[Christopher VaughnStrever]

Knights continue to rule over the battle field despite the opposition today... 2010.

Lets pretend that the knihgt continue's to fight wars.

Here are some guidlines to keep your ideas on a certain thought

(1) The suit of Armor is made of any type of steel, -Any Steel-
(2) The Armor Is strong enough to stop bullets
(3) No, Not like Iron Man.
(4) Governments Have Castle Like walls All the way around their country
(5) Nuclear fusion never occured -No Nukes-
(8) Weaposn Such as Swords, Pole Axes, halberds, Daggers, and other medieval weapons -As Well as- Guns are present on battle fields
(9) Armor continued to Advanced against Higher caliber Guns
(10) A divison of Knights would exisit in the army(s) ranks

What do you think a Modern Knight Would be like?
What do you think Wars would look like?

Maybe we can have a little fun with this...

[Ryan J. Kadwell]

I am sure that if there was armour strong enough to stop high calibre rounds and preserve life, we would see it employed in Afghanistan by now. If you're looking for hi-tech science fiction whizz-bangery of this sort, read Dale Brown's Tin Man.

[Christopher VaughnStrever]

Well, the government does have that type of armor... probably top secret stuff... But this is not what i am talking about.
The government only pays for armor that is affordable.

I am not looking for High tech gadetry.

Thanks for the suggestion of a book, Though I am looking for more realistic thoughts and spectulations what what war would be like.

[Walter S]

Major issue with this is that armor capable of stopping even moderately powered gun rounds is extremely heavy. That is one of reasons why those who continued to use armor had only thick gun-proof armor on torso - that one piece was already near limit of what can a soldier carry in combat. Gun-proof armor on whole body is not possible, unless it is powered Iron-man style. Also when repeating (not even mentioning automatic) guns come into equation, there is very little reason to use any kind of melee weapon.

7.62x51mm rounds penetrate up 10mm of steel - a full-body armor of that thickness would weight 150kg. And it still would be vulnerable to high-powered rounds. 12.7x99mm rounds penetrate up to 25mm of steel.

[Dan Howard]

Yep. It has taken two centuries for body armour to begin to catch up. You simply can't make body armour from steel thick enough to stop a high calibre round. The heaviest breastplate so far recovered is around 8mm thick. A 7.62 can penetrate plate that is thicker than this.

[J.D. Crawford]

I don't think Christopher is asking if any of this is possible - he is laying out a set of premises and asking people what logical consequences they would have.

Having said that, there does seem to be a contradiction between having armor that is so good it can stop all bullets, and continuing to use edged weapons (at least against other knights in this scenario). One would instead require a huge blunt force, basically to accelerate the human against the armor or vice versa, to hurt the person inside. Maybe good ol' war hammers etc, in close combat, but likely conventional explosives, cannons, etc. would be a lot more effective.

Actually, hitting them with a fast-moving vehicle would work just dandy.

[Luka Borscak]

But it would be a great fun watching such knights fight against unarmored soldiers using firearms.

[Adam D. Kent-Isaac]

One thing that everyone seems to be forgetting is that the entire existence of the 'knight' on the battlefield in the traditional sense is predicated upon the use of the horse. The horse and the knight are inseparable in terms of the philosophy that goes into creating our conception of what a knight is.

So for the sake of this discussion I think we have to hypothesize that the internal combustion engine was never invented, and that the use of horses predominated into the current day.

In this case, I think you would see the development of horse armour even further. Instead of being abandoned by the 1600s it would have become more advanced, better articulated, to the point where you would have horses wearing fully enclosing harnesses protecting every inch of the body with steel, and every point of movement articulated.

[P. Cha]

We have knights in the modern army...they are called tanks.

Honestly, if for some reason we could make metal armor that can resist the kenetic energy of a bullet, it'll resist ALL hand held weapons and as such none of those weapons will be useful at all. Assuming that you have somebody strong enough to wear such armor. Until you get into magic metals or sci fi, yeah the concept of the OP makes no sense on many levels.

[Ken Speed]

Christopher,


Even the venerable 3030 has almost a 1000 ft.lbs. of energy at 200 yds., the .308 (7.62 Nato) is somewhere in the 1600 ft. pd. range at the same distance. Imagine that you're just walking along, minding your own business, in your brand new, patented super totally bullet proof armor and someone shoots you from 200 yds. with a 7.62; the impact alone might kill you simply from the trauma not to mention what would happen to those pesky internal organs. I don't think a brain would survive an impact like that. Now, just for fun imagine if someone were to shoot you with a .50 caliber; your armor would become a can to hold the soup that used to be you.

HMMMM.......the soup that used to be you................sounds like a title of a horror story. Who wrote I HAVE NO MOUTH BUT I MUST SCREAM? Was it Harlan Ellison? Cream of Christopher Soup from the Cannibal Soup Company! I'm going to stop now, I'm grossing myself out!

[Sam Gordon Campbell]

The only way I can see how a martial knight might be right in a fight is if there was a zombie blight!

[Moses Jones]

I would wear some dragon skin body armor. By the way it is in my opinion the best albeit heaviest body armor available.

[David Clark]

I think I understand what you are meaning to say Christopher. This is more along the lines of an alt-history vein, yes?
The following is just my oppinion in my attempt to caculate the terms and ways of this battlefield you propose, using logic and so forth, which I am fairly certain is all you are really asking for. I am operating under the assumption of earlier types of firearm and cannon, not modern automatics or even Civilwar era blackpower charges.

I think that, according to your rules, Knights would negate and create a large amount of tactical issues.

1) Because they would be heavily reisistant to gun fire, unless it was prolonged or focused, and as such, most other forms of combat damage able to be mustered by the enemy, save explosives, extreme concussive forces (think boulder and log devices), and drowning; the knight would eradicate or prevent the advent of the 20th century form of trench warfare. This would be because he would be able to wade through enemy fire in large numbers, making his now static foe vulnerable to his aggressive assault. Of course, this would be countered by mines, pitfalls, etc. One could also argue that a counter force of knights would serve to negate the enemy knight as well, but, considering that the armour you have set forth would render them near invincible to each others attacks, this seems an ineffective and expensive alternate solution, and therefore unlikey.

2)As such, the knight would dominate any foe not in vastly superior numbers with good equipment such as massed guns, or overwhelmingly superior terrain advantage or fortifications. Also, the shoot-and-retreat tactic of the parthians, huns, and mongols would be of use as well. Repeated shots taken even on the most stout of this "super metal" would cause it to eventually fail. This combined with the knights' attempting to catch a swifter opponent would allow the fatigue and dehydration of wearing so much armour to set in, rendering them easier prey for their more nimble foes. That is, unless the knights are carrying guns too....

3) Because of the knights utter supremacy to his lighter armed foes, the opponent, if short of knights equal to his foe, would simply refuse to give pitched battle. So, one would think that the knight would be able to ransack and destroy as an elite, unopposed unit. However, I think that the gurilla style of combat would reach a record hight amongst the outnumbered knights and other soldiers. Whilst the heavier knights and their trains would be on the move to point A, the lighter, mounted force (Non-knight heavy) would circumvent and assault their target and flee before the knights could respond. (Think Vikings).

4) However, if the lighter opponent was forced to face a force of knights, the tactics mentioned in #2 would be the only hope for victory.


Of course, if their were no knights in a given battle, or at least a negligible number of them, then battles would likely be more akin to their medieval counterparts with guns thrown in.

I would type more but I am afraid I am rambling.

[Lucas Simms]

sounds like a typical Japanese turn based rpg

[Viktor Chudinov]

I don't know about 2010, but here's something from 40 010 :P:

[Ben P.]

Yeah I think steel is out. . . on the other hand modern US Body armor with ceramic inserts can stop up to 7.62mm AP.

But like someone here said. We do have knights but these days they go by names like Sir M1 Abrams or Sir Merkava

[Walter S]

In my opinion closest thing to modern knights are probably mecha like for example Gundams - outnumbered by common vehicles, they rule the battlefield - only another similar mecha is a worthy oponent to them. Heck, some of them even use melee weapons.

[Torsten F.H. Wilke]

Gentlemen, the future may hold very interesting advances in metallurgy that could make the use of body armours much more attractive in military scenarios.

Well, I am not just talking about the discovery of new alloys, but more importantly the methods with which they are manufactured. Theoretical ab-initio calculations on infinitely perfect single-crystal atomic structural models dictate that completely pure and properly latticed elemental metals not subject to the nucleation and propagation of dislocations or micro-cracks could easily achieve real-world strengths on the order of ten to a hundred times more than what is presently known. I believe that simple Fe a thousand times stronger is not out of the question, imagine the possibilities!

But then again, armour would probably be one of the last things on our minds in comparison to the uses in which these types of discoveries would really shine: space travel, transportation, energy, structures, etc....

AVG verified links:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/u65gvrr461082605/
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=a...=titlelink

[Jim Mearkle]

I suspect it would be something like this:

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[Jean Thibodeau]