sup /tg/
This might be more /k/ than anything, but I know there's enough crossover, or used to be, that maybe you can answer the question, since its more for a game than real life.
Plenty of post apocalyptic games, movies and vidya depict all sorts of stylish makeshift armor. Made from everything from tires, to welded bits of steel to road signs.
I'm wondering what would ACTUALLY be effective.
I'm aware that basically any scenario in the US would involve firearms, and in that case basically any makeshift armor will be borderline useless. But what about in other places with less common firearms? Or a scenario well after the apocalypse when at best people are using home made black powder? Or maybe a widespread gun grab is what kicked off the apocalypse, I dunno (please I don't mean this to be political, just thinking up some reasons for firearms to be less widespread)
In those kinds of scenarios would tire plate be useful against blades or clubs? What about riveted sheet metal? Would the weight be too much and end up being useless. Would a lone scavenger even want armor in case he runs into hostiles, or would just running off be better?
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why don't you just do some actual research? There's tons of videos of people testing diy armor. Why are zoomers like this?
Honestly I like the conversation. I could just do research, but having another person's insight helps on what to research.
Thanks for the in depth response.
I keep coming back to thinking that rubber from tires might be useful, especially given how ubiquitous it is. But I imagine its not too stab proof. It seems pretty good against slashing or blunt trauma, but maybe there's better alternatives in terms of weight to protection ratio. Maybe a tire under layer with metal on top?
Ghetto blacksmithing is exactly why I started thinking about the topic. There's all sorts of randos online making stuff that looks good, but the protection, even by my untrained eyes, seems like it wouldn't be good for protection. But if you can make an aesthetic piece in your backyard with a folding chair and a hairdryer for a forge, it seems to me you could make something effective if you wanted or needed.
Are the metals from car bodies useful at all, or too thin? I know some ghetto forge guys use spring steel for blades. And older cars (50s - 70s) have much more solid steel for their body. Still not enough to stop a bullet, but seems good enough for a shield, to me.
You’re right that /k/ will probably know more and it’s worth posting this there as well, although admittedly half the posts are going to be ‘plate carrier, chest rig, helmet, black powder musket, hide innawoods’. That said, I feel like modern industrial equipment being repurposed into armour à la pic related would be the best way to go. Sports equipment is good, but is generally designed to ward off injuries from impacts from an unarmed person, with a few exceptions like cricket/baseball helmets. Industrial protection, on the other hand, is designed more to deal with stronger or more dangerous impacts.
If you’re a wanderer a full set of steel armour is probably a bit much for day-to-day use, since the weight will mean you use up a lot of calories lugging it around. It’d be entirely possible to make though, and old cars would be a good bet for steel. Even better would be if you could find a scrap yard, in a post apocalypse scenario I’d imagine they’d be sort after resources given that they’re basically piles of largely reusable metal.
*sought after
>cars would be a good bet for steel
On the flipside, a decent machine shop could easily turn out high quality rifle barrels out of vehicle axles.
>a decent machine shop could easily turn out high quality rifle barrels out of vehicle axles
No it couldn't.
>not 40krap
>not shilling
>not coombait
>not urtoob material trolling
>doesn't seem bot generated
>zoomers leave REEEEE
Asking other people a question is the least zoomer thing you can do, moronic cum stain
Yeah probably a /k/ question. Fantasy armor is rule of cool and if not, reflects the game mechanics. I suppose somewhere there’s a simulation for these kinds of things… and guess where those authors get their info from.
Consider your options. The best way to not be killed is to not be found, but i cant hide a settlement or even a fire against intelligent raiders. There may also just be so many raiders that stealth and evasion are unreliable. In that case i will want some form of armour, but the question is what kind? For home defence or for a military with supporting elements and logistics i want as heavy as i can get. Thats going to be metal plates over thick padding, and hopefully made of something good. Sign metal is thin weak shit so id maybe use it if i had no better options, but thinner lighter plates of actual steel will probably be just as good for deflecting blows. Neither will stop a heavy hit from something like a gun or axe though.
If i have to move on my own then i probably want more basic things like vambraces and some chest protetion against blades, but linothorax might do for that since my best defence in either case is evasion. If im on the offensive then spatial awareness matters a bit less so id upgrade to a metal helmet and a bit more arm or leg defence, as much as i can carry quietly and wear long term and still be able to rush someone in.
Id still be picking targets carefully though because guns will pen anything i can reasonably source. Yes you CAN improvise bulletproof armour, but its too heavy for full body protection and i dont want to die.
The design changes a bit if we're worried about bio-chemo-radio threats. Metal plates shield from radiation really well so we want a suit of that and failing that aluminium foil lining our inner layers. The inside will want to be plastic bags or silicone if you can get it, probably with some kind of spacer/padding so you dont overheat as quickly
Anything made from aluminum or plastic is going to be worthless for protection. Unfortunately, just about everything in our day to day lives is made out of or with aluminum or plastic.
assuming firearms aren't common in your area (just to keep things interesting)
you'd most often be accosted by polearms (i.e. knife strapped to a stick), hammers, axes, various types of kitchen knives and machetes.
wearing various types of sports protective gear would help in mitigating blunt impact, and from sharp objects. the Legion in new vegas shows this quite well. beneath that, many types of waterproof jackets (i.e. thick cordura ones) are also slash and to some extent stab proof.
if you have any sort of ghetto blacksmith capabilities, it's not hard to weld some metal sheets from hardware stores into plate armour. over time ghetto blacksmiths would improve and we'd see ghetto plate armour slowly converging to features seen in renaissance armour (narrow waists, domed breastplate etc.)
shields would also be widespread, even a garbage can lid can ward off some solid hits. we'd eventually see purpose-made rectangular and maybe eventually round wooden shields
A decently thick steal breastplate would have a good chance of stopping handgun rounds. You'd have to build it a bit thicker than Ned Kelly did to stop a modern rifle bullet, but even there it wouldn't be impossible to have a big guy clanking around in a suit that'd stop ordinary civilian hollowpoint hunting rifle rounds.
I've seen half inch mild steel plates stop .223 FMJ, but that thick might be a bit too heavy for reasonable armor.
Its also worth noting that the Kelly armor was made of iron, not steel, let alone the modern heat treated stuff. Something of equal mass but modern construction would be substantially harder to penetrate.
I could see the use of such a suit being some sort of machine gunner, drawing the majority of fire and keeping an enemy subdued while more mobile elements flank.
If it worked for Ned, I think it would work for post apocalypse raiders Smokeless powder is complicated to make, but not black powder which is weaker. And scrap metal will be plentiful enough.
I think it really depends on how much of an industrial base you have available, so I'll posit a few scenarios.
If you're just one person, and it isn't too long after the collapse, then your best bet is to scavenge pre-collapse armor. That would be, as another anon put it, a plate carrier, kevlar helmet, etc. If you're going to be in close quarters or facing a lot of melee threats then it could be worth it to add additional shrapnel/stab protection. That could look like a shark suit, or stab vests repurposed into shoulder, neck, arm, and leg protection with some cutting, or 1/8th inch plate steel cut into strips with a hacksaw and woven into MOLLE webbing to make crude lamellar armor. All of that would make you slow and bulky and probably dead if you're facing opponents with rifles. Then your best bet is to go to ground and find friends.
If you and your friends survive the die off that follows the apocalypse, and managed to get a settlement up and running, now you have some more options. The modern world is littered with high quality materials that can be repurposed into weapons and armor. Automotive steel could be cut and shaped with hydraulics and belt driven equipment (water wheel powering a machine shop). Old, tough wearing work clothing could be repurposed into padded gambesons. Leaf springs and chunks of railroad track can be ground/forged into blades if you can lay hands on coal and make coke, or get yourself a tank of natural gas. At this point you can fabricate new gear out of old materials that emulates older, pre-industrial style weapons and armor. This would mean retraining any fighters you have to fight with that fear, which would also be difficult.
This is getting long but I might continue in a second post if that's alright.
Captcha: TPKTPM (Total party kill, total party massacre?)
Think very carefully about the most common kinds of harm your survivor will face.
In a zombie apocalypse, where the main issues are light bites and being grabbed, your needs are very different than Mad Max where your opponents have leverage and aim for the vitals.
Helmets will come back into fashion very quickly. Bumps and bashes to the noggin come from the environment as well as enemies. Next you have a two-way split.
>A
On the one hand, arm-mounted loads are tiring. On the other, getting jumped (especially by wildlife) means usually taking a hit to the arm as you throw up your hands to defend yourself. PVC pipe or aluminium section bracers at the least could help shake bites, prevent deep disabling cuts, etc. Even turning a deep wound shallow could be enough. The accepted military means of fending off a dog attack (without just shooting it) is letting it bite a well-protected left arm while you shiv the beast to death with your right.
>Or B
The jury-rigged breastplate will turn lethal harm into survivable harm if you're lucky. You can bear a fair amount of load on your shoulders and as such can have steel armour here. Depending on the length of time you'll be carrying it and the risk of attack even something like a paving stone or a stack of magazines could be better than nothing if you can mount it. Melee hits are much easier to deal with than gunshots in terms of armour, and ablative layers are fine. If your armour takes that one bad hit you may have an opportunity to hit back in tempo and kill your attacker.
After that, you get into heavier torso protection and basically are trying to recreate historical armour or scavenge pre-fall modern armour. I would also expect knee and elbow protection and eye protection to be commonly-scavenged and prized. Finally, don't underestimate the utility of heavy boots both to protect the feet and to strike with. Steel toecaps, etc.
I always figured that the most practical armor in the typical zombie apocalypse would be a motorcycle suit. Zombies grab, and they just have hands and teeth. The leather will stop those handily, and the suits are designed to have a clean surface so they aren't torn to shreds in a high speed fall. And a motorcycle helmet is perfect for keeping infected zombie tissue out of your face.
>I'm wondering what would ACTUALLY be effective.
in post-apo? not kevlar, the stuff decomposes just by exposude to elements
read gurps, hightech, lowtech and the pyramids covering designing armors and After The End, every question you have is covered and with gurps autism ammounts of math.
Some armor is better than none, and if half your enemies are using shotguns because everything else is broke and out of ammo, even shitty armor makes a difference.
it's actually possible to make makeshift armour that can stop an AR
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I saw videos of people making make shift bullet proof plates.
Ceramic tiles + a dense padding underneath to stop the fragment.
I seem to recall seeing a video of a guy making something that was pretty close to Kevlar, using stuff from a hardware store, but I don't remember what it was.
>this thread again
Been a while
>nooooo why is someone posting anything other than coombait and the same two dozen generals noooooooo
Car tires are reasonably effective bullet sponges, but too heavy. They probably come in handy to as sandbags or basic b***h fortification.
Steel plate armor is already a thing for cheapos. You can use bed liner for a pickup truck to slightly reduce spelling. Rawhide would still be useful for cut protection, mail too, but you'd need it to be made to purpose. A leather jacket or a ren fair special won't do you much good. There is a way to Black person-rig composite armor that will take a gunshot by gluing shit together but I forget the specifics.
Kevlar and ceramic armor that already exists would of course be preferred. Dirt packed in sacks and backed with tires can help with fortifications. In general I would note that it is much harder to stop a bullet than you'd expect, and some people might simply opt for breaking up their outline in hopes of creating misses.
BTW, expect people to make ineffective armor, especially early on. Back in Iraq a lot of dirkas bought it because they watched too much Hollywood and thought car doors and bricks would protect them from rifles. Concealment is not cover.
I suspect nothing would be used. The main concern in a post-apocalypse is to bring food, supplies, and machinery. You want to be able to carry more stuff. Fights should be avoided as much as possible. Armor would likely be used only when combat is expected or the whole point of the raid.
Leather and scrap metal-derived plate armor would be pretty effective against most non-firearms. You could probably make something which would withstand blackpowder weapons without too much trouble. The problem would be weight. Wearing a full suit of armor while on foot would be very problematic. Most people who marched into battle on foot concentrated on armoring their head and torso. That doesn't mean post-apoc people wouldn't have limb armor. If horses or equivalent are available, there's little reason not to armor up. You could even have chariots that carry heavily armored warriors into battle. Of course, if you have automobiles, you could wear almost anything that doesn't crush you under its weight or cause you to overheat and die.
>I'm aware that basically any scenario in the US would involve firearms
It's highly doubtful that there would be bushels of modern ammo left decades into any post-apoc situation. If people are manufacturing ammo large-scale, it's not longer post-apoc: it's post-post-apoc (which Fallout mostly is). In such a scenario, improvised armor is mostly useless unless you're regularly running into opponents who don't wield modern weapons (cannibals, tribals, etc). I could see several scenarios
>no post-apoc industry set up
>people use lots of primitive weapons and armor
>some post-apoc industry set up wide-scale
>people use very little armor because blackpowder weapons
>lots of post-apoc industry but it is unevenly distributed
>people use whatever they can find or make