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The Problem with Sci-Fi Body Armor

130 points by Tomte 2y ago

anentropic 2y ago
See also https://www.youtube.com/@JillBearup https://www.youtube.com/@JillBearup on the tube for reviews of fantasy and sci-fi armour from games and movies
nickdothutton 2y ago
Surprised Dragon Skin[1] was not explicitly mentioned. I see it failed testing and was never adopted. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Skin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Skin
- FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
  Myself and some "co-workers" bought our own and had it shipped to us when we were deployed. Stuff was light and moved better than our issued armor (people were constantly pulling the plates out of battle armor due to weight and heat). No idea of effectiveness, thank god, as things moved to IEDs and much heavier protection was necessary.
magicalhippo 2y ago
Tod over at Tod's Workshop[1] on YouTube has done a number of interesting practical tests of various medieval weapons against armor. They really show why the armor technology was driven in the direction it was, and how weapons and fighting evolved to compensate. Also Matt over at Schola Gladiatoria[2] recently had some videos on his reproduction plate armor, including one on the gaps[3] in the armor. At least in the context of Dune, as highlighted in the article, the armor designers probably should have looked more towards medieval armor technology. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/@tods_workshop/ https://www.youtube.com/@tods_workshop/ [2]: https://www.youtube.com/@scholagladiatoria https://www.youtube.com/@scholagladiatoria [3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51oN1Z0rzPM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51oN1Z0rzPM
justlikereddit 2y ago
A little detail that slipped mention is the fact that later plate armor were made to resist bullets and that fire arms and melee weapons co-existed for quite a long time on the battle field. With a dynamics between better firearms, worsening armor economics and ergonomics as an equation. As seen on modern EOD technicians vs infantry there's clearly still ergo-economics at play on how to armor combatants. I'm not sure I would say armor is fully solved yet
aspenmayer 2y ago
For readers, at time of posting, something went weird with the tags for the footnotes for footnote #2 not escaping correctly, so a lot of the article continues after footnote #3.
hwillis 2y ago
There's a very obvious reason sci fi armors don't look like historical armor: so they look sci fi. If you make your plasteel armor look like a medieval suit then your movie will look like laser jousting. It's why tatooine looks like a western even though it's made of jet engine parts- everyone is just dressed like a western, except the guns shoot lasers. Also, weight is no longer an issue like it historically was. You used to march to a place and set up camp to fight; now you run patrols and missions. Soldiers need to carry packs and water and ammunition; every loadout will be heavy and cumbersome. Transport and communications make heavy loadouts possible. Realistic sci fi would not have two armies sprinting at each other or dramatic last stands or light loadouts. Unfortunately that makes for extremely boring movies. People carrying 100 lbs of gear and ambushing each other, then sitting in cover and waiting for heavy fire support is not dramatic. That said IMO there's a dearth of "heavies"- dress up some huge 7' guy with 4" thick plates of chunky armor and those leaf spring stilts and have him sprint around with a machine gun. That would be fun! If you have a massive population and elite soldiers then why does every single guy look incredibly normal? Alao shoutout to edge of tomorrow for shaving the coolest power armor of any movie, even if it looked pretty dumb when they were just gliding around on wires. Tom Cruise sprinting in that getup looked awesome.
- JKCalhoun 2y ago
  Too bad that "looking Sci-Fi" means more or less all looking the same. Art design in the movie "Alien" (was it Ron Cobb?) borrowed from samurai armor for the space suits. (And of course Darth Vader himself was inspired in large part from samurai armor.) Lazy films and video games since though seem to often just recycle a certain look. Perhaps an unpopular opinion but the "anime look" has been fatiguing to this person's taste for a couple of decades now as well.
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  - MichaelZuo 2y ago
    I think it’s safe to say the vast majority of sci-fi artists are mediocore, but it’s not obvious since most shows/movies/games nowadays are also very far from hard sci-fi, where things like armor plausability would actually matter.
jeffrallen 2y ago
> unmitigated pedantry Does what it says on the tin.
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taeric 2y ago
Fun read. Silly, of course, but still fun. Surprised it didn't mention Iron Man. That is almost certainly the most popular of sci-fi body armor at the moment. I, personally, think the biggest conceit with the armor narrative is that it can work as well as it does, period. This is touched in the article about how they manage to keep melee weapons as focus points. Realistically, no armor is protecting you from modern gun fire. And many hits that are survived by the likes of iron man would kill the person inside, regardless of if the armor survived.
- barrucadu 2y ago
  In the first paragraph: > I want to be clear that I am generally limiting my scope here to rigid non-powered armor. Power (or powered) armor – that is, armor that moves with built-in servos and motors, rather than purely under muscle power – is its own topic that we’ll leave for another day.
  - taeric 2y ago
    Ah, fair, I think. I confess I assume that there is some sort of power source on all of the ones discussed, though? The Dune setups clearly have a power source for the shield stuff. Why wouldn't that power source also work to help move the armor?
moomin 2y ago
This is a great article but I do think the Atreides armour _could_ look different from medieval armour. Any physical power has to be applied while you’re already inside the shield. This probably affects where is effective.
- recursivecaveat 2y ago
  Good point, "the slow blade penetrates the shield" would imply to me that the kind of big downward swing at the shoulders that you would want pauldrons to protect against is just not possible.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    Something the older Dune movie got right, iirc. In the new movies there’s a lot of fast blade action. In the older one, any fast strike would bounce off. Some trickery was required to get a slow blade past the shield. Been a while since I watched it though…
lowbloodsugar 2y ago
Is it possible that in the future there exist materials that look solid like that, provide the protection of what our naive 21st century minds associate with such rigid plates, and yet are flexible?
xg15 2y ago
> Instead, where real armors evolve against threats, fictional armors evolve as a visual language [...] I wonder if that hints at a "root cause" of the problem, or rather an additional constraint that movie armor is subject to and real armor is not: Prop design is all about which associations to evoke in the audience and which to avoid. If you want to show some futuristic soldiers in hi-tech armor, you probably want to deliberately avoid any association with medieval armor - even if from a purely technical standpoint, taking those designs and upgrading them with modern/future tech would be the best fit for your soldiers.
scotty79 2y ago
Any examples of good sci-fi armor?
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- huntedsnark 2y ago
  The Half-life 2 Combine Solider armor. It almost looks silly like they're wearing a pillow, but it lets you tack on a ton of protection for your center mass without affecting mobility as much.
  - maxglute 2y ago
    With body modifications that suggest they basically live in the armor, i.e. the neck and torso ports looks like its there to inject calories and expel waste without need for removal.
- jonathanlydall 2y ago
  Something I like about the style of Stargate SG-1 was that for the most part (at least initially), the team was equipped with essentially standard military gear. It seemed practical and non-pretentious. Even when the humans got starships, the crew were dressed and acted essentially like navy. Made the show somehow more believable. It probably also helped the budget.
ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
I love this blog in general for the picking apart of modern movie tropes and the writing is surprisingly engaging for discussing logistics etc. The "Game of Thrones" collection is probably my favourite for absolutely ripping apart the poorly thought out battles. (Though I am a fan of the GoT series up to a point) https://acoup.blog/tag/game-of-thrones/ https://acoup.blog/tag/game-of-thrones/
RecycledEle 2y ago
The same issues are faced by anyone who works in a bullet proof vest. Try selecting one: Wrap around gives better protection, at the expense if movement, weight, and a lack if airflow. Side panels give better protection, at the expense on movement, weight, and a lack if airflow. Trauma plates give better protection at the expense of... You can armor someone like the LA Bank Robbery, but they can not fight. The trade-offs are not easy to replicate because we are all made differently. A military can sculpt their warriors until they are all the same shape, but they lose other things. Overweight cops especially have issues with the trade-offs in their body armor.
- ubermonkey 2y ago
  I was amused at the time that, in one of the Nolan Batman films, Bruce and Fox have a discussion about some changes to the Batsuit that improved mobility but reduced protection around these same lines.
- jollyllama 2y ago
  > You can armor someone like the LA Bank Robbery, but they can not fight. Many police officers who responded to the incident in question sustained significant injuries.
aspenmayer 2y ago
Onscreen and textual body armor is plot armor, metaphorically speaking. If the depiction of the armor doesn’t make sense, the audience’s suspension of disbelief will suffer to a degree due to the Dunning–Kruger effect among those with knowledge of the domain, or that same effect may be canceled out by the so-called rule of cool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_armor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_armor https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotArmor https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotArmor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool The best/worst example of this I can think of is the Christian Bale movie Equilibrium (2002), where Bale’s main character doesn’t even wear armor at all, instead favoring some kind of gi or frog uniform from what I can tell. The gunkata “firearm martial art” conceit hand waves some of that away as its practitioners supposedly being much less likely to be in the line of fire, but it ends up being a bit too much like literal plot armor to be believable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog_(fastening) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog_(fastening) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_collar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_collar https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/Equilibrium https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/Equilibrium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equilibrium_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equilibrium_(film) > Angus Macfadyen's character, Vice-Counsel DuPont, describes the fictional fighting style gun kata in the film: >> Through analysis of thousands of recorded gunfights, the Cleric has determined that the geometric distribution of antagonists in any gun battle is a statistically-predictable element. The gun kata treats the gun as a total weapon, each fluid position representing a maximum kill zone, inflicting maximum damage on the maximum number of opponents, while keeping the defender clear of the statistically-traditional trajectories of return fire. By the rote mastery of this art, your firing efficiency will rise by no less than 120 percent. The difference of a 63 percent increased lethal proficiency makes the master of the gun katas an adversary not to be taken lightly. > Kata (型, かた) is a Japanese word for standard forms of movements and postures in karate, jujutsu, aikido, and many other traditional martial arts. The gun kata shown in Equilibrium is a hybrid of [writer/director Kurt] Wimmer's own style of gun kata (invented in his backyard). Gun kata is essentially a MacGuffin that takes the form of a fictional fighting technique, likely inspired by survivorship bias, but with little to no apparent basis in reality or actually existing fighting techniques, but that's not what it's for; rather, it films extremely well and sets up some decently well-done worldbuilding alongside some decently believable fighting sequence set pieces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacGuffin https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacGuffin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_piece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_piece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_fu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_fu > Anthony Leong wrote of the gunfights in A Better Tomorrow, >> Before 1986, Hong Kong cinema was firmly rooted in two genres: the martial arts film and the comedy. Gunplay was not terribly popular because audiences had considered it boring, compared to fancy kung fu moves or graceful swordplay of wuxia epics. What moviegoers needed was a new way to present gunplay—to show it as a skill that could be honed, integrating the acrobatics and grace of the traditional martial arts. And that's exactly what John Woo did. Using all of the visual techniques available to him (tracking shots, dolly-ins, slo-mo), Woo created beautifully surrealistic action sequences that were a 'guilty pleasure' to watch. There is also intimacy found in the gunplay—typically, his protagonists and antagonists will have a profound understanding of one another and will meet face-to-face, in a tense Mexican standoff where they each point their weapons at one another and trade words. Tangentially related: > Why “Cool” Military Gear Never Actually Works [video] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42285468 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42285468
aaron695 2y ago
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yellowapple 2y ago
This article would be a lot more compelling for me if it showed some examples of sci-fi armor done correctly (or at least better).
- giantg2 2y ago
  The armor from Halo is done reasonably well, depending on which variation of it you're looking at. I once wrote a paper about the feasibility of it. Most aspects of it are potentially feasible, or have stand-in technology that could perform similar functions (eg active intercept systems for tanks instead of energy shields). I think the main difference is, that armor comes with strength enhancing systems to overcome the weight issues (there are several poentially feasible options for this, but nitinol wire as synthetic muscle is particularly interesting to me).
  - softfalcon 2y ago
    Unfortunately, the article ends by pointing out that the Halo armour also has many glaring mistakes.
    - giantg2 2y ago
      Can you point me to that? The only mention I see is that of the lower torso plate issue. And of course there was no mention of the other parts of the system that might cover that area (soft armor and the inception system).
    - mrguyorama 2y ago
      Only because the author is utterly rejecting the source material. The very first thing "invented" in any "sci-fi" war setting is a magic fabric that acts like a rigid structure when hit with a weapon. The black "fabric" that the article points to at Master Chief's waist IS armor. Not only that, but it HAS evolved against it's threat profile: The primary damage type it needs to resist is thermal, not kinetic. The black fabric has a layer of ~magic~ nano goo that better dissipates the heat, and the setting's shields are more effective at mitigating a ball of plasma than a physical plate of material is. The large green portions of Master Chief's armor is primarily for housing equipment and systems. It has a nuclear reactor in it, computing facilities that rival starships, and enough motors or hydraulics or "space magic" actuators so that Mister chef can shot-put cars. It won't have mobility problems because it's power armor, the suit IS the mobility. The suit canonically survives reentry primarily by becoming entirely rigid and pretending the impact would not turn the occupant into goo. It's a suit of Iron Man armor. Halo meanwhile has both UNSC Marine "armor", which is basically a plate of steel hung over your chest and nothing else, and ODST trooper armor which would have likely been better for this post, as they are actual standard equipment, while there are only a few hundred sets of Mjollnir-IV armor. The Mass effect commentary suffers from the same problem: All the "flexible" stuff on an N7 suit are magic material that provide ample ballistic protection. They also massively overemphasize hand to hand combat for the Mass Effect universe. Sure you might take a rifle butt to the chest, but 99% of the threat in that universe is a microgram of metal fired at a significant fraction the speed of light. For the Dune armors, the complaints about "rigid" stuff bending are accurate, but the swordplay in Dune isn't really comparable to how we protected against middle ages swordplay, because the shields completely change everything up. Shields ARE effective against a sword, if it travels fast enough. You don't armor against an actual sword blow delivering 100J because that will be stopped by the shield. You don't land a brutal slice on your enemies, you slip inside their shield and gently slide a knife between their ribs. A stab proof vest in this universe should be entirely effective armor, but instead, no armor in Dune is ever shown to do anything. Dune 2 had MUCH more rigid and all-encompassing armor for people who expected to get shot, not that it stopped them from getting domed and stabbed.
arnoooooo 2y ago
This doesn't take into account newer materials that can become rigid when struck.
- giantg2 2y ago
  Can you share a particular source? I've actually had an idea in the past about changing rigidity in soft armor to reduce trauma. It's most likely unfeasible, but it would be interesting if someone already built something similar (as is the case with every reasonably patentable idea I've ever had).
  - Someone 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_Armor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_Armor
  - LurkerAtTheGate 2y ago
    Not combat-armor, but a lot of motorcycle protective gear is exactly this. D3O is soft/flexible normally, but goes rigid on impact. I have plates of it in my own riding gear. I believe there's also some progressive versions that harden more or less based on the impact force.
    - giantg2 2y ago
      Yeah, that D3O stuff is basically just a non-neutonian putty. I was aware of the liquid/putty/gels. I was wondering if there's anything else.
      - ycombinatrix 2y ago
        "neuton"
  - just6979 2y ago
    There are many examples used as limb & joint protection for motorcycling and mountain biking. D3O, xmatter, SAS-TEC: brand-names of various non-newtonian shear-thickening substances used to allow flexibility and conforming to body motion but firming up under hard/sudden impacts to spread the forces. Not quite as soft or flexible as a fancy sci-fi material would need to be for a full-body armor, but certainly much more comfortable than the hard plastic materials previously used for protecting extremities. These are often demonstrated by protecting a hand from a hammer blow, and I know from experience they are very adequate for protecting knees and elbows from trees, hard ground, and moderately pointy rocks. However, it's unclear if the shear-thickening is significant enough to protect against an actual sword strike or knife stab, and very unlikely that they could withstand a modern projectile weapon. The idea is proven, but would need some further materials breakthrough to approach the level of sci-fi armor.

130 points by Tomte 2y ago

See also https://www.youtube.com/@JillBearup https://www.youtube.com/@JillBearup on the tube for reviews of fantasy and sci-fi armour from games and movies

nickdothutton 2y ago

Surprised Dragon Skin[1] was not explicitly mentioned. I see it failed testing and was never adopted. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Skin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Skin

FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
Myself and some "co-workers" bought our own and had it shipped to us when we were deployed. Stuff was light and moved better than our issued armor (people were constantly pulling the plates out of battle armor due to weight and heat). No idea of effectiveness, thank god, as things moved to IEDs and much heavier protection was necessary.

magicalhippo 2y ago

Tod over at Tod's Workshop[1] on YouTube has done a number of interesting practical tests of various medieval weapons against armor. They really show why the armor technology was driven in the direction it was, and how weapons and fighting evolved to compensate. Also Matt over at Schola Gladiatoria[2] recently had some videos on his reproduction plate armor, including one on the gaps[3] in the armor. At least in the context of Dune, as highlighted in the article, the armor designers probably should have looked more towards medieval armor technology. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/@tods_workshop/ https://www.youtube.com/@tods_workshop/ [2]: https://www.youtube.com/@scholagladiatoria https://www.youtube.com/@scholagladiatoria [3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51oN1Z0rzPM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51oN1Z0rzPM

justlikereddit 2y ago

A little detail that slipped mention is the fact that later plate armor were made to resist bullets and that fire arms and melee weapons co-existed for quite a long time on the battle field. With a dynamics between better firearms, worsening armor economics and ergonomics as an equation. As seen on modern EOD technicians vs infantry there's clearly still ergo-economics at play on how to armor combatants. I'm not sure I would say armor is fully solved yet

aspenmayer 2y ago

For readers, at time of posting, something went weird with the tags for the footnotes for footnote #2 not escaping correctly, so a lot of the article continues after footnote #3.

hwillis 2y ago

There's a very obvious reason sci fi armors don't look like historical armor: so they look sci fi. If you make your plasteel armor look like a medieval suit then your movie will look like laser jousting. It's why tatooine looks like a western even though it's made of jet engine parts- everyone is just dressed like a western, except the guns shoot lasers. Also, weight is no longer an issue like it historically was. You used to march to a place and set up camp to fight; now you run patrols and missions. Soldiers need to carry packs and water and ammunition; every loadout will be heavy and cumbersome. Transport and communications make heavy loadouts possible. Realistic sci fi would not have two armies sprinting at each other or dramatic last stands or light loadouts. Unfortunately that makes for extremely boring movies. People carrying 100 lbs of gear and ambushing each other, then sitting in cover and waiting for heavy fire support is not dramatic. That said IMO there's a dearth of "heavies"- dress up some huge 7' guy with 4" thick plates of chunky armor and those leaf spring stilts and have him sprint around with a machine gun. That would be fun! If you have a massive population and elite soldiers then why does every single guy look incredibly normal? Alao shoutout to edge of tomorrow for shaving the coolest power armor of any movie, even if it looked pretty dumb when they were just gliding around on wires. Tom Cruise sprinting in that getup looked awesome.

JKCalhoun 2y ago
Too bad that "looking Sci-Fi" means more or less all looking the same. Art design in the movie "Alien" (was it Ron Cobb?) borrowed from samurai armor for the space suits. (And of course Darth Vader himself was inspired in large part from samurai armor.) Lazy films and video games since though seem to often just recycle a certain look. Perhaps an unpopular opinion but the "anime look" has been fatiguing to this person's taste for a couple of decades now as well.
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- MichaelZuo 2y ago
  I think it’s safe to say the vast majority of sci-fi artists are mediocore, but it’s not obvious since most shows/movies/games nowadays are also very far from hard sci-fi, where things like armor plausability would actually matter.

jeffrallen 2y ago

> unmitigated pedantry Does what it says on the tin.

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taeric 2y ago

Fun read. Silly, of course, but still fun. Surprised it didn't mention Iron Man. That is almost certainly the most popular of sci-fi body armor at the moment. I, personally, think the biggest conceit with the armor narrative is that it can work as well as it does, period. This is touched in the article about how they manage to keep melee weapons as focus points. Realistically, no armor is protecting you from modern gun fire. And many hits that are survived by the likes of iron man would kill the person inside, regardless of if the armor survived.

barrucadu 2y ago
In the first paragraph: > I want to be clear that I am generally limiting my scope here to rigid non-powered armor. Power (or powered) armor – that is, armor that moves with built-in servos and motors, rather than purely under muscle power – is its own topic that we’ll leave for another day.
- taeric 2y ago
  Ah, fair, I think. I confess I assume that there is some sort of power source on all of the ones discussed, though? The Dune setups clearly have a power source for the shield stuff. Why wouldn't that power source also work to help move the armor?

moomin 2y ago

This is a great article but I do think the Atreides armour _could_ look different from medieval armour. Any physical power has to be applied while you’re already inside the shield. This probably affects where is effective.

recursivecaveat 2y ago
Good point, "the slow blade penetrates the shield" would imply to me that the kind of big downward swing at the shoulders that you would want pauldrons to protect against is just not possible.
- adastra22 2y ago
  Something the older Dune movie got right, iirc. In the new movies there’s a lot of fast blade action. In the older one, any fast strike would bounce off. Some trickery was required to get a slow blade past the shield. Been a while since I watched it though…

lowbloodsugar 2y ago

Is it possible that in the future there exist materials that look solid like that, provide the protection of what our naive 21st century minds associate with such rigid plates, and yet are flexible?

xg15 2y ago

> Instead, where real armors evolve against threats, fictional armors evolve as a visual language [...] I wonder if that hints at a "root cause" of the problem, or rather an additional constraint that movie armor is subject to and real armor is not: Prop design is all about which associations to evoke in the audience and which to avoid. If you want to show some futuristic soldiers in hi-tech armor, you probably want to deliberately avoid any association with medieval armor - even if from a purely technical standpoint, taking those designs and upgrading them with modern/future tech would be the best fit for your soldiers.

scotty79 2y ago

Any examples of good sci-fi armor?

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huntedsnark 2y ago
The Half-life 2 Combine Solider armor. It almost looks silly like they're wearing a pillow, but it lets you tack on a ton of protection for your center mass without affecting mobility as much.
- maxglute 2y ago
  With body modifications that suggest they basically live in the armor, i.e. the neck and torso ports looks like its there to inject calories and expel waste without need for removal.
jonathanlydall 2y ago
Something I like about the style of Stargate SG-1 was that for the most part (at least initially), the team was equipped with essentially standard military gear. It seemed practical and non-pretentious. Even when the humans got starships, the crew were dressed and acted essentially like navy. Made the show somehow more believable. It probably also helped the budget.

ndsipa_pomu 2y ago

I love this blog in general for the picking apart of modern movie tropes and the writing is surprisingly engaging for discussing logistics etc. The "Game of Thrones" collection is probably my favourite for absolutely ripping apart the poorly thought out battles. (Though I am a fan of the GoT series up to a point) https://acoup.blog/tag/game-of-thrones/ https://acoup.blog/tag/game-of-thrones/

RecycledEle 2y ago

The same issues are faced by anyone who works in a bullet proof vest. Try selecting one: Wrap around gives better protection, at the expense if movement, weight, and a lack if airflow. Side panels give better protection, at the expense on movement, weight, and a lack if airflow. Trauma plates give better protection at the expense of... You can armor someone like the LA Bank Robbery, but they can not fight. The trade-offs are not easy to replicate because we are all made differently. A military can sculpt their warriors until they are all the same shape, but they lose other things. Overweight cops especially have issues with the trade-offs in their body armor.

ubermonkey 2y ago
I was amused at the time that, in one of the Nolan Batman films, Bruce and Fox have a discussion about some changes to the Batsuit that improved mobility but reduced protection around these same lines.
jollyllama 2y ago
> You can armor someone like the LA Bank Robbery, but they can not fight. Many police officers who responded to the incident in question sustained significant injuries.

aspenmayer 2y ago

Onscreen and textual body armor is plot armor, metaphorically speaking. If the depiction of the armor doesn’t make sense, the audience’s suspension of disbelief will suffer to a degree due to the Dunning–Kruger effect among those with knowledge of the domain, or that same effect may be canceled out by the so-called rule of cool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_armor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_armor https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotArmor https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotArmor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool The best/worst example of this I can think of is the Christian Bale movie Equilibrium (2002), where Bale’s main character doesn’t even wear armor at all, instead favoring some kind of gi or frog uniform from what I can tell. The gunkata “firearm martial art” conceit hand waves some of that away as its practitioners supposedly being much less likely to be in the line of fire, but it ends up being a bit too much like literal plot armor to be believable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog_(fastening) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog_(fastening) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_collar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_collar https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/Equilibrium https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/Equilibrium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equilibrium_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equilibrium_(film) > Angus Macfadyen's character, Vice-Counsel DuPont, describes the fictional fighting style gun kata in the film: >> Through analysis of thousands of recorded gunfights, the Cleric has determined that the geometric distribution of antagonists in any gun battle is a statistically-predictable element. The gun kata treats the gun as a total weapon, each fluid position representing a maximum kill zone, inflicting maximum damage on the maximum number of opponents, while keeping the defender clear of the statistically-traditional trajectories of return fire. By the rote mastery of this art, your firing efficiency will rise by no less than 120 percent. The difference of a 63 percent increased lethal proficiency makes the master of the gun katas an adversary not to be taken lightly. > Kata (型, かた) is a Japanese word for standard forms of movements and postures in karate, jujutsu, aikido, and many other traditional martial arts. The gun kata shown in Equilibrium is a hybrid of [writer/director Kurt] Wimmer's own style of gun kata (invented in his backyard). Gun kata is essentially a MacGuffin that takes the form of a fictional fighting technique, likely inspired by survivorship bias, but with little to no apparent basis in reality or actually existing fighting techniques, but that's not what it's for; rather, it films extremely well and sets up some decently well-done worldbuilding alongside some decently believable fighting sequence set pieces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacGuffin https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacGuffin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_piece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_piece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_fu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_fu > Anthony Leong wrote of the gunfights in A Better Tomorrow, >> Before 1986, Hong Kong cinema was firmly rooted in two genres: the martial arts film and the comedy. Gunplay was not terribly popular because audiences had considered it boring, compared to fancy kung fu moves or graceful swordplay of wuxia epics. What moviegoers needed was a new way to present gunplay—to show it as a skill that could be honed, integrating the acrobatics and grace of the traditional martial arts. And that's exactly what John Woo did. Using all of the visual techniques available to him (tracking shots, dolly-ins, slo-mo), Woo created beautifully surrealistic action sequences that were a 'guilty pleasure' to watch. There is also intimacy found in the gunplay—typically, his protagonists and antagonists will have a profound understanding of one another and will meet face-to-face, in a tense Mexican standoff where they each point their weapons at one another and trade words. Tangentially related: > Why “Cool” Military Gear Never Actually Works [video] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42285468 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42285468

aaron695 2y ago

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yellowapple 2y ago

This article would be a lot more compelling for me if it showed some examples of sci-fi armor done correctly (or at least better).

giantg2 2y ago
The armor from Halo is done reasonably well, depending on which variation of it you're looking at. I once wrote a paper about the feasibility of it. Most aspects of it are potentially feasible, or have stand-in technology that could perform similar functions (eg active intercept systems for tanks instead of energy shields). I think the main difference is, that armor comes with strength enhancing systems to overcome the weight issues (there are several poentially feasible options for this, but nitinol wire as synthetic muscle is particularly interesting to me).
- softfalcon 2y ago
  Unfortunately, the article ends by pointing out that the Halo armour also has many glaring mistakes.
  - giantg2 2y ago
    Can you point me to that? The only mention I see is that of the lower torso plate issue. And of course there was no mention of the other parts of the system that might cover that area (soft armor and the inception system).
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    Only because the author is utterly rejecting the source material. The very first thing "invented" in any "sci-fi" war setting is a magic fabric that acts like a rigid structure when hit with a weapon. The black "fabric" that the article points to at Master Chief's waist IS armor. Not only that, but it HAS evolved against it's threat profile: The primary damage type it needs to resist is thermal, not kinetic. The black fabric has a layer of ~magic~ nano goo that better dissipates the heat, and the setting's shields are more effective at mitigating a ball of plasma than a physical plate of material is. The large green portions of Master Chief's armor is primarily for housing equipment and systems. It has a nuclear reactor in it, computing facilities that rival starships, and enough motors or hydraulics or "space magic" actuators so that Mister chef can shot-put cars. It won't have mobility problems because it's power armor, the suit IS the mobility. The suit canonically survives reentry primarily by becoming entirely rigid and pretending the impact would not turn the occupant into goo. It's a suit of Iron Man armor. Halo meanwhile has both UNSC Marine "armor", which is basically a plate of steel hung over your chest and nothing else, and ODST trooper armor which would have likely been better for this post, as they are actual standard equipment, while there are only a few hundred sets of Mjollnir-IV armor. The Mass effect commentary suffers from the same problem: All the "flexible" stuff on an N7 suit are magic material that provide ample ballistic protection. They also massively overemphasize hand to hand combat for the Mass Effect universe. Sure you might take a rifle butt to the chest, but 99% of the threat in that universe is a microgram of metal fired at a significant fraction the speed of light. For the Dune armors, the complaints about "rigid" stuff bending are accurate, but the swordplay in Dune isn't really comparable to how we protected against middle ages swordplay, because the shields completely change everything up. Shields ARE effective against a sword, if it travels fast enough. You don't armor against an actual sword blow delivering 100J because that will be stopped by the shield. You don't land a brutal slice on your enemies, you slip inside their shield and gently slide a knife between their ribs. A stab proof vest in this universe should be entirely effective armor, but instead, no armor in Dune is ever shown to do anything. Dune 2 had MUCH more rigid and all-encompassing armor for people who expected to get shot, not that it stopped them from getting domed and stabbed.

arnoooooo 2y ago

This doesn't take into account newer materials that can become rigid when struck.

giantg2 2y ago
Can you share a particular source? I've actually had an idea in the past about changing rigidity in soft armor to reduce trauma. It's most likely unfeasible, but it would be interesting if someone already built something similar (as is the case with every reasonably patentable idea I've ever had).
- Someone 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_Armor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_Armor
- LurkerAtTheGate 2y ago
  Not combat-armor, but a lot of motorcycle protective gear is exactly this. D3O is soft/flexible normally, but goes rigid on impact. I have plates of it in my own riding gear. I believe there's also some progressive versions that harden more or less based on the impact force.
  - giantg2 2y ago
    Yeah, that D3O stuff is basically just a non-neutonian putty. I was aware of the liquid/putty/gels. I was wondering if there's anything else.
    - ycombinatrix 2y ago
      "neuton"
- just6979 2y ago
  There are many examples used as limb & joint protection for motorcycling and mountain biking. D3O, xmatter, SAS-TEC: brand-names of various non-newtonian shear-thickening substances used to allow flexibility and conforming to body motion but firming up under hard/sudden impacts to spread the forces. Not quite as soft or flexible as a fancy sci-fi material would need to be for a full-body armor, but certainly much more comfortable than the hard plastic materials previously used for protecting extremities. These are often demonstrated by protecting a hand from a hammer blow, and I know from experience they are very adequate for protecting knees and elbows from trees, hard ground, and moderately pointy rocks. However, it's unclear if the shear-thickening is significant enough to protect against an actual sword strike or knife stab, and very unlikely that they could withstand a modern projectile weapon. The idea is proven, but would need some further materials breakthrough to approach the level of sci-fi armor.