ATE Improvised Armor: Rubber Tires

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by EskrimadorNC

For example, I had a hard time making meaningful cuts into said tire dummy with a machete no matter how powerful the swing.

How heavy is the dummy? If it's light, it may well be knocked away by the machete far more easily than a person would.

[EskrimadorNC]

Originally Posted by johndallman

How heavy is the dummy? If it's light, it may well be knocked away by the machete far more easily than a person would.

He's got it on a weighted base. Maybe somewhere around 100-120lbs or so.

[DanHoward]

You don't need armour to stop a sword cut. Winter clothing will stop a sword cut. You need armour to stop points. The most common battlefield threat for the best part of four thousand years came from spears and arrows so all armour was specifically designed to stop these weapons. How good is your friend's dummy against a knife stab?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by EskrimadorNC

More than anything else, I wanted to know what the weight/DR ratio is, and if there are any other special considerations. For example, I had a hard time making meaningful cuts into said tire dummy with a machete no matter how powerful the swing. I'm a pretty big guy, and should at least qualify for ST 10 or 11 in GURPS. If we assume I'm throwing AoA/Strong attacks with a Sw cut weapon, that comes out to 1d+2 or 1d+3 dice for 5 to 7 damage or so per hit, on average. That lines up with Varyon's estimates on DR 14/7 for chest armor.

Cutting is markedly less effective against armor than how GURPS handles it, but a large part of that is because, as you'll frequently see repeated, GURPS is not a reality simulator - it's a game system that's more realistic than a lot of what's out there, but it still makes some concessions to fictional tropes (and being able to cut through armor is rather common in fiction). There are rules in Low Tech that are a bit more realistic here - basically, cutting attacks have to exceed twice the armor's DR to cut through, or they get downgraded to crushing (which, humorously, means cutting weapons have to cut completely through rubber armor to actually harm the wearer) - but even then, particularly for swords, the rules still overstate how effective cutting is against armor. And that's not even getting into how high damage muscle powered weapons are compared to firearms (a human with effective ST 14, using a sling with lead pellets, matches the damage of an arquebus; the infamous Queen Anne's Pistol you see used by Age of Sail pirates only needs ST 11 to match with a sling).

[Keampe]

I suspect that a large part of the resilience of the tires is simply due to thickness. That thickness plus the weight is why I wouldn't use it.

As a caveat, though, I wouldn't make armour for myself with tires, but the majority of armour I make is, of course, not for me. I have had some interesting requests and if someone wanted armour for, say, Wasteland Weekend, I could see myself making such.

As to GURPS, I use a variant of the Low Tech rule - cutting damage is reduced by the DR of the armour. If the remaining damage is less than the DR it's crushing, if not it's cutting. This avoids the Double DR for Rubber.

Some things you could test if you wanted to, just make sure your friend is good with doing these. Firstly, it's risky, so if you decide to do any of these bear that in mind and take precautions.

1. Get an axe. A nice, full sized wood axe. Check to see what you can do with that.

2. Get a Spear. See what that does.

3. Get a bow/crossbow and some arrow/bolts with hunting tips. Do this from a bit of distance and wear a face shield. See what that does.

This'll give you more of an idea as to how protective tire armour is.

- Shane

[Anders]

Although there are many reasons to use steel, tires have a certain post-apocalyptic esthetic to it.