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A bog-standard USGI size-large PASGT vest covers areas 9-10 with DR 10/5* with shoulder protection of DR 9/5* for 10.1 lb. Approximately $200.
An AR500 Tetsudo with Level III plates gives areas 9-10 DR 26 (DR 1 for the carrier's padded cloth and DR 25 of semi-ablative plates - Front and Back only!) for 19.4 lb. $240.
Medieval and Renaissance armor isn't as good...
DR 9 bronze heavy plate gets you to DR 9 over areas 9-10 for 24 lb. and $12,000.
DR 10 bronze heavy plate is 36 lb. and $18,000.
At TL4 you can get a hardened steel cuirass that gives DR 10 for 24 lb. and $15,000!
Fluting without hardening is the same price and protection but 21.6 lb.
You can go all out and go with fluted, duplex heavy plate which is masterfully tailored to your body...
DR 10, 12lb. $126,000 (better get two!) Still not quite as good as a PASGT vest you can get at a gun show...
Of course the TL8 PASGT vest is pricier with 5 tech-level jumps to double the price each time... $6,400 using the standard system to buy one at TL3 (assuming it's available at all). $7,680 for the Tetsudo... Halve those prices at TL4.
Without special dispensations, making a modern character for a medieval world is expensive!
But how well will the PASGT vest handle low-speed projectiles? One of the fears of the cops I worked with was shivs and icepicks that could penetrate kevlar vests that would stop bullets.
ReplyDeleteYes, chicken plates fore and aft, but sides and upper torso aren't protected by the chicken plates, whereas most clamshell armor covers fore-aft-side-side and up to the collar bones and over the inside of the shoulders.
So, combine a back and breast (like that unfortunate French cavalryman you posted about before) with a kevlar gambeson and NIJ LvIV fore and aft chicken plates of AR500 or ceramic.
For cutting and stabbing protection, look up prison guard armor, which is often Kydex-covered kevlar. A 'full' suit of stab/hack/cut protection consists of a breast-n-back pad/plate combo, with shoulders and upper torso protection (kind of like football shoulderpads) and full arm harness with rerebraces, elbow cops and vambraces (all padded with kevlar) and lower belly protection including crotch (think tontlets) and full legs with quisses, knee cops and full grieves (all padded with kevlar). Add to that, a PASGT type helmet with face shield and some D3O reactive foam lining, like what Team Wendy makes, with a Spanish collar of kydex/kevlar or a full bevoir of kydex/kevlar and armored foot covers (or armored boots.) Add armored gauntlets of kydex/kevlar, sometimes mixed with fine stainless welded maille.
Now compare that with a medieval/post-medieval full plate harness (including all the padded underwear.)
To make matters better for the modern warrior, you can add over all the prison armor your regular NIJ Lvl III+ or Lvl IV (bullet resistant) stuff, or swap out some of the pieces parts.
And there are semi to full 'suits' of Lvl III+/Lvl IV protection, again built by sections, here a plate carrier, there a shoulder armor set... all the way up to a full 'mempo' for your helmet, to combine with a clear face shield up to Lvl III+.
Or you could go full gumby in a bomb armor kit. But only if your name is 'Shota.' (reference to John Ringo's 'Paladin of Shadows' series and a particularly large and strong ox-man...)
I also know of people who have built medieval/post-medieval body armor out of titanium, which can be relatively easily rolled but not dished, so great for greaves and vambraces but much harder to dish for elbow or knee cops.
Then there are the pickle-barrel armors out there. Yes, a full O-Yoroi (suit of laced Japanese armor) made from white or blue or black plastic pickle barrels, that are very cut resistant, great for spreading pressure out, and usually laced with 550 cord. I have seen one guy whacking an old suit with a real katana, and only the laces really suffered. A sword that easily cut tatami mats (which, well, isn't really that hard, it's more technique than sword) is easily defeated by pickle barrel.
There is also brown pickle barrel which is about half the thickness of white or black, which are thinner than blue, and it is very resistant to hacking with a sharp axe or machete on the face of the plastic, which I know, having a brown breast plate and extra material and getting curious and trying to cut said plastic with a sharp axe or a heavy machete on the face, marring but no penetration, and on the edge (can cut so don't.) Also remarkably ice-pick or spear (don't ask) resistant, too.
Can you modernize the materials that your non-modern armor is made of?
And... you can buy titanium welded maille. Go for the stuff made in Vietnam over the stuff made in India, better quality. Also available in welded stainless or in non-stainless of rows of welded and riveted maille. Covered in cosmoline or some other really nasty grease, so having someone with a hot-water or steam pressure sprayer is essential. Trust me on this one.
If it's just for re-enactment - visual over actual - would aluminum do? Relatively inexpensive, easy to form, lighther than steel, brass or bronze. Scratches up pretty easily, but a sprayed-on poly clear coat helps with that.
ReplyDeleteAs for shaping, Detroit went to water pressure moulding for metal body shapes, requires either pretty substantial compressed air (high volume production) or small explosives (low quantity runs). The original mould would cost $$$ but once made the unit cost drops with each reproduction.
There's lots of suits using modern materials which look the part.
DeleteAluminum actually turns out to be a bad material for making medieval/renaissance plate for the same reason airplane wings have a set lifespan. It gets hard and brittle the more you work it. Every place a rivet or strap attaches pulls out from the hole in the armor giving up.
Aluminum, of the right grade, is quite effective in body armor. It, like titanium, rolls well but dishes poorly.
DeleteGreat for making grieves or vambraces, not so great for cops and dished shoulder paulders.
But it's like the armor on an M113. The thicker needs for the same level of protection means inherently more stability. Trust me on this. I've worn aluminum grieves and bevors and taken very-mace-ish hard hits on those locations and the aluminum does well. Until work hardening sets in, as Angus says.
The key to not destroying rivet holes is to use copper or aluminum rivets. Steel, being far harder, will wear away the metal. Not so much copper or aluminum.
Does it require some more maintenance than steel? Yes and no. More making sure no wallowing and checking for cracks, but you also don't have to worry about rust and repainting, unless you're going for stainless steel, which is another nice material that is also subject to work hardening.
Seriously, metal is metal is metal. Any warrior/soldier wearing metal armor knows, or should know, that there is a lifespan in said metal.
Given my druthers, in real life, I'd wear a mixture of aluminum, titanium and stainless steel armor in places where I could get away with it, and high quality springy steel where I can't.
We got pretty nerdish about our armor. With a sliding rivet in aluminum plate, we always lost the plate regardless of the rivet material. When the joint articulated the rivet hit the end of the slot and added a little work to the end. Eventually that cracked and ruined the part.
DeleteOne member paid insane money to get a full set of 15th century plate made from steel. He replaced a couple of rivets here and there over the course of a season. Normal maintenance.
My favorite armor is brigandine, you can use almost anything rigid for the plates. Like you, I preferred plastic. My favorite source of plastic were the food trays from the ISU dorm's food halls. The orange doesn't show between two layers of leather!
For sliding rivet holes, you can rivet a SS piece that has the slot cut in it onto the Aluminum piece. Thus the wear is carried by the steel. Bronze works also and can be shined up nicely. There are ways...
DeleteWhile we did come up with methods that prevented the issue, we acknowledged that we were being a BIT too creative with the anachronism by applying the techniques we'd come up with.
DeleteLike a SS liner for the rivet slot that took the loads rather than the aluminum.
The big suprise was the steel armor that was closer to the real deal was far better with regards to mobility despite being far heavier than the aluminum version.
Me? I was a poor, so I made poor's armor. Lunch tray brigandine riveted between suede. I never felt unprotected and I'm no Rhino-Hide.
I was at Gulf Wars (war between Trimaris and Ansteorra held in Meridies) and there was a guy in full jouster plate including lance rest (which he used for his arm rest,) totally fluted, blued, pretty and made from properly sprung steel and he said it was like wearing a good Italian suit. Bastard.
DeleteHaving your armor custom fit to you helps, as you actually, duh, wear it. Difference between custom tailored suits and off-the-rack.
Basically the difference between munitions-grade (armory, draw x and y and z for your armor) and custom fit.