Suit of armour vs Guns

I am still curious what films you constantly refer to. I cannot name a single high-profile film that pits medieval armour against 30mm chain guns. I am led to believe you are speaking of B and C class exploitation films, which are not "Hollywood". Whatever.

In fact most films do show medieval armour to be a lot LESS tough than it actually is. In reality you could only penetrate many of these with a direct strike by a heavy pointed weapon like spears or swords. Even simple chain mail is sturdier than one might believe. I once handled a modern butchers chain glove. It was impressive, I bet I could have hit my arm with a heavy cleaver and not penetrate it. I would have broken my arm of course, but not penetrated

A knight in full quality plate rarely suffered penetration of his armour. Instead what incapacitated them more often than not was inner injuries by blunt strikes, blood loss, exhaustion and heat.

In films however soldiers and knights get routinely mowed down by long range arrows and simple slashes. You really get to wonder why these soldiers are shown to wear armour at all.

Originally posted by Lonestar24
I am still curious what films you constantly refer to. I cannot name a single high-profile film that pits medieval armour against 30mm chain guns. I am led to believe you are speaking of B and C class exploitation films, which are not "Hollywood". Whatever.

In fact most films do show medieval armour to be a lot LESS tough than it actually is. In reality you could only penetrate many of these with a direct strike by a heavy pointed weapon like spears or swords. Even simple chain mail is sturdier than one might believe. I once handled a modern butchers chain glove. It was impressive, I bet I could have hit my arm with a heavy cleaver and not penetrate it. I would have broken my arm of course, but not penetrated

A knight in full quality plate rarely suffered penetration of his armour. Instead what incapacitated them more often than not was inner injuries by blunt strikes, blood loss, exhaustion and heat.

In films however soldiers and knights get routinely mowed down by long range arrows and simple slashes. You really get to wonder why these soldiers are shown to wear armour at all.

How about Iron Man(2008 film) where Iron Man armor Mark-I where little more than Modified Medieval armour?

[edit on 30-3-2010 by masonicon]

Originally posted by Lonestar24
I am still curious what films you constantly refer to. I cannot name a single high-profile film that pits medieval armour against 30mm chain guns. I am led to believe you are speaking of B and C class exploitation films, which are not "Hollywood". Whatever.

In fact most films do show medieval armour to be a lot LESS tough than it actually is. In reality you could only penetrate many of these with a direct strike by a heavy pointed weapon like spears or swords. Even simple chain mail is sturdier than one might believe. I once handled a modern butchers chain glove. It was impressive, I bet I could have hit my arm with a heavy cleaver and not penetrate it. I would have broken my arm of course, but not penetrated

A knight in full quality plate rarely suffered penetration of his armour. Instead what incapacitated them more often than not was inner injuries by blunt strikes, blood loss, exhaustion and heat.

In films however soldiers and knights get routinely mowed down by long range arrows and simple slashes. You really get to wonder why these soldiers are shown to wear armour at all.

I'm not just talking about Hollywood films, I'm also talking about Video Games and any Works of Fiction in this thread

So the explanation behind Bulletproof Suit of Armour(including, but not restricted to medieval ones) is: as the plate armor completely discarded, rounds fired from Small arms are increasingly less suited for dealing with the Suit of Armour



[edit on 24-4-2010 by masonicon]

Originally posted by Lonestar24
I am still curious what films you constantly refer to. I cannot name a single high-profile film that pits medieval armour against 30mm chain guns. I am led to believe you are speaking of B and C class exploitation films, which are not "Hollywood". Whatever.

I'm just talking About Video Games logic where the logic is: Kinetic Weapons(other than Electromagnetic Projectile weapons) are (mostly) just for dealing with unarmored Flesh and Blood targets

[edit on 25/5/2010 by masonicon]

reply to post by masonicon


Watch Deadliest Warrior, knight vs Pirate. The lower powered blackpowder flintlocks wouldn't penetrate the armor. The higher powered blunderbus would.

If you get into modern firearms then penetrating a suit of armor is no big deal. A .223 will penetrate 1/4 in steel plate.

Originally posted by DrJay1975
reply to post by masonicon

 

Watch Deadliest Warrior, knight vs Pirate. The lower powered blackpowder flintlocks wouldn't penetrate the armor. The higher powered blunderbus would.

If you get into modern firearms then penetrating a suit of armor is no big deal. A .223 will penetrate 1/4 in steel plate.

I have a Confusion: What's is "Big Deal" Mean?

Is the more obese people is bulletproof, especially when he/she is wearing Metal Armour?

[edit on 14/7/2010 by masonicon]

reply to post by masonicon


In discussing firearms vs. Mideval armor, I love how older books that deal with the early use of firearms laugh at mideval gunners for using both lead shot and "silly, crossbow quarrel like projectiles with copper fins".

The idea being that the arrow paradigm was holding back the obvious technological advance of the lead ball.

..and then, finally someone realized the "quarrel" was for use against armored cavalry at long range. Our ancesters had actually invented the fin stabalized anti-armour sabot round 500 years ago.


More to the topic - I wouldn't be suprised if a well crafted suit of plate armour, say circa 1520, might not stop a 9mm. I've seen flat, aluminum stop signs little if any thicker than plate armor do so, so why not domed,
angled iron/steel?

If bullets were the kill all in every movie than every movie would suck and surely such armor albiet less functional would actually exist.

I'd have to disagree that armour is bullet proof in all films..

I can remember watching 'Bedknobs and broomsticks' as a kid, when the Germans attack the castle at the end. And the witch animates the suits of medieval armour on display.. after getting peppered by machine gun fire from a German commando, one of the suits stops, takes his platemail boot off, turns it upside down and empties out all the rounds he's been shot with.


Peace...

And do you know in the videogames, anything that made out of metal are invulnerable to even guns that as powerful as 30mm guns as guns with calibre up to 30mm are only useful for unarmored flesh-and-blood targets(anyone that wears bulletproof vests are counts as unarmored person even when that vest are uses ceramic plates and because of this, even medieval armour are almost always more bulletproof than bulletproof vest)

In modern body armor, you basically have two options for protection from rifle rounds. A ceramic plate or a hardened steel plate. The steel plates are usually 1/4" thick and around 9 lbs each. They are pretty effective and very durable against 5.56x45 and 7.62x39 rounds. But they are also very heavy and do not absorb as much of the kinetic energy of the bullet as ceramic plates do.

Now a suit of medieval armor is nowhere near as thick and not surrounded by layers of kevlar. They were designed to allow for mobility of the wearer while protecting from the glancing blows of swords and other field weapons. A high caliber bullet would have no problem penetrating the suit so long as it did not hit at such an angle as to cause a ricochet.

Iron Man uses special titanium, but that isn't important, and the move V for Vendetta doesn't have bulletproof armor, in fact the armor doesn't save him, though it would slow down the bullets that he is hit with (even so he shouldn't have been able to keep fighting). The 7.62 rounds can punch through 1/4th inch steel. That said, metal armor would probably stop or significantly slow lower calliber bullets.

Originally posted by JDBlack
Iron Man uses special titanium, but that isn't important, and the move V for Vendetta doesn't have bulletproof armor, in fact the armor doesn't save him, though it would slow down the bullets that he is hit with (even so he shouldn't have been able to keep fighting). The 7.62 rounds can punch through 1/4th inch steel. That said, metal armor would probably stop or significantly slow lower calliber bullets.

So how about Titanium that laminated with Kevlar just like Robocop did it as layers of Kevlar that laminates Titanium further slows down(if not outright stops) bullet if bullets are managed to penetrates Titanium?

In real life their are rifles that will rip right throw any armor type like its nothing.

So,unless your in a military that has top secret armor. You wont find anything to make yourself invincible.

Originally posted by miracleretiree
In real life their are rifles that will rip right throw any armor type like its nothing.

So,unless your in a military that has top secret armor. You wont find anything to make yourself invincible.

and What's that rifle?

I have some input here. I've been shooting some frying pans with a .22lr rifle lately (Cooey 39).

@ 25 meters, there is a clean hole punched through every time, no matter where the round strikes.

@ 100 meters the lead round won't penetrate at all. Now a 22lr is no battle round, but you have to understand that range and the type of load/round makes a big difference in this case.

Lead projectiles don't penetrate steel very well as they are far less dense, they need a lot of energy and therefore velocity to do so. Energy/velocity drops exponentially as ranges increase.

I'm sure any common .223 or .30 cal. battle round will penetrate the armour you speak of, probably out to 400m+ for .223 and 600m+ for common .30 cal.

.50 BMG or .338 Lapua, forget about it. Those are common sniper/antimaterial rounds in the military these days.

reply to post by masonicon


Just saying that he doesn't use steel, not that it is a realistic armour capability

Originally posted by masonicon

Originally posted by miracleretiree
In real life their are rifles that will rip right throw any armor type like its nothing.

So,unless your in a military that has top secret armor. You wont find anything to make yourself invincible.

and What's that rifle?

He is saying in real life, basically any military rifle will penetrate medieval plate armor.

Originally posted by aegis80
I lived in Paris, during that time I went to the musee les invalides, in there, there are plenty of breastplates and suits of armour, many of them riddled with small holes from bodkin arrows.
It's quite something to look at 1/2" steel and see that someone put a hole in it using a muscle powered projectile.
Although a modern rifle round isn't specifically designed to defeat such armour as the bodkin was, I'm betting total kinetic energy transferred to the target is quite a lot higher.

Would someone care to work that out? There were bows recovered form the mary rose which had draw weights in excess of 160lbs as I recall. How does that compare to a rifle round for total projectile energy?

Medieval plate armor was nowhere near 1/2 an inch thick. Most is under 1/8" thick. If you think it's 1/2" thick maybe that's why it's "quite something" but in reality plate armor was quite thin, and a thrust with a short sword, or blow from a pointed weapon could penetrate fairly easily. Armor in general, from plate to maille was meant to stop chopping hits, anytime you focus a lot of energy, like with a spiked hammer, sword, arrow, etc, on a small tip/point it's very hard to stop it from penetrating.

Originally posted by Darce

. Lead projectiles don't penetrate steel very well as they are far less dense, they need a lot of energy and therefore velocity to do so.

That's not true. Led is very very dense, more dense than steel or copper, the other metals used in ammunition manufacture.

The density is not the problem with plain lead's lack of penetration, it's the hardness. Lead is too soft to penetrate well.

As for the OP, like others have said I can't think of any movie where someone was shot while wearing medieval armor and didn't get killed, but that's beside the point as obviously movies are not a place to get a factual representation of how things work.

Just like movie people shooting pistols that evidently hold like 100 rounds, just like when they run out of ammo the gun just starts clicking, when most every single pistol locks the slide back when out of ammo, so there is no clicking to be done. On the subject of clicking, in almost every moving the gun clicks and clacks every time someone moves the gun around, or points it at someone.

It's a movie, it's not real, so why are you even asking the question?