Stormtrooper armor question

Zor · Post by **Zor** » 2006-12-06 05:14pm

This is just something i have been wondering about, does the EU shed any light on the matter?

Does Clonetrooper/Stormtrooper Armor have a built in system for collecting the waste products of the Human digestive system?

Zor

FTeik · Post by **FTeik** » 2006-12-06 05:21pm

From all that I now, it doesn't.

Batman · Post by **Batman** » 2006-12-06 05:38pm

Not to my knowledge, either. Of course under normal circumstances you can get in/out of it quickly enough that it shouldn't be a problem.

Elheru Aran · Post by **Elheru Aran** » 2006-12-07 01:25am

Might have a piss-bag, but it's not bulky enough to have room for anything more.

000 · Post by **000** » 2006-12-07 02:29am

Corran Horn observes a stormtrooper exiting a 'fresher in The Bacta War, so presumably not.

Major Maxillary · Post by **Major Maxillary** » 2006-12-07 06:29am

What I'd like to know is how it handles spalling.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2006-12-07 09:25am

000 wrote:Corran Horn observes a stormtrooper exiting a 'fresher in The Bacta War, so presumably not.

Well, it doesn't eliminate the possibility. Being in 'garrison' and having a fresher availible may be preferable to peeing in a bag for troopers. Being on a battlefield and not having a fresher, the option may still have merit.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2006-12-07 12:33pm

It's conceivable that they have diapers for the piss, super absorbent piss diapers. As for the shitting, maybe their space MREs are so efficient that there won't be much shit after digestion.

FTeik · Post by **FTeik** » 2006-12-07 12:57pm

Shroom Man 777 wrote:It's conceivable that they have diapers for the piss, super absorbent piss diapers. As for the shitting, maybe their space MREs are so efficient that there won't be much shit after digestion.

HardContact hints at something like that, IIRC.

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2006-12-07 01:56pm

Forgive my ignorance on military slang, but what is a "fresher"? Is it a nickname for a portable toilet?

And I imagine Clone/Stormtroopers having special underwear similar to the diapers worn by astronauts in real life.

Decue · Post by **Decue** » 2006-12-07 02:15pm

Shroom Man 777 wrote:As for the shitting, maybe their space MREs are so efficient that there won't be much shit after digestion.

60% of the shit is dead cells and bacteria and such so they still have a bunch they need to get read of.

Post by **Kuja** » 2006-12-07 02:19pm

Big Orange wrote:Forgive my ignorance on military slang, but what is a "fresher"? Is it a nickname for a portable toilet?

And I imagine Clone/Stormtroopers having special underwear similar to the diapers worn by astronauts in real life.

It's not military slang, it's SW slang for the bathroom.

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2006-12-09 03:31am

Their battlefield 'freshers may have some sort of vacuum hose that seals airtight to the butt region of their black space suit so they can take a dump without compromising NBC sealing. Considering the consistency and volume of their poo is dependent on their space MREs (lol Shroom), this may be possible.
Just a thought.

Decue wrote:
Shroom Man 777 wrote:As for the shitting, maybe their space MREs are so efficient that there won't be much shit after digestion.
60% of the shit is dead cells and bacteria and such so they still have a bunch they need to get read of.

Can someone comment on this. 60% of shit by mass is your dead cells[/i]?! Wth? And BACTERIA? Are you sure? Source?

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-12-09 03:35am

Kuja wrote:
Big Orange wrote:Forgive my ignorance on military slang, but what is a "fresher"? Is it a nickname for a portable toilet?

And I imagine Clone/Stormtroopers having special underwear similar to the diapers worn by astronauts in real life.
It's not military slang, it's SW slang for the bathroom.

And specifically, "fresher" itself is short for "refresher."

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2006-12-09 03:40am

Major Maxillary wrote:What I'd like to know is how it handles spalling.

Good point.
I suppose to some extent, the problem is handled by the body glove that is made ot a material with a high tensile strength (kevlar-like perhaps?) and perhaps has trauma padding between the armor plate and the glove in certain areas. But still..
For those more well versed in materials sciences and the physics behind the effect of armor plate being hit known as spalling (I'm not precisely certain myself), is it possible to compose the armor of a material that is less likely to spall?

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2006-12-09 03:41am

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:
Kuja wrote:
Big Orange wrote:Forgive my ignorance on military slang, but what is a "fresher"? Is it a nickname for a portable toilet?

And I imagine Clone/Stormtroopers having special underwear similar to the diapers worn by astronauts in real life.
It's not military slang, it's SW slang for the bathroom.
And specifically, "fresher" itself is short for "refresher."

It's not SW slang at all. It's term I've heard in other contexts.

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2006-12-09 01:10pm

Rather than just simple absorbent diapers, perhaps it also funnels the liquid waste away to some sort of storage compartment or pouch. That'll make it easy to empty/change without removing the armor, or compromising vacuum/NBC sealing (which I imagine is quite important).

As to the spalling question, I've seen official sources describe stormtrooper/clonetrooper armor as being composed of a "plastoid-alloy composite" plates.
"Plastoid" doesn't appear to be a real word, but I speculate that it indicates that (despite it being composed and having some properties of metallic alloy) the material would have some plastic properties when force is applied to deform it. What effect, positive or negative, would this have on spalls being emitted on the backface when a trooper is hit with a KE projectile?

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2006-12-09 02:02pm

And does the Clone/Stormtrooper armour really work at stopping blaster fire? Although of course it's hard to tell that Stormtrooper who are brought down are actually killed, since they're perhaps knocked unconscious after their breastplate has absorbed most of the blaster bolt. And the white armour with black bodysuit providing full NBC protection (and also perhaps sufficient protection against most shrapnel and slug projectiles).

Wanderer · Post by **Wanderer** » 2006-12-09 02:23pm

Big Orange wrote:And does the Clone/Stormtrooper armour really work at stopping blaster fire? Although of course it's hard to tell that Stormtrooper who are brought down are actually killed, since they're perhaps knocked unconscious after their breastplate has absorbed most of the blaster bolt.

What did you think those troopers were doing, before Vader walked in, in ANH.

They were checking to see if their buddies were alive.

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2006-12-09 02:39pm

It's one of those topics that's come up a couple of times since I've been here.

Stormtrooper armor lowers the effective amount of energy transferred into the trooper's body that it could turn a charbroiling hit (observe Greedo) into an injury that delays fatality, or reduce a lesser hit into a merely incapacitating one. From there on, stabilizing them using SW medical prodecures and technology (not to mention tossing the guy in a bacta tank) might be possible. Furthermore, recall that as described in the Medstar duology, there are stocks of "spare parts" on hand for cloned soldiers.
I suppose some small arms hits that might have caused injury are deflected entirely, if they hit the armor at shallow angles.

However, in the open warfare of the earlier Clone Wars, just as in real wars, one of the most dangerous battlefield threats to organic troops would have been fragmentation weapons (particurly when compared to droids). Completely encasing your soldiers in hard armor drastically shrinks the effective casualty radius of any shrapnel-producing weapon deployed by the opposition. In certain cases, hits that would have caused immediate fatality could be shrugged off without injury.

In addition to directly making them more combat effective, it's also also a matter of cost effectiveness; it takes a certain amount of money to manufacture a mature unit, and the combined price of the armor plus the average price of patching up an injured trooper is apparently low enough to safeguard the initial investment.

What about poo and spalling, though? Let's talk about that!

LaserRifleofDoom · Post by **LaserRifleofDoom** » 2006-12-09 07:01pm

Big Orange wrote:And does the Clone/Stormtrooper armour really work at stopping blaster fire? Although of course it's hard to tell that Stormtrooper who are brought down are actually killed, since they're perhaps knocked unconscious after their breastplate has absorbed most of the blaster bolt. And the white armour with black bodysuit providing full NBC protection (and also perhaps sufficient protection against most shrapnel and slug projectiles).

Don't forget that blasters have a 'stun' setting. It's totally reasonable to think that the armor is able to take a kill shot and turn it into a stun. At least under optimal conditions.

Major Maxillary · Post by **Major Maxillary** » 2006-12-09 07:51pm

Cykeisme wrote:
Major Maxillary wrote:What I'd like to know is how it handles spalling.
Good point.
I suppose to some extent, the problem is handled by the body glove that is made ot a material with a high tensile strength (kevlar-like perhaps?) and perhaps has trauma padding between the armor plate and the glove in certain areas. But still..
For those more well versed in materials sciences and the physics behind the effect of armor plate being hit known as spalling (I'm not precisely certain myself), is it possible to compose the armor of a material that is less likely to spall?

Spalling is basically what happens when the outside of the armor is hit so hard that the inside becomes shrapnel. very bad for armor crews.

I suppose with some padding and an antiballistic body glove, and the fact that plasteel is apparently a polymer, spalling would be negligible.

Another issue: What about shaped charges? Or HEAPI? Or simple blunt trauma?

Batman · Post by **Batman** » 2006-12-09 07:52pm

Big Orange wrote:And does the Clone/Stormtrooper armour really work at stopping blaster fire?

A DL-44 deep-fried Greedo and E-11s blow football-sized holes in permacrete walls yet Corran Horn survived a chest hit in 'Rogue Squadron' thanks to wearing a stormtrooper breastplate. Yes he needed a bacta dunk after that but why don't you imagine what that kind of firepower would have done to an unarmoured human.

And the white armour with black bodysuit providing full NBC protection (and also perhaps sufficient protection against most shrapnel and slug projectiles).

There's no 'perhaps' about it. Stormtrooper armour survived a KE impactor hit sufficient to bodily pick up the wearer and throw him several meters without so much as a nick.

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2006-12-09 08:04pm

Batman wrote:
Big Orange wrote:And does the Clone/Stormtrooper armour really work at stopping blaster fire?
A DL-44 deep-fried Greedo and E-11s blow football-sized holes in permacrete walls yet Corran Horn survived a chest hit in 'Rogue Squadron' thanks to wearing a stormtrooper breastplate. Yes he needed a bacta dunk after that but why don't you imagine what that kind of firepower would have done to an unarmoured human.

Unfortunately an unarmoured human (Gavin Darklighter) survives a similar hot in the same book. So thats a pretty crappy example.

Batman · Post by **Batman** » 2006-12-09 08:04pm

Major Maxillary wrote: Another issue: What about shaped charges? Or HEAPI?

If you have to use those against individual infantry that's a statement about the quality of the armour in and of itself.

Or simple blunt trauma?

Barring technobabble there's no getting around that. You can pad the armour to lessen the impact and try to distribute it over a larger area but that only goes so far. Indeed as we see in RotJ (Ewoks incapacitating stormtroopers by dropping rocks on their heads) blunt trauma attacks seem to work just fine.