Low-Tech Armor with the Strength of Ten Men

[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

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Anders

If you look at the examples in the book what Dan's done is add 50% of the cost and weight of light armor to the armor. Note that this goes for plate only - it does not work for e.g. mail. The text also says that the highest DR for torso armor is DR 14, and for other armor is DR 10 - anything else is too cumbersome and difficult to articulate.

Well, it also says that above DR 14 isn't available at all, probably because of limitations on metalworking at that TL.

It makes sense that mail has no equivalent to the heavy plate rule: the basic problem for mail is that to make heavier mail you need thicker wire, and if you have thicker wire you need larger rings, and if you increase ring size by too much it no longer either protects or moves properly.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Anders

... The text also says that the highest DR for torso armor is DR 14, and for other armor is DR 10 - anything else is too cumbersome and difficult to articulate.....

I think the issue I have with abstract hard upper limits here is what is deemed too cumbersome is a function of weight and the ability to operate under it (so will be rather different for Mr. ST30*) and not all pieces of plate need to articulate. And even on limbs and joints often the entire plate don't need to articulate.

I.e the need to articulate the arm does require arm armour to be articulated as a whole, but not every bit of arm armour is subject to the limitation because not every square inch of limb armour needs to equally articulate for the arm to articulate.

basically arms aren't only made of joints!

So for instance some of the thickest bits of plate were breastplates that were 8-9mm thick generally worn by cavalry, and if were saying DR14 is the max that would mean such breast plates would be made of 39 DR per inch metal overall. Even if we say it was hard to produce plate of higher and uniform DR in that thickness range, I think that 14 upper limit is a little low. But like the point about ST30 I don't think the LT rules were written with 8-9mm thick plate as the standard in mind, because well historically it wasn't only being needed to withstand latter guns etc.


*EDIT, TBF I don't think the armour rules in LT were written assuming ST30 humans as the standard though!

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

So for instance some of the thickest bits of plate were breastplates that were 8-9mm thick generally worn by cavalry.

Modern level IV plates can be twice that, you can wear a lot of armor on the center torso before its thickness causes serious problems. However, the dropoff for what's practical anywhere else is fairly extreme, a plausible simplified assumption is that the maximum thickness is something like 10% of limb diameter if no articulation is needed, half that if it's needed. For a rigid torso, that lets you have in the vicinity of an inch (DR 70). For articulated wrists, it's about DR 4; for articulated fingers, DR 1 or maybe 2.

[martinl]

Fabrication problems can be overcome with cast bronze armor (at TL2+).

Articulation and movement are the big limitation. Joints are going to be much more vulnerable.

I'd eyeball DR 40 on head and torso, 15 on limbs, and 5 on hands/feet/joints as a start, with maybe an extra +2 or +4 to target chinks.

Maybe add 5 to the non-torso locations if we're talking low-cinematic.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Modern level IV plates can be twice that, you can wear a lot of armor on the center torso before its thickness causes serious problems.

Yep

Originally Posted by Anthony

However, the dropoff for what's practical anywhere else is fairly extreme, a plausible simplified assumption is that the maximum thickness is something like 10% of limb diameter if no articulation is needed, half that if it's needed. For a rigid torso, that lets you have in the vicinity of an inch (DR 70). For articulated wrists, it's about DR 4; for articulated fingers, DR 1 or maybe 2.

I'm interested in your 10% of diameter figure (and half that for points of articulation) where's that from? If it's correct it's a handy rule of thumb, but I have to say questions about it's underlying assumptions do spring to mind.


As an example taking myself as a model I could wear armour 13mm thick on my upper arms, 5mm on my elbow (taking the shortest measurement) and 11-13mm on my forearms! In terms of plate that is hugely thick. Since I'm not ST30 weight is going to be the limiting factor here long before I hit those 10% and 5% figures!

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

I'm interested in your 10% of diameter figure (and half that for points of articulation) where's that from?

Nowhere in particular. Simple geometry says that the plausible thickness is going to be proportional to limb thickness and also vary by the range of motion needed, but the actual 10% number is just a guess.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Nowhere in particular. Simple geometry says that the plausible thickness is going to be proportional to limb thickness and also vary by the range of motion needed, but the actual 10% number is just a guess.

Ah Ok, cool

Cheers

TD

[Celjabba]

Ignoring weight and mass, such as with foam armor, I think we can go well over 10%, especially if willing to somewhat reduce the range of motion.

A spacesuit is semi-rigid and about 5mm thick, but does have a DX penalty.
A wetsuit is flexible, and goes up to 6 or 7 mm thick.
That's probably the upper limit overall.

On the head, up to 5 cm is common (motorcycle helmet).
On the back (upper and lower), you can have about as much as you want (like a backpack, ...)
upper abdomen front and side and front torso, a few centimeters aren't a problem.
Torso side, shoulders and upper arms, you are limited if you want to keep arm mobility.
Neck : you are limited if you want to keep vertical mobility for head. Otherwise, armour away.
Lower abdomen (except the back), inner thigh and groin area : you are limited.
Knee, elbow and wrist : you are limited.
You can have rather thick bracers and greaves, as long as the elbow/wrist (or knee/ankle) are kept free. (think children inflatable swimming bracers)
Foot : you can go quite thick if you go for a rigid ankle (skiing shoes). Otherwise, you can only increase the sole thickness.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

Ignoring weight and mass, such as with foam armor, I think we can go well over 10%, especially if willing to somewhat reduce the range of motion.

Foam armor is compressible, which makes it a different class of problem, and I think we were looking for 'no DX penalty'.