Costuming got strange today.
One of the other girls was designing an outfit that had an armored breastplate. She'd designed it with the typical armored cups for her breasts.
This lead to a long lecture from Mrs. Ryan.
Seems that this is a horribly bad idea. She explained that doing it that way means that a strong impact on your chest gets focused into the area between the cups. Which can lead to a shattered sternum or worse.
So even if it looks funny, the "uniboob" look is safer.
She also noted that side impacts with improperly anchored rigid cups can drag them sideways which results in your breasts getting painfully squeezed between your chest and the edge of the cup.
All us girls winced. A couple of guys laughed.
This lead to a lecture about protective cups for guys. She pointed out that they had it even worse if a sideways blow hit their cup. I was careful not to laugh.
Then she pointed out that besides needing to be well anchored against such things it was also a good idea for their cups (and breast protection for women) to not be overly rigid.
Yes, it'd hurt if it flexed too far. But she noted examples of numerous heroes (and a couple heroines) who'd been badly injured when hit with enough force to shatter the protection.
Several of the guys turned green. And none of us girls looked a lot better. Having jagged shards of armor driven into sensitive parts of our anatomy is not anybody's idea of fun.
Armor that deforms rather than shatters is right up there with Edna Mode's "No capes!" rule!
Apparently there's an entire class for the folks that go into full armor and power suits on how to design things to be easier to get out of when parts are bent out of shape. Who knew?
Comments
Speed writing
While I had another part 7 written, after posting part 6, this came to me and I wrote it out. So if you are all very, very good, you may get part 8 soon and even a part 9 (though that one is more of a bare bones idea at the moment)
Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks
So there is an unmentionable side
To the superhero costume lark, hm? I'll stick at the combat liabilities level and not go any further into this.
Though "breathes like Egyptian cotton" sounds good ;)
Whateley has "baseline but..." characters, it is interesting to see this viewpoint and experience.
Teri Ann
"Reach for the sun."
Yep. The bit about breast
Yep. The bit about breast "cups" came from an online discussion regarding armor by foiolks with real world experience.
The bit about cups for guys getting hit sideways came from an old gym class with someone describing what happened when he had a jock that wasn't "tight" enough.
And the "shattering" bit is something I heard somewhere about a guy who was wearing a plastic "cup" for protection who got involved in a gang fight. I forget what hit him (maybe a baseball bat?) but yes, the plastic shattered. *shudder*
Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks
The breast cup discussion
Has been around for years. I thinkI first read about it in one of the Golden Age sci-fi stories where the intrepid space explorers land on a planet of giant amazon women. Unfortunatly men are always fantasizing about huge boobs which require prominent display, hence we get the technically dangerous "boob" armour.
And I swear, whoever thought unlined chainmail was good armour for women with big busts should have his eyes put out! When men wore chainmail they wore it with extremely thick padding underneath. A woman with large breasts wearing unpadded chainmail . . . Does the phrase 'nipple pinch' sound like fun?
"Fan Service", I hate it.
I went outside once. The graphics weren' that great.
Chain mail worn "fantasy
Chain mail worn "fantasy style" has lots of problems.
You need the padding to spread out the impact. Otherwise the chain may stop you getting cut, but leave you with broken bones. You also get chain pattern bruising.
Worn as "costume", chain has some shortcomings as well.
One SCA fighter of my acquaintance was at a late season tourney and when he got up in the morning, he picked up his hauberk, bent over, stuck his head and arms thru the appropriate holes. and then woke half the camp as the ice cold metal draped itself over his entire torso.
Men and women wearing chain with nothing under it have discovered the hard way that all those holes mean it is SPF 0. Sunburned chest & back are bad. Sunburned breasts? Ow!
And then there's the problem of hair. A few overly hairy men discovered that their chest & back hair worked its way thru the loops. Then when they tried to take off the hauberk they got treated to the epilady from hell effect.
Now consider the poor young ladies who wore a chain mail bikini *bottom* without anything under it. Pubic hair does the same thing.
Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks
check out
OES wrote a story about a cricket player that had his cup broken by a thrown/pitched ball and needed to have SRS to fix the problem. See It's Simply not Cricket.
The same information holds
The same information holds true for Kevlar vests worn by police officers. Women's vests are form fitted inside, but not so much on the front outside. This allows for overall protection, yet also allows for the breasts to not be tightly bound behind the vest. Plus you are also dealing with the ceramic shock plates that the vests contain in the chest area.
Military "armor" vests are currently made in strips of Kevlar and called "dragon skin". They work very much the same; however there are some that now have added lower abdomen and crotch protection flaps that come done and cover those regions. These were designed and added due to all the severe injuries sustained by troops being hit by IEDs.
A recent History Channel program showed "armor" for troops of Alexander The Great that could actually stop arrows and some sword wounds from happening. This "armor" was made from 24 or more strips of LINEN bonded together. Flexible, lightweight and strong; which amazed the people testing it on the program.
Mil Spec Armour
I remember reading that a lot of women in Iraq had big problems with the body armour supplied by the military, in all but a few cases the smallest male armour available was still too big for the women, as well as not being designed for the female form. A number of women deployed from Oklahoma started writing home begging their families to buy the police body armour made for women and sending it to them to wear. I kinda sorta remember that a local manufacturer set up a special production run of women's body armour especially for those overseas. Khaki or sand colored instead of white, plus a few other changes to mollify the paper pushers.
It's not on all that often, but if you see it on the schedule do watch "Secrets Of The Dead" on PBS. They love to dig beneath the surface and look at what made great battles and great leaders. You are surely familiar with the rhyme (or whatever) that starts "For the want of a nail a shoe was lost". Well, "Secrets Of The Dead" would tell you 'why' that nail was lost, what metallurgy showed about the material the nail was made from, how the nail design was better or worse than another, etc. Really fascinating stuff. I think they brought up the different types of armour and how that affected battle strategies. If you see it, make the time to watch an episode.
I went outside once. The graphics weren' that great.
The things you don't think about
Now I'm very glad I've read this. I'll have to keep these things in mind when doing my own writing.
-Tas