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[Crustypeanut]

This guy, he knows where its at.  He knows that Aluminum is good for its high strength-to-weight ratio.. so what did he do?

He made a mail shirt from it.



I don't really get where in the 21st century the spikes of cloth are from.. nor the mushroom image.. but oh well!

I like the name though.  "Faithchampions"..

Anyways, is aluminum even a good armor metal? I know its extremely light, but.. is it strong?  Should I be fitting my commander in this or a steel mail shirt under his steel breastplate instead? I'm thinking that its not probably very useful.. and should probably be given to an important civilian.

[Putnam]

You can fit 3 mails shirts on one dwarf, so have this AND a steel mail shirt

[Ieb]

Aluminum isn't good at protecting your vital bodyparts from stabby or slashy attacks.
I'd give this to a Captain of the Guard though. Ceremonial armor and all that.

[Crustypeanut]

You can fit 3 mails shirts on one dwarf, so have this AND a steel mail shirt

When I do that, they generally just run around putting on armor and taking it off.. and generally are just dumbarses about it XD But I'll see if I can fit this onto my commander as well as his current steel mail shirt, and see if he goes loopy.  It would be a nice undershirt, as it only weights 6 pounds. 

Edit: Yea, he just stood at the forge where the shirt was made and dicked around there for half a season.. so I'm gonna punish him by having him wear the aluminum one, not the steel one.  See how that fares XD I'll give some new recruit the steel one..

[franti]

He'd be better off in a tin can. Literally. Go into arena and put dwarfs with Iron Swords and either Tin Breastplates or Alum. Mail Shirts against eachother.

[Darth_Karl]

@franti: As an artifact it gets a bonus AFAIK, so it's going to be a lot better than a normal one. But still not great. It's only made of raw smelted aluminium. Thats not a good material IDF or IRL.

[Urist Da Vinci]

According to the DF raws, it would suck compared to copper armor, even with the artifact bonus. DF aluminum is weaker than gold, for some reason. Modern aluminum alloys can be rather good. Titanium is even better at the strength-weight ratio, but it can only be smelted in a special atmosphere.

[Crustypeanut]

Commander died by a steel spear to the gut, and a few other places.  Damn you nightwings!

My entire fortress fell to that particular siege. It wasn't that the nightwings came into the fort and killed us, its that they stayed far away for seasons, until I drafted -EVERYONE- and attacked.. and died.  o.O

[krenshala]

I'd give that to the weakest person in the fortress ... just after promoting hir to Sheriff and arming them with a blue-metal hammer.   Not a chance in hell they'd gain any strength from wearing/wielding those.

[Tharwen]

Surely it would have to be plate to take advantage of its natural strength...?

[Crustypeanut]

He'd be better off in a tin can. Literally. Go into arena and put dwarfs with Iron Swords and either Tin Breastplates or Alum. Mail Shirts against eachother.

The aluminum ones won.

I gave each team a full set of tin or aluminum armor (breastplate, mail shirt, greaves, helmet, 2 gauntlets, 2 boots, shield) and an iron short sword.

The aluminum guys won, but not without losing 60% of their team.  The remainder had injuries, but none fatal.

[krenshala]

He'd be better off in a tin can. Literally. Go into arena and put dwarfs with Iron Swords and either Tin Breastplates or Alum. Mail Shirts against eachother.

The aluminum ones won.

I gave each team a full set of tin or aluminum armor (breastplate, mail shirt, greaves, helmet, 2 gauntlets, 2 boots, shield) and an iron short sword.

The aluminum guys won, but not without losing 60% of their team.  The remainder had injuries, but none fatal.

Now run the same battle, but give the tin cans copper instead.

[Crustypeanut]

He'd be better off in a tin can. Literally. Go into arena and put dwarfs with Iron Swords and either Tin Breastplates or Alum. Mail Shirts against eachother.

The aluminum ones won.

I gave each team a full set of tin or aluminum armor (breastplate, mail shirt, greaves, helmet, 2 gauntlets, 2 boots, shield) and an iron short sword.

The aluminum guys won, but not without losing 60% of their team.  The remainder had injuries, but none fatal.

Now run the same battle, but give the tin cans copper instead.

Aluminum won again.. many casualties still though.

[krenshala]

Ain't !!Science!! Fun?!  

I'll be honest, that wasn't the answer I was expecting.

[Niccolo]

According to the DF raws, it would suck compared to copper armor, even with the artifact bonus. DF aluminum is weaker than gold, for some reason. Modern aluminum alloys can be rather good. Titanium is even better at the strength-weight ratio, but it can only be smelted in a special atmosphere.

Yeah, a non-oxygenated atmosphere. Titanium's a bitch to work with sometimes.


Pure aluminium IS weaker than gold, strangely enough. Not softer, but weaker. Metals act like crystals - they form small 'cells' where all of the atoms are aligned. These cells lump together to form the overall bar of metal. In aluminium's case, any given aluminium cell (which means the atoms are perfectly aligned with each other, having maximum connectedness) cannot even support its own weight.

It's terribly weak. The best use for aluminium is in alloys - mixing it with steel produces a pretty light (but still pretty damn strong) metal. A pure aluminum set of chainmmail would be hilariously light - and better than leather at turning aside a spear - but not by much.