or "tinplate" is thin wrought iron or steel dipped in tin to prevent corrosion. Actual tin, the element, is to expensive to use as a structural metal.

Galvanized metal is electro-plated with zinc, again to prevent corrosion, so galvanised tin seems unlikely.

I'm fairly doubtful that you will have metal trash cans in Whitechapel in 1888. If you do, they'll be thin, about 0.5mm so DR1-2 at best. Any lids would be stiffened with indents, but this won't stand up to serious bashing.

Wrought iron for improvised armour
 

Yes, it did feel rather odd that in a society so iron-rich that fences and lamp posts were made out of it*, one would make improvised armour from paper instead of scavenging metal.

*Albeit cast iron.

Where may wrought iron be found in the 1888s East End?

Fences and railings, as well as lamp posts, are made from cast iron.

There is an ironmonger there, with plenty of tools, spikes, nails, screws, bars and chains, likely made out of many grades of iron. Would there be any plates around?

Re: Improvised armour
 

It appears that you won't. As far as this history of the dustbin goes, metal dustbins are a 1950s technology in the UK. In the 1800s, households burned their own rubbish, and municipal waste collection, if it existed, was confined to collecting ashes.

Re: Improvised armour
 

I think that 1888 is within living memory of carts travelling the streets of London to collect organic waste, bring it to somewhere greener, and sell it to the farmers and gardeners. I have no idea what people did with things which neither burned nor rotted and could not be sold on.