High tech armor vs Ultra-tech armor

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by fula farbrorn

There are also a lot of interesting advances in armor now.

We got Dragonscale 2 and FRAS that kinda does what dragonscale said it would do (Verco also has a imbricated array of tiles that seem to beat both but are not commercially available yet)

VPAM 12 plates that are sub 7 pounds (Stopping an improved 7.62x51 Tungsten threat in plate)

And sub 10 pound .50 BMG AP rated plates.

Honestly both TL 9 and 8 probably needs a rewrite.

I think there's a Pyramid article that updates HT's armors to what was then-current that might be worth a look. I'd also need to check through "Cutting Edge Armor Design" to see if those armors could be recreated. I think I found the VPAM 12 plate you're referencing, it was 6.5 lb for a 10"x12" plate. That's a surface area of 0.833 square feet. Tungsten penetrators are APHC if I'm not mistaken. Away from most of my books, but this puts 7.62x51 at around 7d pi; APHC makes that 7d (2) pi-, for 14d penetration - the plate would need at least DR 49. We'll say it's DR 50; that calls for a WM (assuming Solid construction, but I think that's appropriate for a plate like this) of around 0.11. Anyone with Pyramid #3/85 at hand want to check to see if one of the ceramic plate options there matches this?

EDIT: As an aside, this is one of the great things about the Pyramid Armor Design articles - if you know the dimensions, weight, and level of protection an armor plate provides, it's simply arithmetic to get its WM. If you know its thickness, that will give you its DR per inch. If you know its price, dividing this by weight gives you its nominal price (although you may want to convert to ~2004 USD). Then you can just plug it into the system and make armor of whatever type you want.