Actually, 5.56mm is notoriously ineffective. Metal armour is very protective; a mere 6mm of steel plate can offer protection from even 7.62mm. The main reason why it isn't used in the present day is that it's extremely heavy, making ceramic and kevlar much better options.
Also, I agree on weight, but Fallout's weighting is terrible. Power armour should weigh a minimum of around 700lbs, if not well more, yet in-game, it only weighs a measly 45lbs. It's pathetic.
Exactly. And while bronze is not as good as steel, that armor is at least 1 cm thick, probably closer to two. That would stop small arms better than modern Kevlar.
(an yes it would weight about 400 Lbs, but then again his sword should weight at least 80, and he has no problem with it.)
"Who are you, who do not know your history?"
I say IFM!
One thing you guys are overlooking is that the Romans had a version of Kevlar! It was not Kevlar but multiple layers of silk with some sort of reason adhesive which could stop arrows. This was covered by metal! The Legates armor shell could be for looks with an undercoating of some sort of hand make Light weigh under perfection.
I'll disagree with you on the weight of the Legate's armour. I'm more inclined to suggest 80-100 pounds; standard Medieval armour weighed around 50, and the Legate's is a good bit thicker, but not unreasonably-so.
Really, someone just needs to rework all the weights in New Vegas sometime.
considering how terrible their recollection of things that happened only a couple hundred years earlier, rediscovering roman technology seems a bit far-fetched
[quote=MarchUntoTorment]
Actually, 5.56mm is notoriously ineffective. Metal armour is very protective; a mere 6mm of steel plate can offer protection from even 7.62mm. The main reason why it isn't used in the present day is that it's extremely heavy, making ceramic and kevlar much better options.
Also, I agree on weight, but Fallout's weighting is terrible. Power armour should weigh a minimum of around 700lbs, if not well more, yet in-game, it only weighs a measly 45lbs. It's pathetic.
[/quote]
5.56mm NATO is notoriouly ineffective against lightly clad targets like Iraqi/afghan insurgents, who - by and large - don't wear body armour and are (in general) rather thin, meaning the round doesn't tumble before it exits. 5.56mm SS109 was designed with the goal of being able to punch through a standard-issue red army steel helmet at 600m. Proper military loadings of 5.56mm offer decent performance against personal body armour, though effectiveness of the original loading has decreased as armour technology's improved.
It is a far too little known fact that the 'armour piercing' rounds that the FN P90 fires use an SS109 bullet sat in a cartridge of pistol-round design (i.e. shorter and with much less neck). If the P90's bullets are magically armour piercing, 5.56mm SS109 is more so because it is the same round with higher kinetic energy.
That said, several millimeters of (proper) armour steel are much sturdier than any issued body armour. For one, a steel plate can take more than one hit without being compromised.
Fallout's weighting system is indeed wonky as hell, I agree. Certain items (armours primarily) are an order of magnitude lighter than they should be, others (Weapons) are much heavier, some are about right (ammunition, from memory) and most bear no resemblance to reality. The player's carry capacity doesn't help. What kind of person can carry 300lbs of miniguns?!
"considering how terrible their recollection of things that happened only a couple hundred years earlier, rediscovering roman technology seems a bit far-fetched"
and so is debating Reality in a Post Apocalyptic science fiction game with Super Mutants Giant Ants and molerats but here we are!
I simply gave an alternate idea or possibility! 
Actually, some of the FNV armor weights are not quite that far off from plausible or realistic, if one considers how much armor materials and tools have improved after the middle ages.. Post nuclear FNV armors can utilize advanced metal alloy plates scavenged from multitude of sources including aircraft hulls, cars, robots and so forth; It is possible to both precisely craft (or salvage) thinner plates than medieval plate armors had, and also it is possible to get fairly decent protection value out of these thinner plates.
For example, lets take a closer look at the basic Metal Armor; It seems to have an underlayer of a black leather outfit, over which partial coverage steel plate armor is assembled, metal plating covers perhaps something like only two thirds of the wearers surface and leaves the joints free to move. If we compare this to about 60Lbs weight for a medieval plate armor complete with arming harness and all, which protects almost all of the wearers surface, then a Metal Armor weight of 30Lbs without a helmet is actually quite believable. (Whole another believability issue is that -1 to Agility for 'armor weight' of only 30Lbs - Joints are free to move, and Heavy armor category already slows down the running speed a bit in the game, so there really is no plausible reason or need for the -1 Agility penalty.)
Reinforced Metal Armor offers more coverage (still has no metal over joints), but uses more advanced materials and presumably thinner plates as well, it weighs the same 30Lbs but costs over four times as much as the basic Metal Armor outfit - This implies both better materials as well as superb quality workmanship - Indeed, a set of reinforced metal armor is much rarer find in the Wasteland than basic metal armor.
FNV Leather Armor might seem a bit heavy at 15Lbs, but it also seems to include miscellaneous additional pieces of metal like pauldrons and maybe other stuff as well - These are propably partially responsible for both the added weight as well as bumping up the DT to the relatively high value of 6 when frex compared to DT:1 of Merc Troublemaker outfit (Also leather, 8Lbs and DT:1 only). Reinforced Leather Armor (DT:10) propably gets to more DT at the same weight of 15Lbs propably by using lesser thickness of leather and more added small thin steel plates, some of which may be actually concealed inside the leather. No wonder it costs almost eight times as much as regular leather armor.
Vault Security Armors (101, 34 and any similar outfits like Sierra Madre armors) are fairly obviously simply bullet resistant vests (made of kevlar or more advanced futuristic lightweight ballistic fibers, with or without metal/ceramic inserts) worn over BDUs, with combat boots. 15Lbs of weight for most of these is also quite reasonable, when you consider that the whole outfit includes more than just the kevlar vest (boots, BDUs, elbow and kneeguards, trauma plates etc). Variance in DT is mostly due different ballistic fiber materials or better armor inserts - In the case of Reinforced Sierra Madre armor, it is possible that the BDU garments are also made out of proper ballistic fabric and all of the materials are more advanced (it is the most advanced light armor outfit in the whole game, after all). However, what does not make much sense is the very low cost of these pretty good armor outfits, only 70 caps for Vault 34 SA(DT:16) or V101SA (DT:8), only 400 caps for Sierra Madre SA (DT:16) and so forth. If anything, I'd expect these fairly rare pre-war armors to cost notably more than the Reinforced Leather Armor (more than 1200caps in full condition).
Now, I wont touch even with a long stick how plausible or 'realistic' the power armors in Fallout are; Not much larger than a man, surprisingly light, yet they are powered by an onboard nuclear powerplant for up to a century of use (with the necessary radiation shielding, such a powersource alone would be quite heavy, like a brick or a few made out of lead), that is simply put, pure scifi. Also of note is that the T-51b started out with 85Lbs of weight in Fallout 1 (still quite light weight for a powerarmor, I'd say), but in Fallout 2 and all games after that the weight of a T-51b was cut in half all of a sudden..
Now this? This is good.
Bravo on the post, Decker. A wonderfully in-depth analysis of Fallout armour weighting.
And, again, someone needs to fix up the PA weights. Make them weigh 400lbs and give +350lbs carrying cap. while worn. There's literally no way someone should be able to carry PA slung over their shoulder.
Might do that myself, actually, for the default TTW [power armours. Hmmm...
Anyone have suggestions on how much the different armours should weigh? I'm inclined to go something like this -
450lbs for T-45d (bulky, steel construction, ceramic ultracapacitor power source is lighter than nuclear)
400lbs for T-51b (nuclear powerplant is going to weigh you down some, but it's also made of composites/ceramics instead of steel)
475lbs for Remnants and Gannon PA (while made out of composites like the T-51b, it is MUCH bulkier; the Gannon appears stripped-down, but also has an integral Tesla system)
375lbs for Enclave APA Mk. II (highly-advanced composite construction, looks lighter and slimmer than any previous PA)
450lbs for Tesla APA Mk. II (while based of the Enclave APA, it is clearly much heavier, being up-armoured and fitted with a gigantic tesla backpack)
Each armour would have a carrying capacity increase, to end up weighing somewhere between 50 and 100lbs when worn (50 for Enclave APA Mk. II, 100 for T-45d).
Thoughts, everyone?
