Through the Steel and Sweat
Today’s been a rough day here at the R&D offices on Furos. All of us were hired by some shell company who is 3 steps removed from the parent company. We were all drawn in by the promise of these wages. Didn’t half compare to what they used to be back on Cunicule, 20 years or so ago, but they’re definitely enough to meet end’s meet and then some nowadays. We’ve been tasked to develop a new alloy armor plate for the Alsinan Defense Galactic Navy, and it’s been a grueling 8 or so months. Funding was being constantly being siphoned away by our supervisors, dumb and pampered idiots who only had such cushy lives due to selling themselves out to the megacorps. No one’s under any illusions about this.
“Hey, Kiza, shift’s over.” one of my coworkers shouted at me. He was an acquaintance, whose name was Yokvea.
“I know. I’m gonna put in a few hours overtime today, gonna try and get this damn alloy on paper, at LEAST.” I replied, winded.
Over these past eight months, we’ve gone through around 20 concepts. Our specifications were as simple as they were vague and unhelpful: “Improve the armor of our warships with available resources.” Naturally, with such a painfully broad requirement, ideas were presented and thrown out with about as much regularity as you take out your trash.
“Well, if you need me, I don’t have anything better to do.” Yokvea says, with a twinge of smugness in his voice. He knows I’m a stubborn man, but he also knows that I’m about to throw in the towel if I’m left alone.
“Fine, then be here if you like, I assume you gettin’ overtime?” I ask him, knowing good and well he came in late today.
“Nah, I came in a couple hours late today, means I gotta stay late. Pain in the butt, but what can ya do.” he quickly shoots back. “Let’s get to work, huh?”
Powered by some inexplicable willpower, the two of us begin to brainstorm ideas, tossing one out just as another comes in. We’re left in silence for about 30 minutes, before Yokvea has his “winner,” as he calls it.
“So, you know how our current composite is mostly filled with some hardened steel at the moment? Neither of us are unaware of how brittle this particular alloy is, both from the recent reports of the armor cracking at Curos and our own tests. So, what’s the best way of making our steel a little more ductile?” Yokvea excitedly rambles.
“Of course we need to heat-treat the metal to a lesser degree, but haven’t we already figured that out?” I reply, bored. I had “discovered” this a few weeks ago, though any Alsinan metallurgist knew that our ship-grade steel was far too brittle long before now.
“Well, what if we give that steel some room to flex inside the composite? As shells or other material pass through, this, combined with the better heat treating, should make it a large amount harder to get through our ship’s armor.” He replies to me. Somehow no one had thought of this before now. “Well, we’d need to add regular supporting beams within the armor so it wouldn’t buckle in on itself…”
“Maybe, instead of that empty space, we add a filler material?” I add, starting to sketch out the idea. “Our composite plates, formerly extremely thin interlocking plates of our overly hard steel and other alloy materials, would need to be drastically redesigned to include a much rarer alloy, though the cost would likely be offset by needing less low-quality material to currently heat treat and form the steel alloy.”
“Well, maybe adding ceramic-like material would help as well.” he adds, making a new indentation within my sketch in several points, adding these ceramic plates.
“We’ll need to build this composite first. Then we can start tests.” I answer, hopeful that this idea will actually work, both Yokvea and I being the only trained metallurgists on this base.
It takes about another two weeks for our testbed plating to be delivered. Having an armor manufacturing plant so close to the base is extremely useful, it seems. Both Yokvea and I are eager to test this idea, stepping out in our protective pressurized suits and into the testing bunker, our test armor plate a very far distance away. In order to properly test out its protection against ship guns, for which this armor plate is too small to be fitted to, the test gun is a reliable one: a traditional kinetic cannon which has been in use in this role for at least four or five years now.
“Audio log beginning. This is Dr. Kiza, and this is the “Shellback” armor protection project test log, number 47. Today, we will be testing the latest armor plate prototype. Our prototype consists of many layers of less hardened steel, the standard filler materials which have been listed in prior logs, and ceramic plates. The test cannon is identical to the prior test logs. Firing cannon in three…two…one…”
An oddly quiet blast is heard, Furos’ atmosphere much less dense than Cunicule’s at the moment, as the shell is sent downrange and into the armor plate.
“Cannon firing was successful. Remote monitoring of the armor plate yields spectacular results. Though the outer layers of the plate are completely punched through, the additional interior material helped to prevent the shell from penetrating further. Initial test results: promising. Audio log ending.”
After I finish recording the log, I hear Yokvea through our intercom system exclaiming loudly and with much happiness.
“We did it! At least we got something that works. FINALLY!” he shouts directly into my ears.
“Not so loud, we’ve proven it can work, but stress testing needs to be done. At least this project’s end is in sight, finally…” I say, content with the day’s massive progress.
After many weeks of testing, hundreds of plates were ordered from the machinery plant to test any number of variations, stress testing, and final finishing, as well as one piece of ship-grade plating to be fitted on the outside of a Stalwart-Class which is commonly seen orbiting Furos. All goes well, the next generation of ADL ships will finally fix their core downfall: weak armor.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ctRMia96AhVsPcBd_y1Ls5luulTbQhFXyjW9dQSNDio/edit