Do biker leathers provide any protection from knives, impact weapons, or low-energy handguns? They look cool and are a videogame staple, but. . .

>>63946967 (OP)
>knives, impact weapons
Yes but not much.
>low-energy handguns
Not unless you count birdshot among that.

I would ditch the jacket for a chainmail shirt and keep the padding otherwise.

>>63946979
Some cops in Europe actually use chainmail

>>63946967 (OP)
Modern leather clothing provides very minimal protection against slashing and piercing, old leather armor was treated and actually rather thick, which isn't too comfortable, thus why modern leather jackets and pants are made from thin and soft leather.

>>63946973
Unless it's the kind of light birdshot load which would be stopped by a t-shirt, much leather clothing today would let all kinds of birdshot loads right through.

>>63946979
>>63946985
Mail and plates would offer much better protection against slashing and piercing weapons overall, and even gunshots.
That is, assuming it's proper mail and plate, and not some potmetal larpshit.

>>63946967 (OP)
Get some studs in them.

>>63946967 (OP)
They look cool, that's the most important thing

>>63947046
Tailored Plates with padding under them would be ideal, but assuming I'm stuck in the modern world where getting a suit of armor is going to take months if not years then getting a mail shirt with motorcycle pads on top is going to be easier to acquire.

It's probably better than bare skin.

>>63946967 (OP)
Normal: 20 DR
Laser: 20 DR
Fire: 10 DR
Plasma: 10 DR
Electrical: 30 DR
Explosive: 20 DR

>>63946967 (OP)
The plates are situated to reduce injury while sliding on pavement (extremities), leaving vital organs (neck and torso) unprotected to knife attack.

>>63947195
Beat me to it

>>63946967 (OP)
They are good for deep cc, a p32 in any of the pockets disappears and does not print, hell even a compact beretta 92 could work.

>>63946967 (OP)
They wouldn't stop any bullet, but they're designed to hard to cut, and they'd definitely frustrate stabbing more than normal clothing and they look fucking awesome, so it's definitely better than nothing.

Motorcycle armor tends to have bits of Kevlar sewn into strategic locations to cut down on road rash and whatnot, per my understanding. If there’s any plates, they’re small and designed to not hinder mobility. I doubt they would stop any bullet of significant caliber.

>>63946967 (OP)
Why does leather look so cool bros?

>>63946967 (OP)
>>63947046
Tobias Capwell is a medieval armor expert who frequently guests in youtube videos talking about it. He has often claimed that leather armor (maybe even clothing, I don't remember) never was a thing. It's purely a modern fiction.

>>63947350
https://youtu.be/2o2TVJtikrE?t=1109
He has written a pile of books, has a PhD in the subject, and has worked as a curator at the Wallace Collection in London. Should know what he's talking about even though it's a youtube video.

On a related note its movie staple a protagonist gets shoot where the heart should be but he has a thick book or other thing like metal flask and survives.
would it prevent penetration ofnthe heart?

>>63947370
It will if its a .38 and you have huge pec muscles from digging pools by hand

>>63947370
There's alot of factors involved in that kind of scenario, people have survived being shot because they have some knickknack in their pocket slowing or deflecting the bullet but the answer really is
>it depends

>>63946967 (OP)
It protects the wearer from the negative effects of pozzed cum.

>>63947340
It's as old as humanity.

>>63947350
>>63947369
If you're gonna be comfortable citing a YouTuber on this shit, then you can't be mad at me for citing some faggot on Reddit who addresses this kind of bullshit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/8v1gai/the_real_truth_about_leather_armour/
This IS a Redditor on Reddit, and it's lengthy, but it also addresses the typical arguments and even cites its sources (which aren't Wikipedia).

Quoting the first reply:
>I hate it when something in pop culture is proven to be somewhat inaccurate and then communities decide that the extreme opposite answer must be the truth. Leather armor was real, just not the way it is depicted in Hollywood, like most things on earth.
Denying the existence of leather and textile armors as a whole is a pop-historic over-correction towards sloppy media depictions. There's various way to make cut and piercing resistant armors out of textiles and leathers, and it doesn't take much imagination.

>>63947340
It just does.

>>63947370
There's a lot of factors to this:
>What kind of book is it?
>How thick is the book?
>What kind of gun is it?
>What kind of ammunition is it?
>How far away is the gun?
>Is it at a straight angle?

Roosevelt once got shot through a thick stack of papers making up his speech, it slowed down the bullet significantly and he was only mildly maimed as a result. He proceeded to read the speech pretty much right away afterwards.

>>63947516
>>63947370
As another example of an idiot who wasn't as lucky, a pair of YouTubers tried this with a .50AE Desert Eagle, which did fucking nothing and the guy died.

>>63947519
I love the story behind that one. They had tested the phone book before and it had stopped the bullet, but the issue was that they had the book free-swinging from a target stand. But when held firmly in place, the bullet just went straight through

>>63947350
I know which video you are refering to and I bet that is just something that came out poorly worded of probably fucked up by the editor, because I seriously doubt that someone with the same level of knowledge in this field as him would say that about leather armor once let alone "often".

>>63947999
Or for that matter clothing. No, nobody made ANY clothing items out of leather back then, it just did not happen, we only thought to do that today.

>>63948017
Leather was a lot more valuable back then.

>>63948121
You know what else was fucking valuable? Iron and bronze.

>>63948121
>>63948136
Shit, man, even linen was very valuable.

>>63948121
so was everything before globalisation and industrialization
even shit and piss

>>63947350
>maybe even clothing
no, that would be retarded
Leather was some of the first clothing from the times of hunter-gatherer tribes
its also dumb to think that medieval people wouldnt makes use of the durability of leather when making armor, it's just shit against slash and stab so it would not be used as the main armor component
but the idea of full leather armor for fighting was never a thing

>>63948162
Leather is actually decent against slash/shearing forces compared to stab/puncturing forces.

>>63948162
>but the idea of full leather armor for fighting was never a thing
Do you know that for a fact?

>>63948162
>but the idea of full leather armor for fighting was never a thing
There are historically attested armor pieces made out of leather for all the major body parts that you would think of when armoring up

>>63947273
idk about hard to cut, I mean paramedics have to cut these guys out of their leathers all the time.

>>63946967 (OP)
They provide some damage against impact and cold damage but little to no protection against heat and energy damage. As always, no armor in the current version protects against psi damage but since that's not really going to be implemented until the next patch that's a non-issue.

>>63948200
Its a bit different context about stabbing someone in a fight and cutting a patient out of their clothes

>>63947350
>>63947369
/k/ is a graveyard of claims made by "experts" about the past and about guns. Multiple "experts" claimed an entire tribe of men butchering large game with stone tools was "impossible" because they and their female Jeet students struggled with it.

Experts tongue my anus.

>>63946967 (OP)
>Do biker leathers provide any protection from knives, impact weapons, or low-energy handguns?
A little, but they're much better at propelling heterosexual women. Get some light weight low profile pistol armor if your worried about that instead.

>>63948374
>an entire tribe of men butchering large game
>jeets
in indian subcontinent, the jeets are the game (of leopards, tigers and elephants)

Bikers wear leather because it provides good abrasion resistance from sliding on asphalt and it looks good. It might help a bit from a knife slash or something but I wouldn't count on it.

>>63947370
With a low caliber handgun and the right object, this can happen. Teddy Roosevelt famously survived an assassin's bullet because it punched through his steel eyeglasses case in his pocket first. It still penetrated but not deep enough to hit his lung.
There's also some modern examples like a store clerk who got shot and his cellphone stopped the bullet.

>>63947350
This is honestly just stupid because we do actually have manuscripts and historical finds of scraps of leather (rawhide) that was used as armor.
Rawhide is very tough and hard to cut or stab through. It's also pretty cheap compared to metal. There's just not a lot of examples because it rots away in the dirt.
If we're not talking about just Europe here, the Zulus also famously used rawhide shields and that's very well documented for obvious reasons.

Wasn't boiled leather used on armor and helmets?

>>63947195
Absolutely based reference brother. You are the chosen one

>>63946967 (OP)
>handguns
Reduced effective range for birdshot or .22 pistols (dubiously effective in the first place), and potential to interfere with hollowpoint expansion. Marginally better than nothing but equivalent to showing up for war with only a Brodie helmet and moist nugget. Good concealment for an actual soft armor vest though, as worn by number of 20th century outlaws underneath their suit coat.

>>63947350
>>63947369

>>63946967 (OP)
Better than nothing but they're designed to be abrasion resistant more than anything. Think of leathers like a brake pad for your body. You'd be better off with literally any covert pistol vest, hard shell armguards, and a set of industrial kevlar sleeves and gloves (for the knives). Almost certainly cost you less too.

>>63947051
Studs are for skidding along tarmac. Unless you're being assaulted with a road they're not doing much for you.

>>63947430
Well so are you but you don’t look cool

>>63947297
>Motorcycle armor tends to have bits of Kevlar sewn into strategic locations to cut down on road rash and whatnot, per my understanding
Some jackets are actually made with layers of kevlar.
It depends on what brand and price point, honestly.
I have a leather jacket myself that probably weighs ten pounds.
It's incredibly thick, and backed with abrasive resistant fabric material of some kind.
It has integrated impact resistant gel inserts in the elbows, shoulders, and along the entire length of my spine.
I also paid like $350 for it, because it's meant to keep my skin on my body and make sure my spinal cord doesn't snap in the event I hit the ground at like 150mph.

Against knives, it probably wouldn't do much.
I'm sure it'd slow down a stab slightly, but not enough to matter.
It would probably slow down a slash a great deal more, and any impact from a blunt object would actually be considerably lessened, because it's sort of designed with abrasion and impacts in mind.
Bullets are probably going straight through.

>>63948141
Standardized wool cloth was legal tender for Vikings

>>63950578
If you add some Kevlar it sounds like you have a pretty good armor jacket, desu

>>63948686
Animal hides were used as material and with different techinics for making all sorts of armor and shields too would be a better way to put it (and I am not just refering to straps, helmet suspensions and covers).
In relation to the technics part, there seems to have been multiple ways to using hides to fashion armor. "Cuir boulli" which translate into boiled leather, is one of the things that can be sourced medieval text. However how literal that name is as an indicative of the process is up to debate, since multiple people experimenting with that have gotten mixed to bad results.

>>63947350
From what I've heard: It is indeed possible to make a decently protective armor from leather; however the amount of leather needed makes it impossible to mass produce and more expensive than a more effective jack of plate or a brigandine, rendering leather armor quite pointless for any post-bronze culture

>>63947370
I believe Paul Harrell had a video testing the book thing and it worked to an extent, and I could definitely see something like a phone book stopping even an intermediate round
A flask could work against something like a .32, but I wouldn't rely on it

>>63952765
Doesn't always work.
> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43410816
> A US woman has been sentenced to six months' imprisonment for shooting dead her boyfriend in a botched stunt they hoped would go viral on YouTube.
> Monalisa Perez, now 20, was asked by Pedro Ruiz, 22, to fire a gun from a foot (30cm) away, believing a thick book he held in front of his chest would shield him.
> The bullet pierced the 1.5in book, fatally wounding Ruiz last June.
> Perez, a mother of two, later pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter.

>>63952771
>.50ae
Maybe 10 more books would do the job.

>>63952738
you heard wrong.

>>63947340
It's wearing the skin of an animal in a much more overt way
>>63947516
>what kind of book is it
An anthology of horror stories.

>>63952860
Elaborate?

>>63950578
>Paid $300+ for his jacket
>Doesnt know pad ratings
Smh

>>63953420
You have plenty of cultures, to not say most of them, that used leather armor in one form or another post bronze age, means that the argument is rubish without even going in detail that.

>>63946967 (OP)
Almost FotNS level of shoulder pads there

>>63950578
I remember looking into this and found that some suit jackets for vip protection are make of Kevlar and made to resist stabs/slashes, gunshots but could never find them for sale anywhere. I assume they are custom made.

>>63955730
>stabs/slashes
sure
>gunshots
Doubt, I'm pretty sure soft armor is still too rigid for that. Bodyguards are wearing vests under their dress shirts, which fulfills the same purpose

>>63955771
They were very rigid and looked like they were straight out of the 80s, but you're likely right.

>>63952798
Retard they were recreating a test where a book DID stop a 50ae.

>>63957585
Link of the test?

>>63947370
I vaguely recall an episode of Burn Notice where he discusses pre-gaming a car when you know gunplay is going down by putting old yellow pages on the insides of the doors/etc wont make you bulletproof but is better than nothing.