Mandalorian Armor < Stormtrooper Armor?

[Gunhead]

Nope. What I said is: To determine the effectiveness of stormie armor we'd need to know where those shots that were fired at off-screen targets ended up. Most would assume those were all misses, but based on the movie I can just as easily say some hit and were deflected by stormie armor.

So saying stormie armor is useless against blasters based on the movies, is incorrect.

Yes I know the EU supports the fact that stormie armor isn't usefull against direct hits.

-Gunhead

[Gorefiend]

Ah, now I get it. Yes, of course, I was just pointing out that we see a lot of cases in the movie were storm troopers are hit by blaster fire and do die, even though they wear armour, so we can at least assume it doess not work all to well against direct blaster fire.

[Gunhead]

It's actually more like: From the movies we can determine that direct blaster hit at close range is powerful enough to cause the trooper to become a casualty.

All shots that down a trooper are fired from close up. I haven't calculated exact ranges, but I'd guesstimate a max range of 100m.

-Gunhead

[Shroom Man 777]

You have to remember, modern soldiers still get killed by rifles despite wearing armor.

[Cykeisme]

Regarding the original topic, the assessments may have been performed incorrectly.

There are two important properties inherent to the body armor in question: impedence of movement, and protection provided. The less impedence of movement, and the more protection provided, the better.
Just because Fett's armor appears to be more flexible simply shows that it's better in the first property, yet provides no indication that it's worse in the second. Unless you see the flexible parts of his suit taking hits, there's no way to tell whether it's any better or any worse than the hard portions of Trooper armor.

Therefore it's entirely possible that the flexible portions of his suit are on par, or possibly better, than the hard portions of Trooper armor. This would not be entirely out of the question, seeing as how better materials (better meaning lighter, more flexible, more protective, or any combination thereof) would be more expensive. Since Trooper armor is mass-produced for standard issue, it won't be farfetched that Fett's armor is of better quality, since he would presumably spend a considerable sum on his personal protection.


While modern soldiers wearing armor do get killed by rifles, it's usually due to enemy fire strikes unprotected areas. A 7.62x39mm rifle projectile hit on the boron carbide rifle plate on an Interceptor vest has virtually no chance of causing a casualty.

Perhaps stormtrooper armor does provide partial protection, reducing a fatality into an incapacitation, or reducing a major injury into a minor one... but it's still kept light enough to allow maneuverability, instead of being heavy enough stop blaster bolts cold, at the cost of slowing down a trooper.

[Kurgan]

Wel in dark forces II, Stoormtroopers with different weapons specialities all have different colored shoulder patches. The yellow ones were so nasty!

Ah yes, I forgot for a minute about JK's featuring colored paudlons!

There were Orange paudloned troopers (same as the E-11 toting regular Stormies)....

Red paudloned troopers carrying Repeaters....

and everyone's favorite and mine, the Yellow paudloned troopers with Rail Detonators!

It's a shame that Jedi Outcast/Academy didn't adopt the color coding... all of the "Stormtrooper Officers" wear orange pads, regardless of weapon they're carrying. Then they have "Stormtrooper Commanders" that are the black suited Imperials.

Another thing about Fett's armor, isn't it old? The Clonetroopers armor is brand spanking new... and Boba's armor in the OT, if it's just a repainted set of Jango's is 20+ year old tech! Now I'm not saying that newer always equals better, but that's another thing to consider. Given Jango's backstory, he had the armor for awhile before this, but the Clonetroopers seem to be the first ones sporting that armor in AOTC.

Then again, based on similar concepts and maybe I'm wrong, maybe it was used before this ("Clonetrooper armor" in use before AOTC someplace in the galaxy?)... but the design seems to be borrowed from his armor, so I figured it might possibly be an improvement... for non-Jetpack wearers anyway!

[Stark]

Wow, someone just went from 'Fett armour has more flexible and less hard armour' to 'the flexible parts are better than the hard parts of xTrooper armour'. I love baseless assumptions, and my favourite flavour is Fett wanking! Especially the 'Fett armour is more maneuveurable' to 'xTrooper armour is light to make it more maneuveurable'. Woo, my knees have turned to jelly just READING it.

I bet Slave 1 is way more powerful than a mil-spec ship of the same size. I further bet his helmet has way more electronics, and his guns are more powerful, than xTrooper standard. His rocket is *actually* perfectly positioned on his backpack. Why did I ever doubt Fett?

[Gunhead]

The threat to stormies and other combatants in the SW universe really comes from direct hits. LOS weapons are the norm and widely used. Stormtrooper armor also needs to protect it's wearer against bomb blasts and concussion in general, so full hard armor is a smart move if feasible.

Fett is a bounty hunter so he's not subject to roadside bombs, artillery and such (on a regular basis that is). He needs mobility while keeping vital parts of his body well protected.
He afterall chases people that are armed with LOS weapons, so he covers his limbs with cloth armor that will keep out shrapnel and cuts.

Fett stalks his pray in urban enviroments where cover is plentiful, while stormies are expected to fight through starship corridors where there is no cover. So stormies once again need full hard armor.

-Gunhead

[Stark]

Other BH don't wear armour the way Fett does, I wonder why.

[Gunhead]

Other BH don't wear armour the way Fett does, I wonder why.

I'd say it's expensive. Most bounty hunters never reach the wealth required to buy hi-tech armor and gizmos Fett and other top hunters have.
The average bounty hunter in SW is just a step up from the scum they're after.
Sometimes not even that.

-Gunhead

[Lancer]

Other BH don't wear armour the way Fett does, I wonder why.

I'd say it's expensive. Most bounty hunters never reach the wealth required to buy hi-tech armor and gizmos Fett and other top hunters have.
The average bounty hunter in SW is just a step up from the scum they're after.
Sometimes not even that.

-Gunhead

Greedo comes to mind.

[Sephirius]

besides that, isn't fett's Mandalorian armor only one of two sets remaining anyway?

[Cykeisme]

Wow, someone just went from 'Fett armour has more flexible and less hard armour' to 'the flexible parts are better than the hard parts of xTrooper armour'.

Surely you're not referring to my post?
Careful reading would indicate that I merely pointed out that the opposite assumption(s), that were made in the OT, are also "baseless".
I don't think there's any question that the flexible parts are "better" in the mobility department, in the sense that they're less encumbering.

I very clearly stated that it's impossible to show whether they provide less, equal or more protection than any other armor, flexible or hard.

Unless you see the flexible parts of his suit taking hits, there's no way to tell whether it's any better or any worse than the hard portions of Trooper armor.

It's you who made the leap that they're "better" than the hard portions of Trooper armor

Especially the 'Fett armour is more maneuveurable' to 'xTrooper armour is light to make it more maneuveurable'

Where did all that come from?
Although I do recall stating that the less a piece of armor weighs, the more mobility it affords, and for an arbitrary given amount of protection, the lighter one would likely cost more. No particular reference was made to either of the suits in question, since there's no way to discern how much either suit weighs.

Woo, my knees have turned to jelly just READING it.

The disparity between what was written and what was perceived has a similar effect on my knees.
My intention was to point out that a large number of assumptions were made without any rational analysis of available information. I thought that was a big part of the preferred approach around here. And now this..

[Jason von Evil]

Boba's armor.

[Kartr_Kana]

Stormie armor has a flexible body glove which provides NBC protection and allows the trooper to seal off his armor to survive in space/under water. The suit provides no protection from blasters/explosions/etc. This is covered by some sort of plastic/steel composite(plastasteel), which is supposed to protect from glancing blaster hits, projectiles and explosions. Partial protection from full on blaster hits.

Mandalorian armor has an armored flight suit(some kind of blaster resistant armor weave) with plates of mandalorian steel placed over stratigec areas. the flight suit fulfils the same function as the body glove but adds armor with minimal encumberance. In addition according to the New Essential Guide Weapons and Tech the mandalorians also have a small personal shield that protects their torso. In Hard Contact a Mando takes a hit in the side from a DC-17 (possible anti-armor) and is only wounded(minor flesh wound).

[Slartibartfast]

I'm sure we can find plenty of real-life examples of newer, cheaper rigid plastic being less protective than older, more expensive flexible weave.

[Kurgan]

As a now irrelevant piece of "what if thinking" (bear with me, I probably will start to sound like Bob Brown...), (I'm not an OT only purist, just get that out of the way now)...


I was thinking that before the prequels came out (and before KOTOR established the modern tech stagnation argument as official), we might have guessed that blasters in the OT were a relatively NEW technology in the galaxy. Obi-Wan denounces them as "clumsy" and "random" and how the lightsaber was better and more elegant. In the novelisation it's implied that lightsabers were in wider use in the galaxy (not just used by the Jedi). In early scripts the saber was standard issue for Stormtroopers as well as the rebels.

So what if, this lightsaber dominated culture was prevelant in pre-Empire times. And let's say the slug thrower was the projectile weapon of choice alongside the saber (which could stop bullets anyway). Stormtrooper armor might have offered full protection against bullets, and thus been a huge improvement and helped the Empire rise to power. But then blasters are invented, and suddenly any fool can take out a Trooper who formerly seemed invincible. It would be somewhat similar to the situation with Armored Knights in our world. They make the armor really powerful able to stop arrows and blades, etc (not impossible to be killed of course, but much greater protection) then firearms are invented and armor goes the way of the dinosaur (well until the invention of kevlar). So the Stormtroopers die from blasters, but it's akin to the Knights still using their (mostly useless now) armor for years and getting killed by bullets.

Note, that the Bob Brownism comes in here... ROTJ seems to violate the "bullet proof" theory with the Ewok arrows. Unless of course we say that all the arrow hits were to the body glove or didn't actually score any kills, just surprised some guys and maybe knocked them over. We could assume that bullets would do far more damage to the guy inside the armor than a wooden stone tipped arrow fired by an Ewok long bow.

It might have been a plausible explanation of why the armor appeared useless in the movies, but also why it existed at all. An explanation for the state of things, like the presence of melee weapons in Dune. Contrived maybe, but workable.

Of course KOTOR demolished this theory at C-Level, and the prequels solidified it into G-Level canon that blasters aren't new tech at all (along with shields and hyperdrive and everything else we know of in Star Wars, even battle droids are old tech). So much for that idea...



We're left with the idea that either ST Armor is actually really awesome, the guys in the movies just were really unlucky (character shields, non-SOD), the Empire slashed the budget on armor after the war ended ("the bad guys are idiots" argument), or that it's the fact that the Armor is so grand in other ways that they still use it (glancing random blows to keep the guy alive even if he's incapped, NCB protection, HUDs, helmet communication, hiding the fact that they're clones from the unwaring, scary uniforms to terrorize the populance, etc).

Or we could run ever popular "they skimmed funds off the ST Armor, just like the TIE fighter features in order to channel that money into top secret doomesday wankery projects like the Death Stars, Sun Crusher, Galaxy Gun, World Devestators, Eclipse Class Star Destroyers, etc....

ST Armor seems like a good idea as peacetime riot gear, but not much else (again, unless we go with unseen benefits and reasoning like the above).

My pet theory for years was that the Rebels just jacked up their blaster power and made sure to hit the armor at its weakest points as close as they could, etc, and they got really lucky. You could even almost rationalize game mechanics with this too. When I first played JK1 and noticed it took three shots to down a Stormie, I thought to myself "finally, the Empire put some more money into the armor budget!"

Anyway, back to the thread, sorry for the digression!

[Cykeisme]

You just may be right about the concept behind what ST armor might have been supposed to be in the OT (where lightsabers were conceptualized as recently phased-out commonplace weapons), but that in itself is a non-SOD approach to the subject.
It is possible that the killing blows landed on stormtroopers are the odd shots that do penetrate and kill/incapacitate. Either that or its the flip side of "the stormtrooper effect": while mooks (even highly trained ones) are unable to hit the heroes, the heroes are easily able to kill the mooks (even armored ones).
I guess the bottom line is that stormies were visually designed to be sinister looking, faceless, armored troops.. but when the action actually plays out, their armor has no value plot-wise against heroes.

It's worth mentioning that (suspension of disbelief on, again) Obi-Wan's opinion of blasters comes from the point of view of a Jedi who was raised by the order, from infancy, so perhaps his comment about the clumsy, random nature of blasters shouldn't be taken at face value.
As has been said before, in a 25,000 year old civilization, it's possible that every physical law that exists may be known, and few technologies would really be new, particularly something as widespread and common as blasters.

Also, I wonder if stormtrooper armor offers a different level of protection from prequel-era clonetrooper armor.

[Kurgan]

It's worth mentioning that (suspension of disbelief on, again) Obi-Wan's opinion of blasters comes from the point of view of a Jedi who was raised by the order, from infancy, so perhaps his comment about the clumsy, random nature of blasters shouldn't be taken at face value.
As has been said before, in a 25,000 year old civilization, it's possible that every physical law that exists may be known, and few technologies would really be new, particularly something as widespread and common as blasters.

Also, I wonder if stormtrooper armor offers a different level of protection from prequel-era clonetrooper armor.

Well, it's sort of like the Planetary Shields question. Was there a time in Star Wars history when Planetary Shields were simply unstoppable? (ie: before the Death Star)

The question is, if technology is stagnant, why can't you just create a tech and then have it never be able to be overcome?

Or, put another way, if Stormtrooper armor was ALWAYS useless, why "invent" it at all? Just for looks?

I realize that even if they are technologically stagnant (they've already discovered everything), that doesn't mean they can't find creative uses for old tech (the idea of the DS superlaser just being a giant version of like the beam guns on the LAAT for example.. a concentrated turbolaser).

The Clones in AOTC do great, they kick butt, even apparently without a whole lot of real-world training. The thing is that their gear is way better than the droids (their guns are better, their walker/air support is better, etc). I don't think we even see any Clones get killed in AOTC, the few that are shown dead are just already lying there. The other guys run around and nobody gets shot. I think this leads me to agree with Mike's desire to see some "non-lethal injuries" for minor characters in the next movie.

As to Clonetrooper armor vs. Stormie armor, yeah that's another good question. I think we're supposed to assume one is an evolution of the other, but then you get into the "budget cuts" theory, so you could say the ST armor was weaker, though there's no onscreen evidence for that, if you wanted to.

Maybe it would....

[Ryoga]

Well, let's also not forget the ROTS novel, where (SPOILER) It's revealed that Dooku's cape isn't cloth, but a form of armor. It may not be too unreasonable to assume that the Fetts wear body-gloves of a similar material.

[Cykeisme]

Well, regardless of whether or not it made a soldier near-invulnerable at some point in the past, I don't think stormtrooper armor is really supposed to be completely useless.

I guess Lucas' reluctance to show non-lethal injuries (they're always alive and well OR totally dead) actually hurts the apparent level of effectiveness of armor of both Clone- and Stormtroopers.

As was said earlier, while it doesn't give immunity to blaster fire (especially coming from Rebel heroes), it may provide good protection shrapnel from anti-infantry ordnance relying on fragmentation that would usually be excellent at doing their job. Also, it may deflect glancing blows that would otherwise cause injuries of various levels, and otherwise reducing the severity of other injuries.

As for the planetary shields/Death Star thingy, perhaps I used the term "technology" incorrectly when mentioning stagnation. There are feats of engineering that raise the scale of existing technology to overcome opposing defenses through brute power output.. I'm not sure whether the Death Star is considered new technology or not.
Semantics aside, it raises another possibility.. perhaps the power output of personal blasters has increased somewhat in between the prequel and original trilogy era?
Edit: I doubt this is the case, though. I still think that stormie armor is designed to protect against a lot of things, even though direct blaster hits at angles close to the normal of their surface isn't one of them.

[Stark]

Okay, can someone explain to me how cloth can be 'blaster resistant' - whatever that means - when hard carapace armour is breached in one shot? If anyone claims Dookus cloak can absorb blasterfire, I'll slap them, as that makes NO SENSE AT ALL. Unless it absorbs/splinters it, but if it hits a part directly over his body it'll still fuck him through conduction.

[Illuminatus Primus]

[snip]

No, that's stupid. The simple fact of that the Galactic Republic and Jedi Order stood for 25 millienia according to ANH demands technological and scientific stasis for that period. Otherwise changes would inevitably have pushed political and economic and cultural equilibirum away from an all-encompassing stable political system for so long.

[Gunhead]

Okay, can someone explain to me how cloth can be 'blaster resistant' - whatever that means - when hard carapace armour is breached in one shot? If anyone claims Dookus cloak can absorb blasterfire, I'll slap them, as that makes NO SENSE AT ALL. Unless it absorbs/splinters it, but if it hits a part directly over his body it'll still fuck him through conduction.

Well, a lot of the blaster fire we see in the OT actually comes from blaster rifles that are meant to be effective against combat armor. Solo's blaster is wanked up destruct-O-matic, since no other pistol in the movies show its level of damage output. Hell it would seem most of the rifles don't show damage levels equal to it.

I think this whole blaster resistant clothing came from the WEG RPG where was this piece of equipment called blast vest, that was nominally blaster resistant. This vest is seen worn by rebel troops defending Echo-base in ESB.
There are very few instances in the OT where we see a stormie downed by a blaster pistol.Rebels defending the Tantive, close range, few casualties I recall. Leia dropped one, it was close range. Han in the docking bay. Han in the Falcon inside the deat star (we don't actually see this).
Han on Endor.
If I missed any please tell me. All others were downed by rifles.

Against concealable, lower power blasters, some form of ablative flexible armor might be feasible. Would work against blaster rifles? I don't see this happening. 60's flak-jackets stopped pistol and smg rounds, but were useless against a rifle bullet.

-Gunhead

[Cykeisme]

Okay, can someone explain to me how cloth can be 'blaster resistant' - whatever that means - when hard carapace armour is breached in one shot?

Hrm, dunno, but not all the flexible materials are necesarily cloth, and even if they were, cloth is "fabric or material formed by weaving, knitting, pressing, or felting natural or synthetic fibers". The physical properties of the fabric would depend on the fibers it's woven from.

It's possible that a fabric composed from an extremely heat resistant material with good insulating properties can offer better protection from blasters compared to a less protective but cheaper material. Unlikely, but if an explanation is sought, there's a possibility.

Since blasters don't deliver much kinetic energy (if I'm wrong, correct me), the rigidity of the armor isn't much of an issue. For any given material, solid plates would certainly have a higher density and be cheaper to make than a fabric or weave, though.

[EDIT] Kartyr Kana said the subject material is a "blaster resistant armor weave". [/edit]

I don't know anything about Dooku's cape yet (I'm minimizing my exposure to spoilers), but conduction of heat can be reduced by some incredible super insulator. Again, they may have fabrics with such properties, though that's probably still a crap excuse
Can't say either way till I see this cape in action anyway.