lacktheknack said:
Accentuated breastplates are awful. Armor is meant to deflect, not take a direct hit. On normal armor, any slanted hit will glance off and to the side, because it's always convex no matter where you hit it.
I...
What?
Are you confusing human armor with tank armor?
When was the last time you heard of a modern soldier worrying about 'melee' attacks?
Armor is designed to take the force of the bullet and spread it out. That's why we have big-ass ceramic plates for modern body-armor. They don't deflect the bullet at all, they take the force of it and dissipate it over a larger area. This is why after a few hits with a high calibre weapon, those ceramic plates get so goddamn hot that they start to burn their wearer.
The reason for the tradition 'breast plate' look in modern art styles is because steel, ceramic and even titanium is damn heavy. Having a flat chest piece large enough to be comfortable for women would be damn heavy and have unnecessary amounts of protection over the sternum. So designs tend to look like big steel bras because that's what would be most effective in terms of protection and comfort, without being too heavy.
The alternative is having something like we do now, which is a big plate which goes over both breasts and down to the stomach, but that's big and bulky and simply doesn't work for any woman with D-cups or larger.
