Bulletproof?

[Master of Ossus]

So we're just about back to my original point, which was that the armor would be able to withstand 30mm fire, but that the wearer would die, anyway, so it's really a moot point.

Incidentally, the fact that the bullet from Zam's weapon was "electromagnetically accelerated" means nothing. It means that it was not a conventional, chemical-driven bullet, but that does not in and of itself increase its ability to penetrate armor or punch holes through people any better. Indeed, given the recoil from Zam's weapon, and assuming that Zam weighs about 300 lbs, it seems to me that the rifle was not significantly more or less powerful than most modern, military weapons, although it is quite probably more accurate, and may offer additional benefits or drawbacks. The manner in which something works is more or less irrelevent when measuring its effectiveness. It is the results of that mechanism's operation that matter.

[Ender]

I'm only going to make one point about what HVB posted:

It's really slimey to direct copy paste Edam's arguments and only claim his site as the source for raw data, and that you preformed the calcs yourself

[Ender]

Zam weighs about 300 lbs

Why on earth would you assume she ways 300 pounds? She looked to be 140-170 to me.

[Master of Ossus]

Zam weighs about 300 lbs

Why on earth would you assume she ways 300 pounds? She looked to be 140-170 to me.

Except that she's a shape changer, and is clearly much more than 150 pounds.

[hvb]

Ender wrote:

It's really slimey to direct copy paste Edam's arguments and only claim his site as the source for raw data, and that you preformed the calcs yourself

Actually I *did* do the calc, rather then take Edam' calcs at face value; which incidently aren't in this thread, so I may not have seen them.
If they are considered required reading, please tell me so!

Sea Skimmer:

Modern weapons don't scale linearly. For example the KPV's 14.5mm round has about twice the muzzle energy of a 12.7mm round.

A four inch shell weights about 32 pounds, five inch 50-65.

right.
But I did say 'assuming like velocity' or some such didn't I?
And I should probably have said I scaled energy linearly with *mass*, which I did: I stated that I looked at a 12.7mm DU.

E = ½mv^2, so with the same materials (and shape) the 12.7mm energy compared to the 30mm at the same velocities is a ratio of (12.7/30)^3 = 7,6e-2, which I think you will find is in line with my statements!

Your two examples put through the same machine: ratio of E = m1/m2:

(14,5/12,7)^3 = 1,49, so if we assume (likely) that the AMR has a slightly higher muzzle velocity, we get something that rounds of to 2 (if it is 16% greater we get *exactly* a ratio 2 )

(5/4)^3 = 1,95; 1,95*32 lbs = 62,5 lbs. And by your statement my calculations can only be correct if this falls within the range of 50-65 lbs.
I will here climb out on a limb and postulate that 62,5 lbs is within that range

p.s. can anybody point me to a link to the relevant calculations by Edam?

[hvb]

Never mind: I just found the Edam data: remove the 'swwpower.html' from the site I quoted (so obvious, silly me!)

Ender: I am of course sorry I did not give due credit to Edam for copying the data from the Behind The Magic CD-ROM. In fact that was real decent of him, since I don't own a copy myself , but I am fairly certain he put it there as an information source, and not to claim that it was his own calculations. In fact he mentions the source just above the copied data!
The only hint of calculations done for that page are this comment:
'which leads me to believe the firepower range of any weapon given in BTM can be found by simply counting the number of bars'

[Connor MacLeod]

Edam's BTM calculations are extremely questionable, due to the assumed "scaling" he uses to derive them (IE we dont know how those bars are meant to be interpreted.)

Note that if we DO assume it is accurate, his 2e24-2e25joule output for planetary turbolasers gives us a good minimum estimate on ISD durability (Shields and hulls) since the EGW&T states that it takes "sustained volleys" to penetrate the ISD's shields/hulls - and thats simply to cause a reactor breach (IE rather than blasting the ship apart by sheer firepower)

Even more, we can derive a low-end estimate for HTLs from this - since according to the Trilogy ICS the HTL turrets on the ISD-1 are capable of "overloading deflector shields and punching holes in the most heavily armored vessels." (to paraphrase) - suggesting that the HTLs are at least comparable in power, if not more powerful, than the planetary Turbolaser

[His Divine Shadow]

I just don't believe stormtrooper armor could withstand a 30mm depleted uranium slug...

[NecronLord]

Humm? what exactly is the point here?

It is clearly bulletproof;

definition of which is... unable to be penetrated by bullets

Blunt force truma, KE transfer and concussion do not enter into it.


for some real fun however. try everyones favorite stormie variety;

Darktroopers

[His Divine Shadow]

Ooooh....

[Master of Ossus]

I just don't believe stormtrooper armor could withstand a 30mm depleted uranium slug...

Your belief does not make a fact. Neither does your disbelief disprove a fact. Stormtrooper armor can clearly withstand such weapons, but its wearer clearly cannot.

[Vympel]

Where'd that Dark Trooper toy come from?

It looks better in the original Dark Forces though. Those shoulder-pauldron mounted missiles are just ... cool.

[Sea Skimmer]

Ender wrote:

It's really slimey to direct copy paste Edam's arguments and only claim his site as the source for raw data, and that you preformed the calcs yourself

Actually I *did* do the calc, rather then take Edam' calcs at face value; which incidently aren't in this thread, so I may not have seen them.
If they are considered required reading, please tell me so!

Sea Skimmer:

Modern weapons don't scale linearly. For example the KPV's 14.5mm round has about twice the muzzle energy of a 12.7mm round.

A four inch shell weights about 32 pounds, five inch 50-65.

right.
But I did say 'assuming like velocity' or some such didn't I?
And I should probably have said I scaled energy linearly with *mass*, which I did: I stated that I looked at a 12.7mm DU.

E = ½mv^2, so with the same materials (and shape) the 12.7mm energy compared to the 30mm at the same velocities is a ratio of (12.7/30)^3 = 7,6e-2, which I think you will find is in line with my statements!

Your two examples put through the same machine: ratio of E = m1/m2:

(14,5/12,7)^3 = 1,49, so if we assume (likely) that the AMR has a slightly higher muzzle velocity, we get something that rounds of to 2 (if it is 16% greater we get *exactly* a ratio 2 )

(5/4)^3 = 1,95; 1,95*32 lbs = 62,5 lbs. And by your statement my calculations can only be correct if this falls within the range of 50-65 lbs.
I will here climb out on a limb and postulate that 62,5 lbs is within that range

p.s. can anybody point me to a link to the relevant calculations by Edam?

I missed the assuming like velocity part. In that case, yes physics doesn’t change.

[Connor MacLeod]

I got bored so I leafed through to find the spear throwing incident:

STar Wars: Young Jedi Knights page 103-104:

"Qorl stood inside the training chamber holding a wicked-looking spear in his black-wrapped left hand. His droid replacement arm gripped the gleaming shaft with enough force to dent the metal. The serrated head of the spear had a long central prong with two side spikes curving up like a dragon's barbed tail.

"You're late," Qorl said. He cocked his droid arm back - and hurled the deadly weapon at Norys with all the strength in his robotic servomotors!

Norys stood astonished as the deadly spearpoint hurtled toward his chest plate. He just had time to cry "Hey!" in a panicked voice amplified by his helmet speakers before the barbed tip impacted squarely with enough force to smash him backward.

Norys slammed into the wall, his helmet ringing against the hard metal bulkhead. His vision sparkled with impending unconciousness. He expected to see a spear sprouting from his heart and waited for his nerves to send shouts of mortal pain. He wanted to scream that Qorl, his supposed teacher, had betrayed him, murdered him-

But a split second later his thoughts cleared enough to hear the clatter as the spear shaft fell harmlessly to the floor. He looked down at his chest in amazement and saw only a nick in the white armor where the spear had struck."

[Connor MacLeod]

Might as well toss out a few more quotes to cause trouble:

SWVD page 34:

"Shielded in white space armor worn over a body glove, stormtroopers are protected from harsh enviroments, projectile and impact weapons, and glancing blaster bolts."

Page 35:

"A power pack and pressurized gas system in the stormtrooer armor backplate allows a trooper to survive even in the vacuum of space for limited periods. For extended exposure to open space, troopers wear space backpacks with extended life-support capacity."

"Stormtrooper armor is impervious to projectile weapons and blast shrapnel. It may be pierced by a direct blaster bolt, but will deflect glancing bolts and reduce damage from bolts absorbed."

"Every component of a stromtrooper's armor and equipment is manufactured to the highest standards in the empire. Their armorlasts indefinitely and may still be found half-buried at decades-old battle sites."


Misc comments from SWVD: The armor lists a few interesting items:

"energy sinks absorb blast energy" - which are also called "blast energy sinks" - it seems that the armor may employ some superconducting elements that allow it to store and absorb energy (pages 34 and 35, description of armor.) This is possibly tied to the "anti laser mesh" described below.

Page 37 holds a cutaway of a stormtrooper helmet. According to the diagram, the armor has a "4-layer construction" The outer plastoid composite forms the top layer, followed by an "anti-laser" mesh.. a "magnetic shielding layer" is next, with "inner insulation" being shown last. There may be a second layer of insulation between the anti-laser mesh and magnetic shielding layer, though.

As an added point of interest, the AOTC VD says this about clonetrooper armor:

"Outfitted in their extraordinary gear, clone troopers can withstand hails of deadly projectiles or explosive blasts with impunity. They are also able to march through deflector shield barriers that would incinerate even a shocktrooper." - page 38.

[hvb]

Ups I just realized I am guilty of a mistake:
From the GAU-8 page at the top:
'each DU projectile contains approximately 4,650 grains [0.66 pounds (lbs)] of extruded DU, alloyed with 0.75 weight percent titanium.'

I calculated for a mass of .66 kg! the correct mass would be 1,16 lbs = 0,524 kg, for an energy of only 2,99e5 J rather the the stated 3,76e5 J (still more then the spear)

Also the quotes supplied by Connor MacLeod do not state the mass and speed of the spear. Is these stated elswhere in the book, or did somebody (Edam? Could be me who misunderstood which calcs I am supposed to have stolen) reason these numbers, and if so on what basis?

[His Divine Shadow]

Your belief does not make a fact. Neither does your disbelief disprove a fact. Stormtrooper armor can clearly withstand such weapons, but its wearer clearly cannot.

Ofcourse, now then, could you be as so kind as to show this to me, I'm sure it might be spread out over this thread somewhere but I can't comprehend it that way.
Some calcs and summarization would really help.

[Connor MacLeod]

Edam's calcs for weapon power are total BS. The figures from the spear come from Mike's debate with IXJac (Hate mail section) - which he goes over the event in detail.

HDS: Ossus is referring I think to Mike's inference about the strength of SW materials (during the discussion with sEa Skimmer he had around page 4-5 I think) and possibly due to the effect of superconducting armor rapidly cooling the projectile (making it brittle)

[Mr. Mister]

This is going to make me sound clueless, but I don't mind because I don't know anything about materials science and only a little about chemistry. So it's honest.

Wouldn't superconductive armor be a bad thing? Superconductors do nothing to impede the spread of energy, so isn't saying that armor's superconductive, when we're talking about energy weapons, saying that it helps the shot to penetrate? Wouldn't armor with a high specific heat be better, so that it could absorb the energy without any noticeable effect?

[Master of Ossus]

This is going to make me sound clueless, but I don't mind because I don't know anything about materials science and only a little about chemistry. So it's honest.

Wouldn't superconductive armor be a bad thing? Superconductors do nothing to impede the spread of energy, so isn't saying that armor's superconductive, when we're talking about energy weapons, saying that it helps the shot to penetrate? Wouldn't armor with a high specific heat be better, so that it could absorb the energy without any noticeable effect?

Superconductive armor does not help the transfer of energy to other materials. Rather, it conducts energy through the armor with exceptionally little resistance. Thus, since energy tends to follow paths of less resistance, superconductive armor will absorb more energy than non-superconductive armor. The energy will tend not to travel from its areas of small resistance (the superconductive plates) to an area of higher resistance (the wearer). I hope this makes sense. I'm not sure exactly what you are looking for, here, but I think that answered the question.

[Darth Wong]

It's quite simple; a thermal superconductor is always an isotherm, so an impactor must heat its entire volume rather than just one small spot.

[Connor MacLeod]

And of course, heating is less effective when you have to distribute a given quantity of energy over a larger area (than it would be if it was applied to a smaller area.)

Hence, putting Ossus and Mike's comments together (Forgive me for reiterating), the benefit of the superconductive armor is thus:

1.) It absorbs incoming energy first, conducting and dissipating it over a far larger surface area than the impact area.

2.) While the energy is still essentially there, it is much less effective in such a dispersed state than it would be if it were more concentrated. This means its less effective at penetrating/damaging armor.

3.) The energy is thus more easily disposed of, defeating the attack.

[hvb]

Thanks Conner,
I found it at last (as I read the entries backwards, the IXJac part was at the tail of some longer referance)

The human brain can withstand up to 300 G's of transient

Nice to know. Explains where Mike could get the numbers from.
So unless I got my own calcs wrong ST armor can withstand at least 2.27e5 J of pure KE (usual assumptions: area etc.), but less then an E-11, even with whatever benefit any superconductive layer gives.
Is there any good solid calcs on the E-11 power?
(I used the TPM-DC info from Edams site, and as the range is 5e4 J to 5e5 J, this is pretty inaccurate. Anyway I would assume the above would limit the possible energy range further: 2.3e5 J to 5e5 J; lower end would assume no SC-layer benefit, and only a very low fraction of bleedthrough of the bolt)

[Cyke]

In addition to reducing the temperature of the impact point by distributing the heat throughout the entire plate of superconductive armor, even when it's overwhelmed, I think the heat would dissipate faster through radiation and convection since a larger surface would be in effect.
On the other hand, is it possible to have a superconducting material with a high specific heat content? That would further improve its resistance to directed energy weapons since not only would the heat be distributed throughout the armor piece, it wouldn't become as hot, which might cause discomfort to the wearer, if not injury (roast Stormie, anyone?).

Btw, it's been a long time since I played the game, but I'm fairly certain the model in the picture is not one of the standard Dark Trooper droid featured in the game Dark Forces, but the powered exoskeleton donned by General Rom Mohc (the "boss" you meet at the end of the game).
It's interesting how Dark Forces doesn't tie in with the Star Wars prequel episode plot revelations, since the Empire wouldn't likely convert to using battle droids as its primary troop when the galaxy went from droids to clones (although the soundness of this decision is arguable).

[Master of Ossus]

In addition to reducing the temperature of the impact point by distributing the heat throughout the entire plate of superconductive armor, even when it's overwhelmed, I think the heat would dissipate faster through radiation and convection since a larger surface would be in effect.
On the other hand, is it possible to have a superconducting material with a high specific heat content? That would further improve its resistance to directed energy weapons since not only would the heat be distributed throughout the armor piece, it wouldn't become as hot, which might cause discomfort to the wearer, if not injury (roast Stormie, anyone?).

Btw, it's been a long time since I played the game, but I'm fairly certain the model in the picture is not one of the standard Dark Trooper droid featured in the game Dark Forces, but the powered exoskeleton donned by General Rom Mohc (the "boss" you meet at the end of the game).
It's interesting how Dark Forces doesn't tie in with the Star Wars prequel episode plot revelations, since the Empire wouldn't likely convert to using battle droids as its primary troop when the galaxy went from droids to clones (although the soundness of this decision is arguable).

I assumed that radiation and convection would not play a significant role in assisting the dispersion of such forces, as the firepower in SW makes that small an amount of energy virtually insignificant. Also, you're still really just spreading the force of the blast, since about as much energy will be transfered to the wearer as to the atmosphere after the hit.