Armor expert expounds on women's battle armor

Most of us have recognized at this point that women's armor in video games is generally ridiculous. Barring a few scarce exceptions, women's battle raiment leaves them underprotected and in some cases, in more danger than if they'd gone to war nude. An armor expert explains.
Armor creator Jabberwock spoke a bit about this issue this week.

"That there, that is a boob plate," he said of the picture below. "I made that one. The woman in the photo asked for it to be like that. She fights in it. I worry constantly that she's going to fall hard and it will crack her sternum, even with the padding. Note also that it seems almost perfectly designed to guide sword points and arrows into her heart. They still have to penetrate the armor but, honestly, that's a design flaw. However, it looks good and makes her feel sexy and badass at the same time. That's important too."

He also talked about other types of armor as well. "Plate armor is the way it is largely out of necessity," he said. "The layout and articulations of the plates are the best solutions the designers could come up with to balance mobility with protection. Also, note that nobody was naked under their armor. There was a ton of padding between the metal and the flesh that absorbed the energy of the blows. That means the difference between male and female plate armor is relatively trivial because once you've padded it out and left space for movement, you've all but erased the figure of the person inside.'

So game developers take note: boob plates are unrealistic, and plate armor should look nearly identical whether it's worn by a male or female.

Mad Art Lab via Kotaku.