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The Problem with Sci-Fi Body Armor

This week we’re covering the winning topic from the latest ACOUP Senate poll, which is a look at some of the odd designs and mechanics for futuristic science fiction body armor, particularly …

In particular, you can see that the Harkonnen soldiers (officers, presumably) have armor that consists of heavy pauldrons and a high collar, along with a breastplate that runs all the way to the hips (the ‘belt line’ as distinct from the natural waist) and then extends a bit further in the front. Mass Effect is a bit more mixed, but players of the series (especially the first game) will know that one of the tactical considerations is that melee strikes are not impeded by the ‘kinetic barriers’ (read: shields) of the setting, which are designed only to intercept small objects (like bullets) moving very fast. Those materials often have to be thicker than the equivalent in something like iron or steel simply to hold together (though they are often much lighter), but also they can’t handle small, high-stress connection points, like the sliding rivets or buckles of articulated lames or the holes in scale or especially lamellar.

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