Lightweight metal armor?

[System Ufera]

Hello again! I have another question for the community. As I have said in another thread, I am designing my own gaming system. One problem I've been having a particularly hard time trying to solve lately is in developing a society for a race which will appear in the game (the race is unique for a few reasons; it is not the race discussed in my previous thread, in case you're wondering). While I've got a lot of the functional aspects of this society down, I'm having an extremely hard time deciding on aesthetics. In particular, I have an unfinished drawing of an "individual" of the race (individual is in quotes because they're a two-headed race, and as such each body is actually two people), and I have no idea how their armor and clothing should look.

As already stated, the race is two-headed, so that will have some impact on the look of the armor, but not much. The race itself isn't particularly strong, though also not particularly weak; a lot of their advantages in combat would come from their instinctive abilities. So the obvious type of armor would be leather or something similar right? Wrong. Long ago, this race had been forced to live underground. I'm no zoologist or botanist, but I don't imagine there'd be a lot of animals or plants useful for making clothing underground. Being underground would, however, give them a lot of access to metal deposits; thus, their clothing and armor would consist mostly of metal.

I'm no armorer, but I've always thought of metal armor as cumbersome and heavy, and thus not as good for a warrior who relies on reflexes and such. So I'm wondering: what type of mostly or entirely metal armor, if any, is considered "lightweight" while still providing protection?

And yes, I do realize that some form of padding would be needed underneath the armor. It would probably be made from something along the lines of bat hides or the hides of any animals that would have found their way into the caves. There wouldn't be much to go around, though, so the padding would probably be less than what was used in real life.

 

[Derren]

That metal armor is heavy and sluggish is a urban myth. A well made plate mail is likely more flexible than hardened leather.

Some videos about that:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqC_squo6X4]How to Mount a Horse in Armor and Other Chivalric Problems - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S_Q3CGqZmg&feature=related]Gladiatoria : Part 1/6 : Swordfight in Armour : Hammaborg - YouTube[/ame]

The most flexible metal armor would probably be (chain) mail. As it is a mesh of interwoven metal rings it is very flexible (more flexible than any leather armor). And it makes quite good armor (not so much clothing though) against axes and swords. It is rather bad against arrows and spears though.

 

[System Ufera]

I see... Thanks for the correction regarding the restrictiveness on metal armor. Before I thought to ask the EN World community, I was actually thinking of giving them primarily lamellar-style armor (I know you didn't mention it in your post, but I thought I'd ask about it anyway), which I've heard is basically an improvement on scale. I noticed in most pictures that there's a type of string keeping the lamellar scales together. Given the race's relative supplies of metal versus softer material, would it theoretically be effective to replace the string with metal links?

 

[Ed_Laprade]

I see... Thanks for the correction regarding the restrictiveness on metal armor. Before I thought to ask the EN World community, I was actually thinking of giving them primarily lamellar-style armor (I know you didn't mention it in your post, but I thought I'd ask about it anyway), which I've heard is basically an improvement on scale. I noticed in most pictures that there's a type of string keeping the lamellar scales together. Given the race's relative supplies of metal versus softer material, would it theoretically be effective to replace the string with metal links?

Lamellar with links was used (pretty much anything that could be used for armor was, including things like sharkskin). It wouldn't be quite as good as tightly threaded types, probably, but pretty good. Not a bad choice for what you have in mind, I think.

Have you considered that they would be making thread and clothing from mushrooms and such? After all, they have to eat something, and you can make thread/string/rope out of any fibrous material. (Even duct tape, as the Mythbusters have shown!)

 

[System Ufera]

Have you considered that they would be making thread and clothing from mushrooms and such? After all, they have to eat something, and you can make thread/string/rope out of any fibrous material. (Even duct tape, as the Mythbusters have shown!)

Though I didn't say it before, yes, they do primarily eat fungus. I hardly know much of anything about fungus, though; I've always just assumed that materials taken from fungus would be too weak and wouldn't last long enough to be of much use in armor. Searching on Yahoo! Search for information regarding "fungus fibers" isn't really helpful, as I just fund out while taking a break from typing this post to do exactly that. Perhaps you or someone else could enlighten me?

 

[Hand of Evil]

There are a few things to remember about armor:

• It is the best defense to the weapons beginning used - in game terms, this means it will try to nullify damage. If it does, that means the race has advantage over their foes.
• It is going to be limited by the tech level available - having access to all the metal in the world does not help if you can not smelt and craft it. Getting a fire and furnace hot enough: Cast Iron is 2200 degrees, Wrought Iron is 2700, Steel is 2500, Tungsten is 6150, Bass & Bronze at 1700. Then you have to have a way to mass produce things like links.
• It is going to be limited by the cost -

I say Splinted Mail - plates on leather or cloth to protect areas of the body. Another choice is laminated armor, which can be made of plant fibers.

 

[Rune]

Assuming the existence of giant insects, I would think chitinous armors would suit their needs more than metal.

 

[ExploderWizard]

That metal armor is heavy and sluggish is a urban myth. A well made plate mail is likely more flexible than hardened leather.

Some videos about that:
How to Mount a Horse in Armor and Other Chivalric Problems - YouTube
Gladiatoria : Part 1/6 : Swordfight in Armour : Hammaborg - YouTube

The most flexible metal armor would probably be (chain) mail. As it is a mesh of interwoven metal rings it is very flexible (more flexible than any leather armor). And it makes quite good armor (not so much clothing though) against axes and swords. It is rather bad against arrows and spears though.

A couple of items to think about, though are that the well crafted custom armor shown is constructed with modern steel, which is both lighter and stronger than the metal of the time in which that kind of armor was designed, and the expense and thus rarity of that kind of armor wouldn't make it a very plausible choice for an entire society to wear all the time.

 

[Derren]

A couple of items to think about, though are that the well crafted custom armor shown is constructed with modern steel

The armor shown at the end of the first clip (40 minutes in) with its focus on flexibility is an original armor. So no, its not because of "modern made lightweight steel" that plate armor is flecible but because they were designed to be so.

wouldn't make it a very plausible choice for an entire society to wear all the time

No society would wear armor all the time no matter from what it is made.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The armor shown at the end of the first clip (40 minutes in) with its focus on flexibility is an original armor. So no, its not because of "modern made lightweight steel" that plate armor is flecible but because they were designed to be so.

The flexibility is certainly ruled largely by design, but the materials available matter a whole lot when it comes to protective value to weight ratios.

No society would wear armor all the time.

Not at all, but what kind of economy would be required to support entire armies wearing armor that took that kind of effort and skill to make?