# A question about armour



## Mirannan (Oct 22, 2016)

A post in the History section prompted this question, which has some relevance to my WIP:

How much more effective and/or convenient would modern materials be than traditional steel, for use in armour? I am assuming the armour still looks like the material variety, so no Kevlar and ceramic here. A non-exhaustive list might include titanium and stainless steel, possibly also the incredibly expensive superalloys used in turbine blades. I suspect aluminium would be too soft for this application.

Another related question; how good would stainless steel be for making a sword blade?


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## Brian G Turner (Oct 22, 2016)

Plate armour went into decline around the 14th - 16th centuries precisely because it became increasingly complex and expensive to produce, and was unable to protect against the increasing common use of gunpowder.

However, there were social changes involved, too - a rising merchant class preferred the advantages of owning land without the dangers of going into battle.

So even if improved material had been available, the landowners who had traditionally formed the knightly class would still need persuading to go into battle, let alone invest in the expense. Especially as modern materials probably isn't going to protect a lone man against cannons.



Mirannan said:


> how good would stainless steel be for making a sword blade?



I thought the advantage of "stainless steel" was that it's less likely to rust, rather than confer any combat benefit?


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## WaylanderToo (Oct 22, 2016)

@Mirannan  - what about a steel/kevlar laminate?


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## Stewart Hotston (Oct 22, 2016)

It depends on what you want it to protect you from. What is it that you're envisaging being used against it?

As a HEMA instructor who owns a lot of swords that get used in earnest, I'd say that stainless steel isn't any good. People go on about watered steel but this is simply too expensive and despite the legends, doesn't keep its edge any better than simpler recipes. It does tend to hold a much better sharp edge though. 

When I fight, and we are a full contact, thrusting/cutting sport martial art, I use a mix of high density polymer armour, kevlar and 800-1800N grade fabric weaves. These provide protection against thrusts, cuts and general impact. For larger weapons such as long swords, people tend to use even higher grade armour but we still see a reasonable number of injuries (normally accidental rather than from good technique). 

However, as I say, it depends on what you'd want the armour to do specifically.


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## Coast (Oct 22, 2016)

I can't help with the armour, sorry, but a couple of thoughts on the Stainless swords.

There are a whole suite of 'Stainless Steels', all with varying compositions and qualities, rather than just the one type.

Quality blades (today and historically) are made with high carbon steel (around 1% carbon content), and a quick google tells me that there are Stainless Steel variants that have greater than 1% carbon content.

Provided these Stainless variants can be quenched and tempered the same way as a carbon steel blade would be*, there's no reason why you couldn't build a sword with them....

Except, as Brian mentioned, the only benefit would be a sword that didn't rust. The downsides would be the cost and trouble you'd have to go to work out the process, which is probably why we haven't seen much effort put into building stainless steel (functional) swords. 

So I'd say you probably could make a decent sword from stainless, but it would really just be a vanity project.

*I'm not sure about the heat treatment of stainless and whether the differing ingredients would affect this in any way?


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## Stewart Hotston (Oct 22, 2016)

@Coast it's an interesting point about the actual carbon content. All I know is that of the three (widely regarded) best producers of weapons in the world today, I struggle to keep rust off all of them and no one, as far as I know, produces stainless steel versions. tbh I'd pay double the price if it meant I didn't have to keep dealing with rust blooms


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## Coast (Oct 22, 2016)

Stewart Hotston said:


> @Coast it's an interesting point about the actual carbon content. All I know is that of the three (widely regarded) best producers of weapons in the world today, I struggle to keep rust off all of them and no one, as far as I know, produces stainless steel versions. tbh I'd pay double the price if it meant I didn't have to keep dealing with rust blooms



I'd have to imagine it's a cost/benefit issue. You'd need a specialist product and then the expense of ironing out the process to produce the swords... Maybe just not a big enough market to investigate.

I also wonder if there's not a traditional element to it. In that you either make a sword in the traditional way (or as close to as reasonable) or you mass produce to keep the cost down.


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## Stewart Hotston (Oct 22, 2016)

It's true wrt the traditional element I guess. Marco Danelli, generally regarded as the best craftsman in Europe, is very keen to replicate traditional methods.


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## Mirannan (Oct 22, 2016)

OK. I'll make it clearer - sorry. A rather drastic anachronism is involved here; imagine someone wanting to equip for a trip to a place with (at the latest) mid-mediaeval technology and not wanting to be conspicuous - but also wanting the best advantages that modern technology can provide. I thought of titanium armour because (IIRC, I might be wrong) it's about the same strength as steel but half the weight - and of course it doesn't rust.

Similar remarks apply to weaponry, with the addition of (again AFAIK) the weight of the blade being actually beneficial up to a point. I imagine a tungsten or iridium sword would be rather hard to swing, and a longsword that was (in the silly, impossible case) weightless wouldn't do all that much damage. A weightless epee might be a different proposition, of course.

This train of thought came partly from a speculation about what Tolkein's mithril might actually be, if it was a real substance, given its properties as described. Some exotic beryllium alloy, perhaps? That might fit in with the elves' documented liking for emeralds.


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## Stewart Hotston (Oct 22, 2016)

Interesting. Swords need to have weight so they can bind the opponent's weapon effectively. This is critical to staying alive! So I would imagine you'd want a material that keeps its edge and won't break easily - because as a visitor you'd not know you could replace it. Titanium might be useful for nearly all the one handed and one and a half handed weapons including long swords. i.e. up to about 47 inches in length. Beyond that you do want heft because part of the reason for having a larger weapon is crowd control and breaking of bones rather than cutting. 

For armour? You'd use high tensile materials, probably under high newton weave cloths. That way you wouldn't look nails but you'd be totally hardcore - likely to be protected against both daggers, swords and other weapons like arrows/bolts. So maybe ceramic plates within kevlar type fabric weave with high tensile metals threaded through to give it extra strength without compromising your mobility. You could look quite snazzy with it too I expect.

All very expensive, but I assume that doesn't matter! The tech and actual crafting know how for creating these is probably more expensive than the raw materials (except for the iridium or titanium options).


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## WaylanderToo (Oct 22, 2016)

wrt blades - what about monofilament edges?


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## The Ace (Oct 22, 2016)

Duralumin has twice the tensile strength of steel, at one third the weight - we just had to wait for a reliable way of refining aluminium.  It would make superb armour (my tribune wears a duralumin mail-shirt, indistinguishable from our steel ones).

Stainless steel is a b*tch to work, and keeping an edge on a stainless-steel blade would be virtually impossible.


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