Low-Tech Armor with the Strength of Ten Men

[DemiBenson]

Using only LT armor (and Pyramid) and aiming for some realism, how thick could you get armor if the warrior was magically "as strong as ten men" (that is, has ST 30-33 range). Assume it's magic or divine gift, so the warrior is the size/bulk of a normal person, and not as bulky as ten men.

Note: Edited to improve the question

[Jasonft]

Also applies to ogres and giants. I very much doubt a twenty foot tall giant with ST 30 who is wearing plate only has DR 6.

[Tomsdad]

TBH I know the OP stipulated only using LT, but I'd really recommend using the Pyramid articles for armour design

Originally Posted by Jasonft

Also applies to ogres and giants. I very much doubt a twenty foot tall giant with ST 30 who is wearing plate only has DR 6.

Well maybe yes, maybe no, a twenty ft humanoid has to cover a lot of surface area!

[Culture20]

Freedom of movement will be a consideration, so joints will have to be less protected.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2a4y-KC071...as-Story-2.jpg

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Culture20

Freedom of movement will be a consideration, so joints will have to be less protected.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2a4y-KC071...as-Story-2.jpg

Yeah, I might take into account the ergonomic restrictions of thicker armour at joints, by saying some chinks are less than half DR in order to keep them ergonomically viable. But in reality we're not talking that thick.

Another factor might be armour plates of certain types may only be manufactured up to certain thickness (but well duplex plate would possible help with this).

and some armour can't be made thicker and thicker indefinitely and maintain certain characteristics e.g I think Mail can only be made so thick or dense before losing flexibility

But the reality is a human with ST30 will has a ludicrous power to weight ratio, and in real life some bits of breast plates got up to 8-9mm or so. So I think in general the answer is pretty damn thick

[Anaraxes]

RAW in Low-Tech ("Heavy Plate", p109) is to increase weight (and cost) by 50% per +1 DR.

DR is in general rated per inch of material, so by that rule in Basic (B558), doubling the thickness of armor would double the DR, and also double the weight. (You'd have to work the numbers backwards to find out how thick the starting armor was. The LT rule is assuming realistic plate armor and starting with an assumed thickness for "normal" plate to get that +1 DR = 50% increase.)

A ST 30 human has a BL 9 times that of a ST 10 human. If we assume that the proportion of BL devoted to armor remains the same, then the armor weighs 9 times as much. By the LT rule, that's +16 DR (or DR 23 if we start with the Basic "Heavy Steel Corselet"). By the Basic structure DR rule, it's 9 times the thickness (whatever that may be), so 9 times the DR, or DR 63 for that Heavy Steel Corselet.

Yes, at some point the armor becomes so thick that you start having to redesign it, as the shape becomes wrong.

I'm also assuming the ST 30 human is of normal human size. LTC2 has rules for scaling armor to different Size Modifiers, if your goal is to armor ogres or giants or Galactus.

[DemiBenson]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Yeah, I might take into account the ergonomic restrictions of thicker armour at joints, by saying some chinks are less than half DR in order to keep them ergonomically variable. But in reality we're not talking that thick.

Another factor might be armour plates of certain types may only be manufactured up to certain thickness (but well duplex plate would possible help with this).

and some armour can't be made thicker and thicker indefinitely and maintain certain characteristics e.g I think Mail can only be made so thick or dense before losing flexibility

But the reality is a human with ST30 will has a ludicrous power to weight ratio, and realty life some bits of breast plates gut up to 8-9mm so. So I think in general the answer is pretty damn thick

Any thoughts on how much less than "half"? Think there might be a maximum DR for joints instead of half?

Also, does anyone think that adding multiple layers of grand guards might be workable? It seems like it should be ok as long as you pay the cost for it; and it solves the problem of joints having too much DR, since only the base layer would be counted for joints.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

TBH I know the OP stipulated only using LT, but I'd really recommend using the Pyramid articles for armour design

Thanks for pointing that out. I edited the message to include Pyramid articles as ok. I meant only LT as opposed to Basic or UT.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by DemiBenson

Any thoughts on how much less than "half"? Think there might be a maximum DR for joints instead of half?

TBH, sorry not really. the thing is were talking about mm scale here, and well it's not like armoured limbs can flex with a full range of motion at 2mm, and suddenly you lose a significant range at 5mm just because 5 is 3 more than 2

The scales of what we're talking about are pretty different, and TBH tailoring and fitting is a bigger factor than abstract thickness. (badly tailored and fitted thin armour will restrict movement worse than well tailored and fitted thicker armour, and it not like even 1mm think plate won't restrict you if it's in the wrong place).

Basically ergonomics is complicated and trying to tie down to X mm good, Z mm thickness bad is not really going to work.

As a ball park I might take half the Max DR stat from the pyramid article (NB. I tend to ignore the max DR stat in some cases, unless I think there is a specific reason for it in individual cases)

What I would say is if were talking about unusually thick armour I'd certainly just add abstractly high costs for making and tailoring it! Since it would be something out the ordinary and IIRC some plate at some thickness's might be pushing the bounds of manufacture techniques.

Originally Posted by DemiBenson

Also, does anyone think that adding multiple layers of grand guards might be workable? It seems like it should be ok as long as you pay the cost for it; and it solves the problem of joints having too much DR, since only the base layer would be counted for joints.

I don't see why not

Originally Posted by DemiBenson

Thanks for pointing that out. I edited the message to include Pyramid articles as ok. I meant only LT as opposed to Basic or UT.

Yeah I find it a better system to tinker with especially as it's consistent with how DR works in the system

[ericthered]

going for a straightforward shot at this...

Basic lift will be 180. We can use a good deal more weight that basic lift. I'm going to go for 3x basic lift, to leave him at medium encumbrance even when lifting massive weapons and carrying some gear. So our target weight is 540 lbs.

In low tech, all armor locations together are 300% of a torso piece, and all weights are for torsos.

On page 109 of low tech, its says +50% cost and weight per +1 DR. Witch is probably going to give us strange results, but here we go:

If you use heavy plate, adding +9 DR will give you 18 DR for a torso weight of 176 and a total weight of 528 lb. it costs 660k$.

If you use light plate, adding +43 DR will give you 46 DR, weight 540 lbs (exactly on target), and cost 675k$.

I do not think this system was meant for such cases, however.

[DemiBenson]

Originally Posted by ericthered

going for a straightforward shot at this...

Basic lift will be 180. We can use a good deal more weight that basic lift. I'm going to go for 3x basic lift, to leave him at medium encumbrance even when lifting massive weapons and carrying some gear. So our target weight is 540 lbs.

In low tech, all armor locations together are 300% of a torso piece, and all weights are for torsos.

On page 109 of low tech, its says +50% cost and weight per +1 DR. Witch is probably going to give us strange results, but here we go:

If you use heavy plate, adding +9 DR will give you 18 DR for a torso weight of 176 and a total weight of 528 lb. it costs 660k$.

If you use light plate, adding +43 DR will give you 46 DR, weight 540 lbs (exactly on target), and cost 675k$.

Using Light Plate as the base is correct, as that's how Medium and Heavy are calculated.

But from a realistic point of view, 40+ points of DR would be over half an inch thick, which is no longer in the realm of thin-walled cooling (from an engineering perspective), and this slab armor is far too thick to hammer or shape by hand. This might require industrial machining and manufacturing.

So how would that affect fabrication?