My wife used to be in the occupational therapy field. One thing she did was make splints to help the elderly hold their arms, etc in the necessary positions to counteract strokes and the like. This was done with a heat moldable plastic sheet. You cut it to the size you wanted, warmed it up in a pan of hot water, and reformed it into the shape you wanted. Some of it came preformed like perhaps a hand and you might need to change the finger positions or something like that.
Now for the armor aspect. Suppose you took this stuff and layered it with fine metal mesh between the layers. Add kevalar joints at the elbows, shoulders, hips, and knees. You could even heat embed some abrasive grit into the outer layer to rapidly dull the enemy edged weapons. This stuff is hard to cut unless it is warm in the first place.
A merchant buys a supply of this material, gets a computer set up with an outfit that can record a person's muscle movements and transform those measurements into the proper dimensions so that layers act as overlaping, but still free moving protection at the joints and makes customized light weight armor aginst low tech weapons. Imagine a knight or samari wearing a better armor that is 1/2 to 1/4 the weight of what his opponet is wearing.
Sure you have a little expense getting the computer set up and the program written, but modern day atheletes already have simular setups for testing endurance limits and the like. Buy your electronics from a high tech world that has lots of professional sports and modify it. Then buy the material and make a few demo suits of armor. Allow your potential customers to try to destroy it with their own weapons. Of course don't try to use this stuff aginst lasers and energy weapons. Muscle powered weapons would at best be about as effective as they are aginst metal armor and most likely less effective (except in extreamly cold conditions where it might tend to shatter). You would want to add some padding to areas that would get the most abuse because of the lack of mass to absorb the blows.
In the pirate's hayday on the Atlantic seaboard, all the pirates were hack and slash type fighters that overwhelmed their opposition by brute force. The man who was responsible for putting them out of business trained his troops to use rapiers that weighed much less than the pirates cutlasses. They took some loses early in their fights, but generally tired the pirates out from using the heavier weapons. How long can troops in full metal armor last in battle if their opponents have equal protection that offers far less endurance drain? Think you would have any problems selling this armor? After you get the equipment paid for, the supplies would cost relativly nothing. The worse part would be the time it would take to custom fit the army. also note that captured armor would not be able to be used aginst your army due to the custom fitted nature.
Now for the armor aspect. Suppose you took this stuff and layered it with fine metal mesh between the layers. Add kevalar joints at the elbows, shoulders, hips, and knees. You could even heat embed some abrasive grit into the outer layer to rapidly dull the enemy edged weapons. This stuff is hard to cut unless it is warm in the first place.
A merchant buys a supply of this material, gets a computer set up with an outfit that can record a person's muscle movements and transform those measurements into the proper dimensions so that layers act as overlaping, but still free moving protection at the joints and makes customized light weight armor aginst low tech weapons. Imagine a knight or samari wearing a better armor that is 1/2 to 1/4 the weight of what his opponet is wearing.
Sure you have a little expense getting the computer set up and the program written, but modern day atheletes already have simular setups for testing endurance limits and the like. Buy your electronics from a high tech world that has lots of professional sports and modify it. Then buy the material and make a few demo suits of armor. Allow your potential customers to try to destroy it with their own weapons. Of course don't try to use this stuff aginst lasers and energy weapons. Muscle powered weapons would at best be about as effective as they are aginst metal armor and most likely less effective (except in extreamly cold conditions where it might tend to shatter). You would want to add some padding to areas that would get the most abuse because of the lack of mass to absorb the blows.
In the pirate's hayday on the Atlantic seaboard, all the pirates were hack and slash type fighters that overwhelmed their opposition by brute force. The man who was responsible for putting them out of business trained his troops to use rapiers that weighed much less than the pirates cutlasses. They took some loses early in their fights, but generally tired the pirates out from using the heavier weapons. How long can troops in full metal armor last in battle if their opponents have equal protection that offers far less endurance drain? Think you would have any problems selling this armor? After you get the equipment paid for, the supplies would cost relativly nothing. The worse part would be the time it would take to custom fit the army. also note that captured armor would not be able to be used aginst your army due to the custom fitted nature.
