Virtual Armor Engineering

[dennis grace]

Mistress Gunnora wrote:

<snip>
>Now on the areas needing coverage, I'd use small
>overlapping plastic plates sewn to the fabric (such as Alysha or Iolo use
>for their jacks).  The design is very flexible, so it would move with the
>fighter.  You can use looser placement of the plates than on a jack, but the
>overlap still protects against the armor pinch.  I'd wear a knee cop without
>the big side wings under this, strapped tightly to the leg to keep it from
>floating around and not covering properly.  The plates over the knee area on
>the arming pants would not necessarily overlap (thus providing maximum
>flexibility... the kneecop underneath keeps the plates from pinching) but
>plates on the back of the pant leg in this area protect the back of the
>knee.  
<snip>

Well, the design sounds workable, but I don't see how overlapping plates
will be less obtrusive than wrap-fitted ABS cuisses.  Won't the overlap make
the armor MORE bulky?  

As for knee wings, I'm a big fan (no pun intended).  The one time I lost my
left wing (they were riveted to my first pair of knee cops) I took a shot in
the back of the knee/top of the calf.  Not an experience I want to relive.
As I told Gnith, a good armorer can flute and curve back the wings so that
they lie fairly close to the leg.

Yours

Sir Lyonel Oliver Grace
Dennis G. Grace
Postmodern Medievalist
Division of Rhetoric and Composition
Department of English
University of Texas at Austin
amazing at mail.utexas.edu
___________________

Baro, metetz en guatge                    |  Lords, pawn your castles,
Chastels e vilas e ciutatz                |  your towns and cities.
Enanz qu'usquecs no'us guerreiatz         |  Before you're beat to the draw,
                                                    draw your swords.

                   -- Bertran de Born (a really fun Viscount)