Mandalorian Armour Discrepancies

Q_M,

I'm afraid I'm absolutely lost in what your argument is. Where does Traviss ever show lightsabers penetrating, or doing more than damaging the paint on, Mandalorian plate, or Mandalorian armour in general?

So, basically, what exactly is your complaint about how Traviss has shown the armour? It has been consistant. There hasn't been a single lightsaber strike that has penetrated it.

If we expand the argument PAST Traviss' contributions, then there are discepancies, which I thought was the point. Originally, I was offering reason as to WHY these might exist, but I confess, I don't understand your problem with Traviss' portrayal of the armour since it's consistant with what you want.

Also, how did we jump from personal body armour to the armour on a main battle tank?

Traviss' use of the armour conforms to what you want. We don't see a single strike penetrate.

There are discrepancies in various sources, and in the thread there have been theories offered as to WHY those might be explainable, including Traviss' own writings on the armour being enriched and the beskar being able to be folded into alloys, but I'm afraid I've don't see your point, beyond the fact that the armour has been shown differently in different sources.

Your issue with Traviss seems moot, as the armour has been shown to be equal throughout her writing. There's some paint damage to Boba's beskar armour, but it is never penetrated by any lightsaber blow, and small arms fire fails to penetrate it as well.

 

Ah, okay then. It makes more sense for them to both be on the Executor, anyway.

Still, they were in different rooms, and I'm sure Vader didn't need to blast holes through walls to reach Ozzel's neck. Though, actually, considering the way he has trained the SA....

Inability to amass the required concentration and focus to use the Force in such a way in such a crappy situation? *shrug* This bugged me for a long while, I'll admit.

Still, the NJO have no problem directing shadow bombs while in the cockpit. Luke didn't have any problem dismantling Jacen's ship with the Force while he was in a cockpit, either.

 

But I wasn't talking about Supercommando armour.

I mean, we seem to agree that Supercommando armour mostly covers a few vital areas and that it's possible to make armour more comprehensive than this, so I'm not really sure where the point of contention is.

How many examples of lightsaber strikes against Mandalorian armour have there been in Karen's writings, exactly? And how many of them, if any, could have been described as more than "glancing blows"?

No, that's more or less backwards, actually.

No, not really

The use of "bulletproof" terminology, I believe.

Again, I don't think you're really paying attention to what I'm saying. No lightsaber strikes compromising the plates? That's great, but the issue for me is the down-grading from "almost lightsaber-proof" to "glancing blows". Sure, Beviin could have been exaggerating the armour's durability to try and convince Fett, but is really the sort of person who's given to that sort of thing? And why does mass-produced armour from 4,000 years ago stand up to more damage than contemporary, hand-made Mandalorian iron armour is supposed to?

Again, that's a problem if this armour, apparently made specifically to protect the Mandalore against lightsaber attacks, is only rated for glancing blows and nothing better, as that gives him slightly less protection than the average Neo-Crusader grunt.

So is it "almost lightsaber-proof", or is it just protection against "glancing blows".

 

I've tried to answer this question a dozen times by jumping in my comics collection only then remembering when I see it, that Jango Fett's True Mandalorians are getting carved up like sausages by Dooku's Jedi task force. Jaster might as well have been wearing paper plates as easily as Vizsla shoots him up like a paper target. Jango blasts Vizslas's toadie point blank in the chest & the Korda gorillamen are blasting Mandos apart. Vizsla stabs thru Jango's backplate with a poison spike. I keep forgeting that for a time, in Open Seasons, deflected blaster shots are hitting Mando's dead center into the chest plates & Myles got cut in half mid-air, so for a time Mandalorian armor was useless?

I'm being tricked I know, cause the death of every other Mandalorian except Jango is happening off panel in the Battle of Galidraan, or the "so-called" deaths cause all the laying down Mando's there could've just been put to sleep by Dooku & Komari's team. But what about all the gunfire blasting thru armors?

KOTOR the video game versus KOTOR the comic, Mando's that can be chopped up by sabers for the purpose of game mechanics & pretty much invincible armor. What're you gonna believe?

Now if you need an explanation for why the so many Mando's & Deathwatch die so easily during that time, the answer lies in the Mandalorian Civil War. The split & infighting between the Deathwatch & the True are eating up too many resources, or at least full coverage beskar'gam is getting a little harder to come by. Boba Fett's durasteel armor might even be directly linked to that war & have been passed around until be finally claimed it.

 

FWIW, the THREATS OF THE GALAXY book for WoTC's RPG puts the cost for Mando armour at a godawful price, and states it's rare too boot.

During the Civil War, the Mandos are undoubtable on the decline, and it's more than possible that most didn't have access to the beskar armour.

When they had a massive Crusader war machine with Sith backing, the Mandalorians were probably able to mass produce beskar a lot easier, but in later years their stores may have been depleted and the cost simply crazy to arm the whole army. The change to the more Fett style armour may even have come because of a break in the Mandos using beskar. It's possible the Fett style evolved due to shortages of beskar and the style changed. At this point, the story hasn't been told.

Between the price, rarity (especially in the PT/OT/LoTF period) it's not surprising that most beskar is handed down from family, and some Mandos are said to wear piecemeal armour (could be a sign that they're salvaging what they can find of the beskar), and that's besides the fact that a society in decline wouldn't have resources to mass produce the highest grade beskar armour.

However, it's all fanon, but part of the fun is making educated guesses.

EDIT: Correcting "ToTG" from "article" to book, my bad.

 

Yeah man you know what's up, patchwork. All that "fanon" & some common since fits with the continuity.

 

It's fairly easy to explain. In Boba Fett: Enemy of the Empire, Fett's presumably duraplast helmet gets a fair-sized chunk burned out of it when it catches a deflected blaster bolt from Fett's own EE-3 blaster carbine, so it seems safe to assume that sufficiently powerful small arms can damage or destroy the armour, and at Korda 6, the bulk of Mandalorian casualties including Jaster Mereel came from the equivelent of .50 cal heavy machine guns. At Galidraan, the vast majority of Mandalorian deaths occur out of sight, but perhaps significantly, the only instances of Jedi killing Mandalorians in clear view show them to be attacking those areas not protected by armour (the neck and the waist, respectively), and as for Viszla stabbing Jango, the comic clearly shows that the wound is in his side, between the front and back plates of his armoured vest.

When Wookies can take multiple lightsaber strikes to their bare fur, I'm going to go with the comics.

 

Well, to be fair, he also made judicious use of the StealthX's giant grabber claws.

 

Point, but he did slam Jacen's cockpit chair ahead on the runners, causing Jacen to be pinned against the controls.

It wasn't readily clear how much was Force powers and how much was StealthX, but at least some was Force.

We've seen plenty of evidence that Force powers are not LOS based.

 

But you still have to have a location...

Also the scene in TESB where Vader communicates with Luke almost seems LOS-based.

 

When Wookies can take multiple lightsaber strikes to their bare fur, I'm going to go with the comics. [/quote]

What the hell do you think cortosis weave is made out of? Wookie fur.

 

Don't know if its been said or not but here I go.

We knew that beskar can survive lightsaber slashes and come out with only a scorch mark on it. However repeated attacks in the same place would likely break through.


This is my point. How well does it defend against a lightsaber thrust. I think that is where a lightsaber can pierce beskar.

 

I have one word to say in response: Estoc.

 

Basically

 

Exactly

 

Quite


(I had too )