Creating Your Own Everything VI [No Advertising]

[Austrasien]

1 mm won't stop fragments either.

Shells produce a range of fragment sizes, and fragment size roughly corresponds to penetrative power. The largest fragments easily blow through an inch of hard steel or more. Infantry helmets attempt to provide protection from as large a fraction of fragments as possible within a tolerable weight limit. But they are not even close to being "fragment proof".

So the notion that a soldier covered completely in thin steel plates could charge through artillery fire headless of the fragments is bunk. Such soldiers, if caught in an artillery barrage in the open, would still take many casualties from fragments powerful enough to pierce their armor. Under fire from HE shells with impact fuses a man standing in armor in the open is still at more risk than a man with no armor lying on the ground, and is at far more risk than a man with no armor crouching in a trench. 1 mm of steel does not provide sufficient protection from fragments to restore infantryman's mobility in the face of artillery fire - they still have to act basically like their unarmored counterparts to survive. No amount of steel a human could wear does.

Thinking the steel in a helmet is "fragment proof" is like thinking because a vest is described as bullet proof it will halt 12.7 mm API.

[Manokan Republic]

I was working on a long post but I lost it. I will summarize.

It's hard to believe rifles at a density of one per yard or two weren't the main threat in a trench assault; the variation in the hardness of the Grabenpanzer is typical of steel grades even today, and at even at the lowest value it's typical of modern ballistic steel; barbed wire was difficult for even tanks to deal with; stormtrooper and Arditi units discarded their armor after the first experiments; curraissers dropped their armor in the first weeks of the war; what is a "knight unit?"

You have two choices:

Rule of Cool: Decide an average of 1mm of steel plate armor will provide protection worth the encumbrance for infantry assaults, despite 400 years of evidence to the contrary and the conclusions of the most exuberant proponent of medieval-inspired armor in World War One.

Rational: Stop writing thousands of words about World War One and realize that if you're talking about Korea, synthetic fabrics with hard armor over the vitals is probably the way to go.

Either one is fine!

You are the one that originally brought up WWI trench knights, and not me, so telling me to stop correcting you on an issue that you brought up is a bit absurd. Secondly there were literally trench knights, I mean actually knighted soldiers and Cuirassiers fighting in the trenches of WWI. So, you're actually literally wrong, even though my point wasn't about creating trench knights, just well armored soldiers. We have seen many, many times soldiers being armored, so the idea that armor wouldn't be used on the modern battlefield is absurd. We have even seen soldiers fully armored, with the main drawback being weight, overheating and the cumbersome nature of the armor, issues which can be easily remedied. Both the Stormtroopers and Arditi stormed trenches in body armor, with things like trench shields and so on, so the idea that this didn't happen or would be a bad idea, are both proven wrong.

The statistics show that explosives were the biggest killer in WWI, with artillery responsible for about 75% of casualties, and machine guns usually 20% or so, and the remainder being other weapons. There are a number of reasons for this, but one is that it took on average 7,000 to 25,000 rounds per enemy kill [1], and as riflemen simply could not fire as quickly, this was rarely the biggest problem in an assault. The second reason is that riflemen can be suppressed. While being fired at with artillery shells, machine gun fire, or even volley fire from rifles, the infantry would duck in cover, and as infantry assaults were usually preceded with bombings and machine gun fire, infantry rarely exposed themselves enough to fire on the enemy. Things such as smoke cover from artillery shells, flares, moving under the cover of darkness at night and so on were all done to prevent the enemy from seeing them. Machine gun fire fared marginally better as large volumes of fire, combined with tracers, allowed them to more easily see where they were firing, especially at night, and simply spray an area with bullets if they were unsure exactly where the enemy was. Machine gunners were usually further back from the front lines and had defenses, ranging from sandbag nests to bunkers, and so they were more difficult to suppress. After the enemy was pinned down with volumes of artillery fire and machine gun fire, then the infantry would storm the enemy trenches, and try to quickly rush them and chuck grenades in to them/engage in hand-to-hand combat until they won. Pistols, melee weapons, and far later in the war submachine guns were the ideal weapon of choice here, so body armor made a lot of sense against, what was the largely unarmored enemy forces. Very few trench assaults were successful, period, and even capturing an enemy trench did not net you very much since they usually had multiple lines of trenches and quite frankly, unless it was defending a strategic position, was kind of useless to take. Aside from taking a handful of cities, there was no real value. You'd be cut off from supply lines even if you took a trench, so there was a question of, what does one do after they take an enemy trench? Counter attacks usually followed since you were closer to the enemy, and unless the enemy trench was particularly well made, could be bombed by their own side quite easily. It was really kind of a pointless endeavor unless you had a specific objective.

Anyways, soldiers have worn body armor for centuries, even against guns, although mainly in the modern day it's useful against shrapnel. Your argument on usefulness, which is subjective in your opinion, is irrelevant from the fact it was actually used; saying it wasn't used for 400 years is factually wrong, and you even disprove your own arguments. As 75% of casualties were from shrapnel and a few percents more were from long range machine gun fire, the armor would fare pretty well at reducing casualties across the force. The main objective is actually not to be used in an assault at all, but mainly to armor the average soldier so they don't suffer as many casualties. Ideally the main way to break through an enemy trench is with vehicles, not only due to their superior armor and weapons, but also due to their ability to travel hundreds of miles and carry supplies with them, like weeks worth of food and water to sustain an operation once you broke through a trench. The soldiers would mainly be an occupying force, hopefully not being completely shredded by enemy artillery before they can set up their defenses. A reduction in casualties means a reduction in how much medicine you need, and allows you to prioritize your focus on the most severely injured troops, such as from rifle fire. In means an increase in morale, both due to fearlessness and the fact less of your buddies are dying, making the war seem less helpless. In means a greater resistant to artillery bombardment, at least for short periods of time, making it so you don't get bombed to pieces. It means less casualties overall, allowing you to preserve manpower. Yes there were armored units, but not every soldier was armored, mainly due to things like price and production, as well as quality control. The armor was often unergonomic and bulky, and didn't fit to the body as well. It could be hot and unwieldy, making it difficult to move around in. But, armor does not fundamentally have to be this way. Armor is still used to this day, so the idea that it wasn't used for 400 years is just... it's just weird.


The idea that wearing armor would be useless is also pretty weird. I never specifically said I wanted trench knight armor for WWI to be used on trench assaults, at all, but it was used and did fairly well in comparison to not wearing armor it was just not perfect. The main idea is shrapnel resistance, so one well placed mortar round doesn't wipe out the whole unit. The disadvantages and kinks with armor can be worked out in other ways, so it's not fundamental to armor itself. Another issue is that the U.S. military has always been concerned that some unit's morale would be lower if they were the unit that didn't have the best body armor, so they've tried to make it uniform across all units. Body armor has also thus been prioritized on survival, vs. combat effectiveness. Finally there have been issues of design, such as poor ergonomics. But to put simply, there are three points of what I'm saying; first, body armor has been used in the last 400 years quite extensively, so that's kind of silly. Second the main idea is causality reduction, increasing combat effectiveness. And three, the reason why armor may or not be a good choice, or how to make it work. Simply saying it wasn't used, therefore it was bad, is an incredibly shallow way to look at things, as we can look back and examine why something was and was not used, rather than just dismissing it. The idea is a thought experiment of how to make something like this practical and effective, and what it's use and value would be, or how to make it more effective. If you think body armor can't be improved or is the best it can ever be, that's a bit silly, or if you think they never made mistakes or never made equipment choices for arbitrary or now debunked reasons, One big reason for not developing superior body armor was fear that morale would be reduced if some soldiers had better armor than other units, an idea that isn't really proven anymore. The M16 for example had the fully automatic firing selector removed in the M16A2 model, out of fear of soldiers wasting ammunition in automatic fire, something which has hindered soldiers for a basically unproven myth. We are still using a 50 year old M16 despite it being vastly outperformed by a myriad of modern rifles, be it the Tavor, HK416 and so on, of which the HK416 is preffered even in our own military and is being widely used by the marines right now. The price of infantry equipment tends to make up less than 1-2% of the budget, despite infantry forming the bulk of the forces, which seems odd as you could likely afford to upgrade new gear. There is yet not good replacement for a military-wide APC, and essentially we are stuck using the MRAP for most of our transportation, despite it not holding a full squad and intended as an interim solution. The Stryker is itself called the "Interim Armored Vehicle", as it was never meant as a permanent solution for our armored vehicle problem. Basically, the reason why something is not used is not always because it was bad, but other extenuating factors, factors that can be explained and even compensated for. To dismiss an idea in it's entirety because it wasn't widely used, assuming that it must be bad for some reason, is kind of silly. Presumably, this would be a thread on the hypotheticals of why.

[Manokan Republic]

1 mm won't stop fragments either.

Shells produce a range of fragment sizes, and fragment size roughly corresponds to penetrative power. The largest fragments easily blow through an inch of hard steel or more. Infantry helmets attempt to provide protection from as large a fraction of fragments as possible within a tolerable weight limit. But they are not even close to being "fragment proof".

So the notion that a soldier covered completely in thin steel plates could charge through artillery fire headless of the fragments is bunk. Such soldiers, if caught in an artillery barrage in the open, would still take many casualties from fragments powerful enough to pierce their armor. Under fire from HE shells with impact fuses a man standing in armor in the open is still at more risk than a man with no armor lying on the ground, and is at far more risk than a man with no armor crouching in a trench. 1 mm of steel does not provide sufficient protection from fragments to restore infantryman's mobility in the face of artillery fire - they still have to act basically like their unarmored counterparts to survive. No amount of steel a human could wear does.

Thinking the steel in a helmet is "fragment proof" is like thinking because a vest is described as bullet proof it will halt 12.7 mm API.

Never did I say anywhere that it would be completely invulnerable to all forms of fragmentation. Most of the casualties from artillery, mortars, grenades and so on takes place at quite a bit of a range from the epicenter for obvious reasons. Fragments from a hand grenade can be potentially lethal out to 200 yards for example, and typically most injuries and deaths occur quite a bit away from point blank range. If an artillery shell went off from three feet away, the shock and blast from the explosive itself could be enough to kill you. However, things like air bursting shrapnel and long range fragmentation and shrapnel tended to kill the most men, and so rarely did people actually die from close range shrapnel injuries. At long ranges shrapnel loses it's energy quickly since it's rarely aerodynamic, and so even at moderately close ranges, such as 10-30 meters, artillery Back then artillery and explosives were also generally much weaker, with american hand Mk. II hand grenades often being filled with gunpowder over TNT, and only using 50 grAms of explosive, vs. 200 for a modern M67. Both the british and the germans used roughly 88mm artillery for most artillery work (the 88's for the germans and 25 pounder for the british), vs. the U.S. which more widely adopted 105mm and 155mm howitzers. Shrapnel back then was usually much weaker, and the biggest threats were at long range.

Shrapnel is useful because it makes explosive weapons do more damage over a wide area. If the area of which you can be severely injured or kill is reduced, then survival and combat performance increases dramatically. If wearing armor reduces the effective area of effect of an artillery shell from 50 meters to 10 meters wide, that's quite an improvement. If it works against weaker threats, or stops things like air-bursting munitions from being as effective, it would force them to only use the heaviest artillery available to fight the forces, making them practically invulnerable to small threats. Again, it's about causality reduction. The armor would protect against environmental threats and things like knives as well. But I'm not actually stupid enough to think that every form of shrapnel in existence would be stopped, and never did I say that.

[Triplebaconation]

You are the one that originally brought up WWI trench knights, and not me, so telling me to stop correcting you on an issue that you brought up is a bit absurd.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't me.

Secondly there were literally trench knights, I mean actually knighted soldiers and Cuirassiers fighting in the trenches of WWI. So, you're actually literally wrong, even though my point wasn't about creating trench knights, just well armored soldiers.

Cuirassiers discarded their armor in the first few weeks of the war, and surely even you can appreciate the difference between being inducted into a 20th century knightly order and wearing plate armor? Do you think Elton John wore plate armor during his concerts?

We're not using "trench knight" literally.

We have seen many, many times soldiers being armored, so the idea that armor wouldn't be used on the modern battlefield is absurd. We have even seen soldiers fully armored, with the main drawback being weight, overheating and the cumbersome nature of the armor, issues which can be easily remedied. Both the Stormtroopers and Arditi stormed trenches in body armor, with things like trench shields and so on, so the idea that this didn't happen or would be a bad idea, are both proven wrong.

This is precisely the opposite of what I'm saying. In fact my argument was that armor was more prevalent than you first claimed and that we know it was shown by practical experience to be useless in the circumstances you're describing. If you think this can be "easily remedied" despite nobody quite managing it even today with far more advanced materials than steel, fine. Go for it. At least do a good job.

but one is that it took on average 7,000 to 25,000 rounds per enemy kill [1],

Replace rounds with "words" and kills with "points" and we have your writing style.

The M16 for example had the fully automatic firing selector removed in the M16A2 model, out of fear of soldiers wasting ammunition in automatic fire, something which has hindered soldiers for a basically unproven myth.

Speaking of myths, this is one you'd find propagated in the comments section of thefirearmblog or something.

M16 or Stryker isn't germane to this conversation. In fact, I still haven't figured out why you're still going on about World War One when you've stated this is actually Korean-era with maybe a little fan in it.

[Gallia-]

tactical tabi + geta = ultimate war shoe

just wear a titanium jingasa lmao the shells will bounce off

[Fordorsia]

What is this about trench knights who requires a slap

[Sevvania]

You are the one that originally brought up WWI trench knights, and not me, so telling me to stop correcting you on an issue that you brought up is a bit absurd.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't me.

It was me

I've committed the perfect crime

M16 or Stryker isn't germane to this conversation. In fact, I still haven't figured out why you're still going on about World War One when you've stated this is actually Korean-era with maybe a little fan in it.

Obfuscation.

---

Advance Wars-style units and general progression for my Tropico 5 headcanon, from pike-and-shot formations in the Colonial Era to BM-59s and Super Shermans in the Cold War.

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

Manokan foot soldier at the battle of Kusrk, 1943, colorized

[Gallia-]

no that's me sorry

[Triplebaconation]

This is what 25 pounds of full body armor looked like in the 50s. This kind of outfit was intended for engineers assault-breaching minefields, and therefore at enormous risk of fragmentation wounds. It's superior in all ways to strapping on 1mm metal plates, but nobody would wear it during infantry combat.

After WW2 we had access to knowledge of materials, ballistics, and ergonomics Bashford Dean could never have imagined. Soldiers didn't start walking around in plate armor because there was no interest in refining body armor - nobody made any because of the well-known fundamental limitations of steel armor.

[Korva]

Please stop feeding him, this is a thread for art, not walls of text procedurally generated by a Chinese learning AI/chatbot.

[Purpelia]

To be fair, if we ever do figure out proper power armor in the future it's likely to be tailored after medieval suits of plate in terms of shape and articulation. So if he is willing to wait until PMT he can get away with rifle wielding warriors in powered Gothic plate. I do it. Fluting and all.

[New Visegrad]

tl;dr: thicc armour saves lives

meanwhile:

(click to ~enhance~)

"Likes: long walks on event horizons, getting caught in the rain..."
-- Chen

The XSR suit is the standard survivability/mobility suit for the crews of Expedition Ships. It is capable of operating independently in almost any environment. Its shields and armour protect the wearer against any adverse conditions, ranging from high gravity, to acid rain, to incoming fire - while its thruster suite allows full flight in up to 2G, and significantly improved mobility in higher gravities.
While individual Expedition Ships usually modify their production of XSR suits to fit the preferences, and physical shapes, of their crews, the standard suit provides an entirely capable baseline.

Although the XSR suit is combat-capable, Expedition Ships are not warships, and the suit places more emphasis on sensors, agility, and protection than on offensive abilities.
Prototype XSR suits are likely to have been the technological basis of Quiet Era vectal armour, and the technology was also used in the Ranger artificial bodies carried by most Expedition Ships.

The Escher Gun is the standard tool/weapon associated with the XSR suit. It has numerous useful features, including a high-power particle beam, limited gravitic manipulators, and a device for generating a metre-high downlink portal from the Expedition Ship's onboard manufacturing systems. It is named for the variety of near-incomprehensible physics cheats involved in its design.

(see an Expedition Ship or read "Expedition Ships")

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

(Image)

This is what 25 pounds of full body armor looked like in the 50s. This kind of outfit was intended for engineers assault-breaching minefields, and therefore at enormous risk of fragmentation wounds. It's superior in all ways to strapping on 1mm metal plates, but nobody would wear it during infantry combat.

After WW2 we had access to knowledge of materials, ballistics, and ergonomics Bashford Dean could never have imagined. Soldiers didn't start walking around in plate armor because there was no interest in refining body armor - nobody made any because of the well-known fundamental limitations of steel armor.

Why these nibbas look like they boutta drop the hottest dubstep album of 1954

[Alteran Republics]

Ready
to start foaming at the mouth
have a heart attack
see something unique and cool and be respectful to OP
for this?



... be gentle.

[Republic of Penguinian Astronautia]

Ready
to start foaming at the mouth
have a heart attack
see something unique and cool and be respectful to OP
for this?

([url=https://i.imgur.com/wnW1GAsl.png]Image)[/url]

... be gentle.

Any details? what are the capabilities?

[Austrasien]

Never did I say anywhere that it would be completely invulnerable to all forms of fragmentation. Most of the casualties from artillery, mortars, grenades and so on takes place at quite a bit of a range from the epicenter for obvious reasons. Fragments from a hand grenade can be potentially lethal out to 200 yards for example, and typically most injuries and deaths occur quite a bit away from point blank range. If an artillery shell went off from three feet away, the shock and blast from the explosive itself could be enough to kill you. However, things like air bursting shrapnel and long range fragmentation and shrapnel tended to kill the most men, and so rarely did people actually die from close range shrapnel injuries. At long ranges shrapnel loses it's energy quickly since it's rarely aerodynamic, and so even at moderately close ranges, such as 10-30 meters, artillery Back then artillery and explosives were also generally much weaker, with american hand Mk. II hand grenades often being filled with gunpowder over TNT, and only using 50 grAms of explosive, vs. 200 for a modern M67. Both the british and the germans used roughly 88mm artillery for most artillery work (the 88's for the germans and 25 pounder for the british), vs. the U.S. which more widely adopted 105mm and 155mm howitzers. Shrapnel back then was usually much weaker, and the biggest threats were at long range.

You not seeing the issue. At the ranges people are commonly killed by fragments, there is a huge variation in the mass and penetrating power of those fragments. A helmet is not "fragment proof" at ANY range and neither would a comparable strong suit be. This is a gloss. It is actually proof against a certain fraction of fragments. The mass distribution of fragments is a very occult thing compared to say different bullet calibers, so while virtually anyone who has wiki'd them knows body armor is rated for certain rounds and a "bullet proof vest" is not in actual fact protection from all bullets, most don't know fragments also come in an (even larger) range of powers. The larger ones are even a serious threat to armoured vehicles and buildings.

And smaller explosive fill proportions actually results in larger and more penetrating fragments on average. (Seemingly) Paradoxically a shell with a smaller ratio of HE to metal would be MORE dangerous to soldiers armoured as you imagine. So you are correct they are different than modern shells, but you are wrong in assuming this helps your case. Quite the opposite, they produced a higher proportion of the heavy fragments that would blow right through your "fragment proof" armor.

Shrapnel is useful because it makes explosive weapons do more damage over a wide area. If the area of which you can be severely injured or kill is reduced, then survival and combat performance increases dramatically. If wearing armor reduces the effective area of effect of an artillery shell from 50 meters to 10 meters wide, that's quite an improvement. If it works against weaker threats, or stops things like air-bursting munitions from being as effective, it would force them to only use the heaviest artillery available to fight the forces, making them practically invulnerable to small threats. Again, it's about causality reduction. The armor would protect against environmental threats and things like knives as well. But I'm not actually stupid enough to think that every form of shrapnel in existence would be stopped, and never did I say that.

Larger fragments also have longer, not shorter, effective range because the average drag coefficient of shell fragments is essentially independent of their size and larger heavier fragments have higher average ballistic coefficients. So soldiers will still be killed at considerable distance from the shell bursts. Less on average because the larger fragments are less numerous, but still more than enough that movement in the open through shellfire would be impossible.

Soldiers in your armor would be suppressed as effectively as soldiers with minimal or no armor - they would have to fight and move the same as any other soldier; hiding in trenches or shelters and advancing across terrain using cover and stealth. The benefits of such armor would only show up only in aggregate; high command would not a fractional reduction in the number of wounded men which might make the medical branch pleased like punch. At the individual level soldiers would see plenty of examples of men wearing the "shellproof" armor killed by shell fragments when they tried to assault heedlessly through artillery barrages that men without the armor survived by clinging to the earth. And they would, as soldiers actually did, wonder why they were lugging this crap around and eventually just discard it for a sturdy shovel and more hand grenades.

As actually happened in WW1.

[Gallia-]

(Image)

This is what 25 pounds of full body armor looked like in the 50s. This kind of outfit was intended for engineers assault-breaching minefields, and therefore at enormous risk of fragmentation wounds. It's superior in all ways to strapping on 1mm metal plates, but nobody would wear it during infantry combat.

After WW2 we had access to knowledge of materials, ballistics, and ergonomics Bashford Dean could never have imagined. Soldiers didn't start walking around in plate armor because there was no interest in refining body armor - nobody made any because of the well-known fundamental limitations of steel armor.

Why these nibbas look like they boutta drop the hottest dubstep album of 1954

They look like spacemen from the far future of 1975.

[Proj Arcania]

Hi, I'm extremely new to NS in general, could anyone guide me on managing to make a coherently formatted factbook and thought-out signature?

Many thanks to any responding to what feels like an extremely out-of-place post.

[Slavakino]

I have attempted creating a Light-Weight Spec Op sniper that fires Caseless Ammo

[Crookfur]

I have attempted creating a Light-Weight Spec Op sniper that fires Caseless Ammo

(Image)

Is of much niceness. However you may want to mount the bipod on the front of the stockmchassis rather than directly to the barrel.

[Crookfur]

Hi, I'm extremely new to NS in general, could anyone guide me on managing to make a coherently formatted factbook and thought-out signature?

Many thanks to any responding to what feels like an extremely out-of-place post.

This might help viewtopic.php?f=23&t=256878

As for songs really just include anything you feel it would be important for other players to know about you

[Slavakino]

I have attempted creating a Light-Weight Spec Op sniper that fires Caseless Ammo

(Image)

Is of much niceness. However you may want to mount the bipod on the front of the stockmchassis rather than directly to the barrel.

Whoops. I accidentally mooved it from its original place. The bipod is meant to be removable from attaching it to the barrel via a screw. Which then it opens up

[Crookfur]

Is of much niceness. However you may want to mount the bipod on the front of the stockmchassis rather than directly to the barrel.

Whoops. I accidentally mooved it from its original place. The bipod is meant to be removable from attaching it to the barrel via a screw. Which then it opens up

Generally speaking you don't want anything attached to the barrel of a precision rifle other than the muzzle device.
This is why even the most barebones solutions have some sort of attachment point on the stock/body be it a short length of rail or a socket like you would see on one of the accuracy international rifles. Both solutions would be as fast and offer greater repeatability than clamping a bipod to the barrel.

[Arbakhia]

Hey all!

I'd really appreciate it if someone could make a unique uniform for my country. Blue and green would be the primary colors, as well as an arm band with my country's flag on it.

Any additions are up to the artist - I love surprises!

Thank you!