Ceramite thread

there is likely an upper limit to what works for alloys and such. you can only fuck with molecules so far before you reach the top. We are likely getting near that upper limit. New alloys are still being developed (like a new metal-infused glass that is stronger, lighter and more flexible than steel, look it up in Discover Magazine).
>However, Sci-fi will always be limited by the author(s) understanding. if something is shooting for realistic and understandable, ceramic/metal hybrids are about the best contender for top level shit.

this is true, but its because of the vast array of fuckery in "what a sm looks like" due to GW not keeping their simplest shit straight for a couple decades. I have heard anything from 6'6" to 8'6" and 300-600 lbs depending on the splatbook and fanfic the speaker has read.

in regards to weight i agree, care to explain how so in other ways?

It's some form of ceramic composite. I think the closest comparable is perhaps the Dorchester Armour they use on tanks. If you look at the wounded marine with lightning claws you get in Space Hulk, you can see a fine mesh under the plate that has been ripped away. This makes me think they had composite armour in mind, it's likely made from many ceramic/metal/elastic layers.

I would post a picture of the model but it's really hard to see in poor light.

It's something like ceramic composites but far more affordable; it's used as a building material because it's supopsedly so easy to manufacture.

Between the name, failure mode (chipping or cratering rather than deforming or cracking), functionality, and heat resistance, I think it's safe to say ceramite is some sort of high-tech ceramic composite, likely with metallic layers to prevent force from propagating too deeply into the plating and mesh layers to limit the movement of fractured ceramic, ensuring that the plate doesn't crack and fall apart with the first couple hits, in turn allowing each shard of material to absorb further kinetic energy before being blown free.

It's some kind of weird metal-ceramic composite, probably castable.

It's definitely not ordinary ceramic like modern armor, because it acts closer to metal.

There are no Level IV steel plates

They function through different principles.

Steel resists damage through hydroplastic deformation principles: bouncing, punching, and deformation.

Ceramic prevents damage through ablative energy dispersion via lateral microfractures.

This means that ceramic is a general-purpose armor that stops everything equally well; while steel is inherently vulnerable to things that are harder or go fast.

Aren't the Death Guard also known for using unpainted ceramite though?

Steel deforms, which means each crystal in a piece of metal bends and twists and gets out of the way of the bullet if it's not at an angle that deflects. Ceramic shatters, then the pieces shatter, and so on until it's pulverized to dust and THEN it gets out of the way. And as you'll know if you've ever gotten bored and fiddled around with a piece of mechanical pencil lead, the smaller something gets the harder it is to break it.

Each individual fracture absorbs kinetic energy, and it forms a lot more fractures than there are metal crystals in a sheet of steel.

No, they just don't fix any damage that doesn't impair the function of their gear. This means they essentially never repaint their gear, and their stuff has tons of unfixed dings, dents, score marks, and burns that aren't fixed because they're trivial cosmetic damage.

I fully agree with all the points you guys have made, but as far as initial damage is concerned, ceramic plates shatter after a few rounds or even if dropped (or so we've been told). As far as ballistic level goes especially for SM armor since weight wouldn't matter couldn't you develop something AR like but thicker or in multiple layers? If steel plates were as thick as ceramic ones wouldn't that up the protection or does that not work like that? my ceramic plates are however thick 1/2 or 3/4in. I think AR is thinner but I'm not sure.

A given thickness of ceramic will stop a bigger bullet than the same thickness of steel. Therefore, the best thing to do is to armor to stop the largest amount of damage feasible then avoid getting shot.

The best modern ceramic composites are primarily found of vehicles, since with infantry you eventually reach a point where it doesn't matter how well you absorb and spread out the impact of a shot because the proximity will turn you to jello anyway. The goal of armor is to spread out force enough that it acts like getting punched instead of getting shot. There's pretty much fuck-all we can do to actually stop shockwaves besides raw mass.

The upshot: infantry plates are designed to break apart after defending you from a couple shots because it's cheaper and because if you're taking more hits than the plate can handle you're going to be spitting up ribs anyway.

>Ceramite is silver coloured going off of the Grey Knights who specifically wear unpainted armour.
death guard specifically wear unpainted armour
knights errant specifically wear unpainted armour
I believe pre-lorgar/pre-red word bearers also used unpainted armour

all of them have different colours to their shit

They do not shatter when dropped, unless perhaps you're dropping them from a 4 story building.

The "shattering" is how - what - makes them work.

The ability to take only a few hits isn't a problem for modern soldiers, because the rest of them is unarmored, so if they are taking enough fire to need to stop a dozen bullets on the chest, they also caught a dozen more over the rest of their body.

For 40k, armor doesn't seem to work like this - it's more like steel, which makes more sense if you're trying to be a bipedal APC.

Unless if I missed something, wouldn't SMs be more IFVs?

There is a lot of confusion in this thread about how ceramic plates are used in modern armour, so let me lay it out clearly:

In body armour, the plate is not designed to stop the bullet. The plates are super hard and will massively deform the bullet or even fragment it to massively reduce its penetrating power. Layers of Kevlar material then 'stop' the bullet by catching it and dissipating its energy.

In the composite armour of a modern tank, the layer(s) of ceramic material do very little to stop a kinetic penetrator at all (think a foot long rod of super dense metal travelling at mach 5). The ceramic is brittle and not designed for toughness. However they are especially effective at stopping penetration by shaped charge warheads, which explode in such a way to propel a jet of molten metal to punch its way into the tank using astronomically high pressure focused on a small area. The hard ceramic shatters when struck by the jet sending fragments everywhere which actually disrupt the flow of the penetrating jet, spreading it over a wider area. Again this is then stopped by the rest of the tanks armour.

As far as ceramite goes, sounds likely to be a mixed material of metals and ceramics benefiting from the desirable properties of both, but even then it is unlikely to be the only armoured layer of say a suit of power armour.

From what pictures I could find the Death Guard and Word Bearers seem to be a dingy grey colour. In all likelyhood the Grey Knights only appear as shining silver because the people who make their armour actually give a damn and ceramite can polish to a high sheen if you put the effort in.

So TLDR ceramite is probably a matte grey colour in it's raw or shattered state but can be polished to a mirror finish, just like real life metallic ceramics.

>t as far as initial damage is concerned, ceramic plates shatter after a few rounds or even if dropped
Are you speaking from your years of first-hand experience with military gear, user?

>due to GW not keeping their simplest shit straight for a couple decades.
GW consistently stated they are 7 feet high. This thing hangs on the wall of the Warhammer Museum in Nottingham.
BL authors and fans like to make marines bigger though.
Granted there is precedent with some Space Wolf characters mentioned to be specifically large, Flesh Tearers, Sons of Anateus and Minotaurs being said to be particularly large.

But generally speaking: 7 feet.

Ain't that plasteel and ferrocrete?

>In the composite armour of a modern tank, the layer(s) of ceramic material do very little to stop a kinetic penetrator at all (think a foot long rod of super dense metal travelling at mach 5). The ceramic is brittle and not designed for toughness. However they are especially effective at stopping penetration by shaped charge warheads, which explode in such a way to propel a jet of molten metal to punch its way into the tank using astronomically high pressure focused on a small area. The hard ceramic shatters when struck by the jet sending fragments everywhere which actually disrupt the flow of the penetrating jet, spreading it over a wider area. Again this is then stopped by the rest of the tanks armour.

that's very interesting stuff.
then again, how would you explain melta charges? I always imagined that they work just like shaped charges. but if tank armor is designed to beat just that, then how are they supposed to be the dedicated tank buster weapons?

>seven feet tall
>in armor
>but legs are spread for some reason

Ah yes, a fantastic reliable scale

I always imagined it as some kind of super ceramic.

Ceramite plating is a only a thing on a few (mainly marine) vehicles.

The rest use regular metal/conventional ceramics.

At least it doesn't go directly from 0 to 2 feet...

One argument is that Melta weapons were developed from shaped charges by GW, but as we see how they work in games and in fluff they seem to be more wide stream of super hot plasma gasses etc, not the pinpoint sharp stream of molten copper modern HEAT uses. This is very big implication that Melta weapons rely on brute strength to penetrate the armour of their target.

It's similiar to plasteel, cortosis and mithril. in otherwords, don't question it because the writers didn't either and it's just code for "futuristic/fantasy materiel that is super strong and or light and I don't have to explain shit"

Meltas uses molecular excutation iirc.
Ceramite plating on vehicles sre resisstant because the molecules are loced in a ridiculously tight patters that allows nearly no vibration.

O always thought plasteel was like actual plasteel.

Isn't the ceramite ablative?

So even GW in their shitty knowhow of physics and real armour managed to get something right. Even in grim darkness of 40k they managed to get modern armour "sandwich" right. Multiple layers of different materials that defeat corresponding threats.

Maybe some composite with borazon?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borazon

>skipping over the entire thread of plausible explanations to post this

well, based on the name it's a ceramic material

but ceramics are such a wide-ranging group with vastly differing properties that it's impossible to say anything more; it's more than just your pottery class

these may be due to differences in standards of cleanliness among the various groups, harder use, differences in manufacture (composition of the armor, layering of plasteel/ceramite in different orders), regular exposure to different types of environment, or simply down to different finishes being applied - burnishing, brushing, etc - which have different reflective and refractive properties and thus give the same materials a different look under the same lighting conditions

Pretty much yes lol. like i said, at least from what we were told. I never tested any of that stuff on my personal equipment and wasn't really willing to at any point so i just went with it.

I actually had to study materials science for a BS in engineering. Ceramite basically translates to 'pertaining to, or possessing the qualities of ceramics'. Materials which have great hardness, stiffness, resilience to extreme temperatures and corrosion. Which sounds great on paper, but these qualities come at the cost of brittleness (ceramics don't bend they shatter). Brittleness is a shitty quality for armor especially in a setting where all the best shit is thousands of years old, and in the case of objects like Terminator armor. Been spending much of that time in combat, meaning individuals pieces would be shattered over so many centuries. Ceramite is just a label that sounds technical, used in a sci-fi setting. I'd guess it's a group of artificial materials, like polymers. Which demonstrates many of the positive qualities of ceramics, minus the brittleness, and was given a named that basically means 'resembling ceramic'.