Storm Front(s)

[Mark]

I always wondered why they never issued armor to battlefield personel. Oh wait........that would have made sense. What the hell was I thinking?

[Deepcrush]

Are you talking about trek or WWII?

[Mark]

Trek of course.

[Deepcrush]

Just checking. The answer would be "it makes to much sense". Same reason as having no MBT, close air support, cannon or heavy guns.

[Mikey]

There was talk of the black fatigues seen in DS9 having some sort of defense built-in against directed-energy weapons, but I don't know how canon that is.

[Sionnach Glic]

The only proponent of that theory was mlsnoopy, who was rather soundly trashed in that debate and whose evidence centered around the reasoning of "well, not everyone who was shot dies immediately, so there must be some defence".

[Mikey]

OK. Nevermind. There must be some IU explanation for why there is no longer body armor - there were the cuirasses and helmets from the movie era, but none in TNG+. Perhaps small arms tech outpaced armor tech enough to make armor obsolete?

[Captain Seafort]

Armour will never be obsolete - the question is one of whether armour light enough to be worn as part of standard kit can withstand typical small arms. Until recently the answer has been "no" - it's only in the last few years that body armour for infantry has become regularly issued equipment, at least among western armies. I can easily see something similar being the case in Trek - armour capable of withstanding phaser fire probably exists (and we saw it in some of the movies for starship security personnel) but it probably isn't suitable for general issue.

[Deepcrush]

The only proponent of that theory was mlsnoopy, who was rather soundly trashed in that debate

You didn't see that coming???

[Mikey]

Armour will never be obsolete - the question is one of whether armour light enough to be worn as part of standard kit can withstand typical small arms. Until recently the answer has been "no" - it's only in the last few years that body armour for infantry has become regularly issued equipment, at least among western armies. I can easily see something similar being the case in Trek - armour capable of withstanding phaser fire probably exists (and we saw it in some of the movies for starship security personnel) but it probably isn't suitable for general issue.

True. However, for the purposes of being able to discuss the matter I think we can use the term "obsolete" interchangeably with "useless for normal operation because of the current state of the technology." 17th century Swiss armor was still able to resist musket balls; but it had to become so heavy that it wasn't able to be used. It could therefore be termed "obsolete." The TMP cuirass and helmet seemed to be general issue, at least standard kit for duty security personnel. The absence of this, even for an assault team in VI, leads one to believe that general advances in weapons tech rendered such armor obsolete. A new advancement in body armor may not have been - but we haven't seena ny since then (save the Klingon unis, which seem to be largely traditional/symbolic, and certainly haven't shown to be proof against anything.)

[Deepcrush]

Instead of obsolete you should go with effective or not.

[Mikey]

OK, OK, for every incidence of "obsolete" sub "rendered ineffective due to being behind the SOTA." Oh, wait, that means "obsolete." I mentioned the particular armor we had seen - that of TMP - as being obsolete, and I think Seafort took that to mean that I thought the whole concept of body armor was obsolete. Couldn't be further from the truth.

[Deepcrush]

If armor is obsolete why do we see sheet metal crates survive direct phaser hits? There's material that is light weight and able for use as armor and is often used as cover.

[Mikey]

I agree about the survivability of packing crates. The question is, why don't we ever see anyone wearing suits of TNG packing crate material?

[Deepcrush]

What does that have to do with something being obsolete? There's a difference between not using something and something not being usable.

Why do they choose to charge straight into fire? Does that make combat tactics obsolete? No, just makes them retarded.