A skin of steel
- Thread starter Nocta-Aeterna
- Start date
The Iron Man suit. Complete with my own resident genius to keep it in good nick and add cool weapons to it.
The Gumby suit!
70 lbs of Kevlar and Boron Carbide composite armor designed to stop high velocity shrapnel.
70 lbs of Kevlar and Boron Carbide composite armor designed to stop high velocity shrapnel.
Akiada said:It'd depend on the weapons, really. If melee combat I'd totally second the idea of going with plate. If ranged I'd have to go with a modern kevlar body armor like the Interceptor system used by US soldiers, or the 'Dragonskin' armor that's trying to replace it.
And of course, if we're allowed to be silly I'd just say I'd take one of Mass Effect's 'Hardsuits' - thick, reinforcing armor plates, kevlar-like fibers underneath and topped off with a layer of shields? Yes please.
A full suit of plate weighs less than the full gear of a modern soldier, and is spread evenly (compare to modern soldiers who have to lug that shit mostly on their back) - a knight can most certainly dodge. In fact, he can leap, run, dance, cartwheel, etc. The only real limiters of Plate were that is was expensive as hell, had to be fitted to the wearer ("generally the size of a dude" is good enough for chain or so - but plate has to fit snuggly) and all that metal and the padding and chain beneath meant you got really hot.Realitycrash said:
The trope of knights being slow, unwieldy things is wholly incorrect - Plate was used because it was incredibly effective, not because it made the user slow and easy to kill.
I find that funny, since I have done some LARP in full plate, and it sure as hell wasn't very cartwheel-material. True, maybe it wasn't the best plate available, but I wasn't exactly graceful.
I'v also worn chainmail, and bloodyhell is that heavy.
Then again, maybe I wasn't used to wearing it? I can concede that wearing plate you might be more agile than I were, but I don't see it as the ultimate protection. Kevlar in itself is lighter, and can take both stabwounds and - more importantly - blunt action. Plate vs mace is a no-go.
Lorica Segmentata, The armor that forged an Empire and it looks awesome
http://www.aurorahistoryboutique.com/products/A000027_L.jpg
http://www.aurorahistoryboutique.com/products/A000027_L.jpg
Was going to post the same. Ultimate Armor is pretty darn awesome as is. FMA: B is also a pretty darn awesome anime.benzooka said:
Well, some people can! [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm11yAXeegg] Perhaps not everyone can do a plate-armor cartwheel, but it's not impossible.Realitycrash said:
Uh, no. Kevlar can't take stab wounds or blunt injury. Kevlar is ballistic fabric and it only protects against ballistic impacts - it'll stop pistol rounds, shotgun blasts, a burst from an SMG, but a combat knife will pass through, a sword, or a mace will treat it as if you were wearing a T-shirt.
The only way a kevlar vest would resist things like combat knives, swords, etc. all would be if it was a Level III vest - one of the bulky combat vests used by soldiers. These vests are not able to stop these things by virtue of the fibers but because they stop high-velocity (IE, Rifle) rounds by backing the kevlar fiber with steel (in the older designs) or ceramic (virtually all modern vests) ballistic plates.
These plates, like the fabric, are made to resist bullets however, and so have a poor time preventing some nutter with a great big blade or a blunt-force weapon like a mace from ruining your day.
And really, nothing is good at stopping a mace. They more or less ignore armor all together - only excessive padding could soften the blow enough to make a hit from one not potentially lethal and by that point you resemble a cotton-ball more than a combatant.
I would line my clothes with Bleach manga. If it was good enough to protect Jotaro from Dio's really hard punches, it's good enough for me.