08-13-2022, 01:28 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Cut resistance of various materials
I have been trying to find the cut resistance of various fabrics (linen, cotton, silk, spidersilk, Elven silversilk, etc).
I was able to find the statistics for Cut-Tex: Fabric Weight
So, if I wanted to make a gambeson out of Cut-Tex, for instance, what would it's DR be? Layering 20 some-odd layers of linen gives about DR 3. But I can't find the cut resistance levels of linen, so I lack the context necessary to extrapolate the cut-tex version. Anyone have a source for finding this information?
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Warmest regards, StevenH My current worldbuilding project. You can find the Adventure Logs of the campaign here. I try to write them up as narrative prose, with illustrations. As such, they are "embellished" accounts of the play sessions. Link of the moment: Bestiary of Plants. In a world of mana, plants evolved to use it as an energy source. It is also the new home of the Alaconius Lectures, a series of essays about the various Colleges of Spells. |
08-13-2022, 08:19 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Cut resistance of various materials
I'm afraid I can't help with finding the values you're looking for, but UHMWPE (the base for Cut-Tex, according to the website) is listed in "Cutting Edge Armor Design" (Pyramid #3/85) as Ballistic Polymer, which is probably close enough to model Cut-Tex (Cut-Tex may not be quite as protective, as from the website it sounds like it's designed to be more usable for clothing - including surviving multiple wash cycles - but should be close enough). Ballistic Polymer has a maximum DR (at 1/2" thick) of 24/9.6 (I believe you'd round the latter down to 9; this is DR 24 vs pi/cut, 9 vs everything else), and Torso armor (or Torso+Groin if using the armor divisions from Basic Set rather than those of Low Tech and the armor design articles*) made at that thickness would weigh right around 10 lb (10.08 lb); something like a gambeson, covering that as well as the arms down to the hands, would weigh twice as much, so 20 lb (technically, 20.16 lb).
You probably aren't going to make a gambeson that thick, as above 1/4" thick it isn't flexible by GURPS rules. Something like DR 10/4* is more likely (and note that * designation means it is treated as GURPS flexible), which would weigh in at around 4.2 lb for Torso protection, 8.4 for a long-sleeve gambeson. EDIT: For reference "Low Tech Armor Design" (Pyramid #3/52) has Cloth armor (which would include linen) as having a maximum DR (at 1") of 4. DR 3 cloth armor is a full 3/4" thick, and is rigid - not appropriate for a gambeson. A gambeson is more likely around DR 1* (flexible), and a long-sleeve version of that would be around 11.9 lb, nearly 1.5x the weight of the above armor of comparable thickness (this gambeson would be 1/4", the thickest you can get and still be flexible; the above DR 10/4* gambeson would be a bit over 1/5"). *GURPS 4e originally treated Torso and Groin as two separate hit locations, with armor that only covers the upper torso designated as Torso and those that covered the entire torso as Torso + Groin. Low Tech changed this - it divided Torso into two hit locations, Chest and Abdomen, and made Groin a sublocation of the latter; the armor design articles in Pyramid are based on the LT rules. Roughly speaking, pre-LT Torso armor would be Chest armor in LT, while pre-LT Torso+Groin armor would be Torso (Chest+Abdomen) armor in LT.
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GURPS Overhaul Last edited by Varyon; 08-13-2022 at 08:28 AM. |
08-13-2022, 09:25 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Cut resistance of various materials
Probably not a terrible comparison, actually.
This is an example of the cotton fabric that's used as the control standard in the EN 388 cut resistance test. As you can see, it's a fairly lightweight sort of cotton canvas. The actual cut test involves counting the number of turns of a circular blade necessary to cut the material under test (determined by when the blade makes electrical contact with a conductive material under the test sample). The control fabric is a "1". The blade count gets transformed into a scale value from 1-5 using the
But here are some leather (cowhide, goatskin) gloves from one manufacturer with their ANSI cut resistance levels, so you can at least make some visual comparison. It's possible to hit the A9 level with relatively form-fitting gloves, but I can't tell by looking how stiff or thick they are. But just based on looks, I'd say they don't exceed the standard GURPS equipment list gloves by much, if anything. Probably spot them DR 3, matching the "Sharp-Protective Gloves" listed on HT69. As Varyon mentioned, I don't think the materials are engineered so much to have a maximum armor value as they are for other practical considerations, like flexibility/touch sensitivity, durability, and ability to be cleaned. The maximum level on the ANSI scale, 9, equals 6000 grams of force* on that razor blade. It's hard for me to imagine any sword strike that doesn't have at least 60 N behind it, though the armor would certainly be good for all the glancing blows and partial parries and such that wind up being modelled in GURPS as low damage rolls. -- * Yeah, I know Last edited by Anaraxes; 08-13-2022 at 09:40 AM. |
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