[Unknown Target]

Alright. I've been theorizing about armor. Body armor, and heavier.
Anyways, I've been looking into kevlar armor, doing some research on it. Actually, I'm lying, I just watched a Discovery channel special on body armor.
Well, it seems that the body armor, made of kevlar, currently on the streets with todays cops, and the body armor with a steel back plate, currently found in military service, have two enormous drawbacks. One, is that they cannot completely stop a round. As such a high-velocity, high dencity round can go through it like a knife through warm butter.
The second is that they cannot protect the wearer from multiple hits in at the same point.
My theoretical body armor would be made of titanium, or another such material, woven into a thin, flexible strand. This strand, supposadly, can be moved and bended, like thread, but has the proportional strength of the alloy it is made out of.
Now, notice I said proportional. If you fired a bullet at a steel block that is 1 foot thick, you would get nary a dent. If you fired a smaller bullet, one about 30X smaller, at a 30X thinner piece of strand, you would also, get almost no dent.
My theory is that if you interwove these strands together, they would produce a similar effect, one strong enough to deflect bullets larger than today's current kevlar armor. A demonstration of how this is possible is shown below.

Figure 1:

A bullet of X mass, traveling at Y speed, impacts the weaved armor. The armor, at X mass (the same mass or greater as the bullet) and traveling at 0(y), does not move. At least, not totally.
As shown in Figure 2, below:
, the bullet impacts the armor, but due to the elacticity offered by the threaded material, the armor bends inwards [it should be noted that this is dramatisized to show this], with the bullet, cushioning it, and then, as shown in Figure 3, the bullet rebounds [it may be necessary to interweave multiple strands of elastic threading to produce this effect. In fact, it is probably required].


Now we come to the multiple hits portion of the theory. Since the body armor is [supposed to be] suspended away from the body, this allows multiple bullets to hit the area, and, depending on the armor's distance from the body, be rebounded back. The farther away the armor, the better, because the farthe it can bend inwards.

[an0n]

Pfff. Soon as I get my shield generator working it will make all standard armour obsolete. It's not so much an energy barrier as it is a specific area where objects passing through would be vapourised. I'm still working out the finer points of the microwave anti-phasing. But in theory by having very slightly different frequencies it will create multiple spheres of dangerous intensity microwaves.

[Carl]

...and kill the wearer.

[an0n]

You've just got to make sure that the waves don't go out of anti-phase until they're a few meters from the generator/emitter thingy.

[CODEDOG ND]

UT it is a good idea, but it just won't work.  You must remember that the military uses M-16, which  the civilian version is the AR-15.  A steel bullet which is stardard issue will cut through kevlar at over 500 yards and that is only a 5.56mm round(.233 cal).  The 7.62mm(.308 cal) will pentrate at a much longer distance pending on the gun, such as AK-47, FN FAL PARA, Romak-3 Dragnov SVD(Common 3rd World Country Arms).  Your armor would protect very little and it would be heavier and more costly that the steel plates used in a flak jacket.  The body armor in the military is to protect against sharpnel more that a direct bullet hit because a soldier already has a gun, 300 rounds of ammo plus his other gear.  The best defence against a bullet is either to move out of its way, or find a big wall.

[Shrike]

One thing that would make body armor quite effective would be if fullerene tubes could be mass-produced.  Very strong stuff.

[CODEDOG ND]

Originally posted by Shrike
One thing that would make body armor quite effective would be if fullerene tubes could be mass-produced.  Very strong stuff.

Now that might just work.  

[Unknown Target]

Never heard of them, what are they?

[^Graff]

Buckminsterfullerine is a C-60 molecule, harder than diamond.

Also, the problem with armor-piercing bullets is that it doesn't necessarily kill the subject.  Read "Black Hawk Down."  Several times, the Delta Force troops fill Somali militiamen with shells only to watch them walk away.  They might die later, but it doesn't drop them.  The woven armor might stop bullets designed to drop someone.

[Unknown Target]

Well, of course. The very reason for armor-piercing bullets, is, well, to pierce armor. But, as a trade-off for this, the bullets are less lethal. I think that's an acceptable tradeoff for the armor, to stop bullets designed to drop people ,and miss most armor piercers.
Also, I don't think it would be that heavy. Or it wouldn't be as noticible, since it's evenly spread out over the entire body, and not grouped up in specific parts.

[CODEDOG ND]

Wounding a man is more costly than killing him.  That and lead bullets in combat are outlawed internationally.  Steel covered aluminum is actually what most of the bullets are made of.  I've actually taken some military SKS bullets apart.  After shooting them into a piece of thick limestone first though.  The bullet doesn't break apart as well as a lead bullet will, but the steel flies faster and is less dense.  Look at the Specs of Steel in a shotgun shell compared to the same size in the lead shot you will see a big difference.  If you wound the man, then it will take about two guys to carry him away from the battle field. Thus it is actually like killing three guys, and the guy that is wounded, his country has to pay for the medical care of the wounded man as well.  Unless your in a country like Somolia.  Now the AK-47 is almost an exception to the rule.  The 7.62mm(.308 cal) round it fires actually for some reason tends to slice and thrash through the body more than other.  I forgot why, I think it has something to do with the heavy 7.62mm round it uses over the smaller 5.56mm that most carbines use today including the AK-74.

[FSW]

Armour doesn't protect well against bullets. It's meant to protect against debris and stuff.

[beatspete]

can you weave titanium into a thread anyway?

[^Graff]

If you only wound a guy, he has a chance to shoot back.  You might be able to remove 3 soldiers from the battlefield after a few minutes, but in the moment that counts, when the two of you are shooting at each other, it would be better to drop him so he can't drop you.

[^Graff]

Originally posted by beatspete
can you weave titanium into a thread anyway?

Probably.  You can do it to steel.  Why not to titanium?  Or if you can't, make a steel mesh vest and try it out.

[Zeronet]

The best type of defence is to make better guns, so you shoot them before they get a chance to shoot you and dont diss the Dragnov, it may be Russian, buts its a good Sniper rifle!

[Unknown Target]

I was simply using titanium as an example. It's extremely tough, but very rare and expensive. Unsutable for mass-production.
In response to Graf:
That's where this body armor comes in. Since armor piercers don't outright kill you, but other types do, the armor would protect against the others, which means he could only use armor piercers.
BTW, people, this isn't a new idea (I mean body armor, not what I stated in the first post) it's basically a better kevlar.

[Assassin]

Also can I add, this is simple Sun Tzu and in many ways common sence fighting:

You kill your opponent, that's it.

You injur him, the opposing country has to pay for medical treatment. You injur thousands of people they're going to be using up lots of money and resources simply keeping their people a live.

[Unknown Target]

Of course, if you kill him, the country will have to waste money on new recruits, will have to maybe pay reparations to the family, and have to buy all new equipment, to replace the ones lost with the soldier.

[CODEDOG ND]

Originally posted by Unkown Target
Of course, if you kill him, the country will have to waste money on new recruits, will have to maybe pay reparations to the family, and have to buy all new equipment, to replace the ones lost with the soldier.

But those are much cheaper than the 100,000 dollar medical bills.
They don't really have a choice anymore.  It is either use steel or be banned from the UN.

Titanium is too exspensive and is less dense than steel.  Density plays more when your talking about bullets than most anything.  

Dragnov is a very good gun, I like it and I'd buy one if it weren't for the $1,200 price on it.