Got a Real-World Weapon or Armor Question? Mk. IX

[Thiel]

Chinese rifle and pistol bullets are typically steel.

It should be noticed that they aren't made of steel all the way through. They have a steel core op penetrator and a copper or lead jacket.

[Conners]

One thing that I've been pondering over for a while...

Would it be practical to have laser-weapons? If so, which ones would be practical, and for what reason? From what I understand, laser batteries might cost so much, that a regular machine gun will be just as good for a lower cost (possibly more effective, even).

How about laser-swords, or laser-satellites? Laser fences maybe...?

Curious as to how expensive laser technology is likely to be, if the new batteries which are planned work out.
Basically a question of: "How advanced would our power sources need to be, before laser technology had any practical application as a weapon?"

[Yora]

That depends all on how powerful, cheap, heavy, and large laser technology would become. Currently, it's completely impossible.

One advantage I could see is the lack of recoil. While you don't need ammunition, you need replacement bateries, probably a lot.
Another one would be penetration. It could be possible that certain kinds of armor would be easier to melt with a laser than to penetrate with a bullet. But then people would just come up with new armor in a few years.

But currently, I don't think anything indicates that handheld laser will be used as weapons at any point.

[Eldan]

Any laser I've seen so far that would do any significant of damage looked too bulky to be portable by one human, really. Perhaps that has changed recently, I'm certainly not up to date. Melting would also require to hold the weapon on target for a time, which would probably be rather difficult with anything that tries to evade.

You would also loose significant amounts of energy to the air, especially if there is any kind of dust, smog, fog or particle in the air. This includes smoke from burning or melting targets, too.

[Spiryt]

Consensus would be: "Not much" I'd suppose? Improved materials would mean a more durable weapon, though? That'd be enough reason to use better materials, so your sword will keep its edge better and not get broken in the heat of battle.

It unfortunately seems that you are simplifying the matter a bit - no one had said that material doesn't matter, or whatever - it can matter a lot.

It doesn't matter that the same material is the best for all applications, and uses, nor that "pattern welded" or whatever will be necessarily better or similarly more desired.

One thing to note with arrowheads, is that some of them were reusable. In Japan, they marked their arrowheads with their family symbol, to count how many kills they had gotten and to make it easier to find their own arrowheads. Japanese arrowheads weren't dispensable or made out of cheap metal... those things were monstrously designed, to cause all sorts of pain and bleed.

Arrows all around the world were often pretty expensive and elaborate.

It doesn't mean that they were much more "reusable" than others - of course often less prone to damaging, or whatever, but if arrow hits some solid tree, bit of metal, or whatever hard, it often breaks, and not much can help here.

Neither if it falls to some deep bushes and cannot be found without burning the plants.

[Storm Bringer]

Any laser I've seen so far that would do any significant of damage looked too bulky to be portable by one human, really. Perhaps that has changed recently, I'm certainly not up to date. Melting would also require to hold the weapon on target for a time, which would probably be rather difficult with anything that tries to evade.

You would also loose significant amounts of energy to the air, especially if there is any kind of dust, smog, fog or particle in the air. This includes smoke from burning or melting targets, too.

the trouble is that things tend to ablate rather than melt. you cause the first layer to melr, but that then acts as a shield, absorbing the rest of the lasers energy before it reaches the target.

the result when fired at a human is a skin deep burn, and a small explosion as the gsa expands. it knocks the guy overs, but he can get back up pretty much unhurt.

[gkathellar]

Japanese arrowheads weren't dispensable or made out of cheap metal... those things were monstrously designed, to cause all sorts of pain and bleed.

I'm not sure you're wrong about this, but I do know that Japanese artisans produced a wide variety of decorative arrowheads not meant to be used in actual combat. Very elaborate stuff, which you can find some examples of on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's website. Are you sure you're not confusing these for actual heads meant for shooting?

Would it be practical to have laser-weapons?

Possibly in space. Even then, there are significant problems. Almost certainly not for terrestrial warfare. Heat-disposal alone is an almost insurmountable difficulty in either environment — even on some larger machine guns, you have to worry about overheating. Think about how much more havoc that would cause for a laser weapon, and how much more aggravated the problem would be.

How about laser-swords,

Lasers do not stop at a predetermined point. If you shot a laser out of something, that laser would keep going until it dispersed or it bumped into something that could stop it. And if you managed a coherent beam capable of injuring someone, do you really thing the best possible use would be "I'ma build me a lightsaber?"

or laser-satellites?

If you mean "satellites that shoot lasers," then maybe. Certainly if you're using them for an orbital defense grid or whatever, you don't want to have to restock them for ammunition. But all the general problems of laser weaponry still presents itself.

Laser fences maybe...?

Sure, if you can magically produce a coherent beam without using electricity, magically maintain it without using electricity, stop it magically where you want the grating of your fence to stop, and have some sort of magical heatsink available.

Basically a question of: "How advanced would our power sources need to be, before laser technology had any practical application as a weapon?"

Very, very advanced, and even if they were there are many other problems associated with such a weapon.

[Conners]

It unfortunately seems that you are simplifying the matter a bit - no one had said that material doesn't matter, or whatever - it can matter a lot.

It doesn't matter that the same material is the best for all applications, and uses, nor that "pattern welded" or whatever will be necessarily better or similarly more desired.


Arrows all around the world were often pretty expensive and elaborate.

It doesn't mean that they were much more "reusable" than others - of course often less prone to damaging, or whatever, but if arrow hits some solid tree, bit of metal, or whatever hard, it often breaks, and not much can help here.

Neither if it falls to some deep bushes and cannot be found without burning the plants.

Yes, no one said, "the material doesn't matter". I haven't said as much, either O_o... The impression I got from your post was that the material wouldn't make a lot of difference. Some, but not much.

Afraid I'm unable to understand this paragraph.


Do arrowheads break so easily? I know little about weapon breakage. I do wonder how often well-designed arrowheads would break, however.

I'm not sure you're wrong about this, but I do know that Japanese artisans produced a wide variety of decorative arrowheads not meant to be used in actual combat. Very elaborate stuff, which you can find some examples of on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's website. Are you sure you're not confusing these for actual heads meant for shooting?



Possibly in space. Even then, there are significant problems. Almost certainly not for terrestrial warfare. Heat-disposal alone is an almost insurmountable difficulty in either environment — even on some larger machine guns, you have to worry about overheating. Think about how much more havoc that would cause for a laser weapon, and how much more aggravated the problem would be.



Lasers do not stop at a predetermined point. If you shot a laser out of something, that laser would keep going until it dispersed or it bumped into something that could stop it. And if you managed a coherent beam capable of injuring someone, do you really thing the best possible use would be "I'ma build me a lightsaber?"



If you mean "satellites that shoot lasers," then maybe. Certainly if you're using them for an orbital defense grid or whatever, you don't want to have to restock them for ammunition. But all the general problems of laser weaponry still presents itself.



Sure, if you can magically produce a coherent beam without using electricity, magically maintain it without using electricity, stop it magically where you want the grating of your fence to stop, and have some sort of magical heatsink available.



Very, very advanced, and even if they were there are many other problems associated with such a weapon.

I found this out from a historian who specializes in Asian history. He could be wrong, but that'd seem unusual for him.


A bit sad, since laser weapons are something that would be interesting to have.


I heard that there are some lightsabers that have been built--however, they are currently not very useful for combat (I think it's too heavy to carry).


Was wondering if putting the laser on something bigger would make the disadvantages less crippling--it was a faint hope, though.


Thinking of a fence with a metal frame, but lasers between the posts instead of wiring. Didn't seem likely, of course..


Hmm... I guess there aren't any logical sci-fi loopholes to make them effective..?



PS: While lasers seem impractical, would plasma be any better?

[Knaight]

PS: While lasers seem impractical, would plasma be any better?

No. Plasma, sadly (or not, considering how nasty burn wounds are), is basically worthless in weaponry.

[gkathellar]

I heard that there are some lightsabers that have been built--however, they are currently not very useful for combat (I think it's too heavy to carry).

-snip-

PS: While lasers seem impractical, would plasma be any better?

I've heard that some MIT guys came up with a working lightsaber design that was functionally a "plasma chainsaw," but I can't verify that. I do know that the energy and material requirements for any such weapon would be enormous.

Plasma is a little better, but poses many of the same heating and energy-loss problems. Its big advantages, to my understanding, are that you can reliably contain and control it with powerful magnets and that it might potentially carry a larger energy payload to a target. But on the other hand, it doesn't move as quickly as lasers do (see: speed of light) and you'd need some kind of actual mechanism for getting it to the target (as opposed to: laser goes that way). Certainly, plasma is more likely for things like swords or fences or attack poodles. EDIT: Of course, the energy requirements are still there and still immense, and our magnetic technology isn't nearly good enough to do things like that very well yet.

Honestly, if you're looking for realistic futuristic weapons for personal combat, improved kinetics and explosives are probably the way to go — high-tech homing bullets, miniaturized RPGs and grenades, railguns, that sort of thing.

[Spiryt]

Do arrowheads break so easily? I know little about weapon breakage. I do wonder how often well-designed arrowheads would break, however.

Arrow heads may not break easily, but shaft certainly do.

And shaft is very important part of an arrow - it's balance and shape is very important to optimal flight of arrow. Not to mention that if shaft breaks, it's all the way harder to find your precious head or/and fletching.

Even assuming that shaft is relatively cheap and easy to replace, it's still quite a lot of trouble, depends on the way of mounting the head.

As far as breakage goes, it's harder to say. Many thin, flat, long or combination of above shapes may indeed be pretty prone to damage if they hit something that 'gives back' a lot.

[Eldan]

I heard that there are some lightsabers that have been built--however, they are currently not very useful for combat (I think it's too heavy to carry).

I really, really, really doubt that.

At least, it wouldn't be a laser in the form of a blade. Light doesn't do that, period.

It could be something similar to an oversized plasma scalpel, maybe. I could see that.

[Knaight]

I really, really, really doubt that.

At least, it wouldn't be a laser in the form of a blade. Light doesn't do that, period.

It could be something similar to an oversized plasma scalpel, maybe. I could see that.

That's whats under discussion. And its more like a lightknife than a lightsaber, its a contained bit of plasma that juts out of a very large, very heavy machine.

[Yora]

When it comes to sci-fi weapons, my monney is on coil guns. Some guy build a low-powered one in his garage and it does have a bit of a punch. Nowhere near practical levels, but the concept works.

While the US Navy is toying around with artillery scale railguns, I don't see how they think to find a solution for the heat problem. But then, I am no engineer.

[The Boz]

Me and a friend made a 2m long railgun, but we didn't have the money for the capacitors needed :( If we had something like two thousand dollars to spare, it could fire a five gram steel bearing at well over 300m/s (our math was somewhat imprecise), and could maybe even do it twice with good wiring and mechanics.
The principle is pretty sound, though. I can definitely imagine myself making a railgun if I ever needed to assassinate someone without a traceable round, sound of gunfire or the hassle of actually attaining a rifle. I even thought of a way to add gyrostabilization to railguns.

EDIT: Regarding the heat problem in large rail guns... As far as I know, they're planning to use ablative rails, where each set is good for only a few firings, in the low dozens maybe. With each shot, a large portion of the heat would be translated to the top layer of the rails which would break off in tiny pieces and eject out of the gun in the form of plasma.

[Telok]

The Atomic Rockets website is a pretty good resource for space, laser, and energy weapon information.

USAF airborne laser

Laser pistols

Particle beams

The spacegun intro

Skirts in space

[Yora]

How can someone so smart have a website so awful?!

[The Boz]

Atomic Rocket is, like, fourty two years old.

[Spiryt]

Not relevant to EMP railgunny atomic rockets in any way, but somebody had put pretty fantastic article in the Net:

http://www.byzsym.org/index.php/bz/a...ewFile/976/954


About scale & lamellar armor in Byzantium, Georgia, and general Black Sea & steppes region where it thrived trough all Middle Ages.

[Yora]

Speaking of armor:

In D&D, "breastplate" is one of the best pieces of armor in the game. However only a cuirass and nothing else doesn't sound very good when compared to full body chainmaile. This got me thinking about ancient greek armor. Did they really only have a cuirass, helmet, lower leg guards, and a loincloth? Sure, it got hot in summer and the shield was the most important item of protection, but wouldn't a soldier also have to expect to get into fights that did not consist of phalanxes fighting each other? And there's winter in Greece as well.

On paintings I've only seen soldiers in the standard outfit, but I guess there's a chance that artists did paint what they considered cool and not how things actually were. And with greek art, everything seems to follow the exact same style, so I would also suspect that artist would always stick to the same ways of painting generic soldiers. So I don't trust art a lot when it comes to accurately represent equipment.
Then there's archeology, but you wouldn't find any two thousand year old cloth and leather, while you get a lot of brass pieces. And 19th century archeologists did all kinds of mistakes that seem stupid in hindsight, but once an image has entered public consciousness, new evidence rarely changes it.
So again, did people around and before 1 AD really fight with only a cuirass and helmet all the time?

[Knaight]

http://www.byzsym.org/index.php/bz/a...ewFile/976/954


About scale & lamellar armor in Byzantium, Georgia, and general Black Sea & steppes region where it thrived trough all Middle Ages.

That was a seriously cool article, though somewhat lacking in scope.

[Eldan]

I've seen pictures with slightly different styles of armour, like a linothorax like this or this, but even those don't seem to protect the arms at all.

Edit: Here's an interesting picture:
Note the cloth hanging from the shield, which is supposed to protect the legs against arrows.

[Spiryt]

Speaking of armor:


So again, did people around and before 1 AD really fight with only a cuirass and helmet all the time?

People from 4000 B.C. to 1700 AD very often fought with 'only' some form of torso protection and helmet all the time, so that's nothing especially weird....

More complete armor was always problematic, from obtaining fitting and quality one, to carrying it around.

though somewhat lacking in scope.

What do you exactly mean by "lacking in scope"?

I've seen pictures with slightly different styles of armour, like a linothorax like this or this, but even those don't seem to protect the arms at all.

First one seems like some scale armor, not really linothorax.

[Knaight]

What do you exactly mean by "lacking in scope"?

It was a short article that didn't cover very much - particularly as it only made vague allusions as to Georgia's source on new technology, and didn't detail the origin of those technologies at all.

[Eldan]

First one seems like some scale armor, not really linothorax.

I thought that too, but it was the example picture of "linothorax" on wikipedia, the first picture I could find.

[Yora]

While we are at it: Was there ever something like "splint armor"? When you google it, 60% of the results are dictionary pages, 20% RPG related, 10% single-sentence descriptions without pictures, and the rest 10% "page not found".
When looking for images, it's even worse. Two pictures from RPGs and nothing else that has anything to do with the subject.

[Eldan]

I've actually researched it a bit a while ago, when I first heard the term in a D&D book. General consensus I could find from articles was: Did exist, but was rarely used, and then mostly just for the arms and legs.

Edit: Actually, the first google result for me was a Wikipedia article, which basically says the same

Here's a picture.

[Spiryt]

While we are at it: Was there ever something like "splint armor"? When you google it, 60% of the results are dictionary pages, 20% RPG related, 10% single-sentence descriptions without pictures, and the rest 10% "page not found".
When looking for images, it's even worse. Two pictures from RPGs and nothing else that has anything to do with the subject.

"Splint" in english seems to be defined as to "split part of larger piece" or "plate or strip " and "of metal" for example.

Article I posted puts lamellar and scale under group name of "splint armors" so I guess that any armor that's composed of some small strips of metal or whatever can be called 'splint".

Some coats of plates or brigandines could also very well fit under that name.

General consensus I could find from articles was: Did exist, but was rarely used, and then mostly just for the arms and legs.

If arm and legs protection like that should be called "splint" as well, then it was not rare at all, it was very popular protection of legs and arms trough the whole 14th century, before it was more or less displaced by solid plates by 15th century.


EDIT: With 3/4 of ~ 14 th century reenactors using that stuff (not exactly correctly all the time), it's hard to find decent reconstruction picture....

Spoiler

Show

[Yora]

That linothorax is actually quite cool. That one that Alexander is wearing in his picture is really fashionable for a heroic warrior.
But I think it looks as if its covered by small bronze plates while most descriptions say cloth only.

Specific ways of construction set aside, I think I'll actually use that for breastplate armor in my iron age campaign.

[Dead_Jester]

The thing is, splint armor is quite hard to define, as it is almost never used as a full set (other types of armor to cover the torso are often either easier to make or offer greater protection and/or more mobility). Furthermore, many early suit of plate armor integrated other types of armor to cover the lower arms and parts of the legs, so, although they might integrate splint armor or mail, they are considered plate armor or partial plate.

As for the ancient armor, most soldiers in the Hellenic states wore head and torso protection, but many of the richer ones also wore greaves. Note that the later linothorax usually included a leather "skirt" to protect the upper legs, and that the actual armor worn by the soldiers was rarely uniform. As for the arms, the aspis usually covered the entire left arm, and, if fighting in organized formation, usually at least part of the spear arm was either covered by the next man in the formation or was out of practical reach for hand weapon wielding infantry.