Ok, I've had the department rush together a type of armour that would be 
of use to SkyKnight.  There were a few problems that they found, mainly 
keeping it light and keeping the plating down to a small size in terms of 
thickness.

What they came up with is a composite sandwich material.  The first 
underlayer consists of carbon flexfibre set into strips going on way.  
The strips are then crossed the opposite way with a heat proof polymer 
unguent.  Two more layers go at diagonals to the form.  On top of that is 
a layer of Starlite.  According to the technical specifications we have 

>from the National Science Archives, the layer can be .7 mm thick.  This 

brings the total plating thickness up to 1.5 cm at this time.  A polymer 
coating containing a laser resistant base is placed on top and a heat 
resistant unguent is placed on top of that.  A coating of Ceramel type 
four is placed on top of the unguent.  Over that is a specialized coating 
consisting small individually connected ceramel superconductors 
approximately 1 centimeter in diameter in a oxogonal arrangement to 
provide strength.

Up until here, you get it right, but try a micro-particulate
superconductor instead, it's more flexible and provides an even coat.
Zoned off into regions, and wired to the reactor (I'm assuming a fusion
torus reactor as the power supply) these zones can absorb all incoming IR
and energy based weaponry. You forget that superconductors are just that,
super conducting, and more than just electricity can be conducted. So heat
can be channeled into the reactor, and turned into electricity (which can
then be used/stored/disposed off, depending on current needs/conditions).
This also means that an area can be 'charged' and any object with magnetic
potential must have a kinetic energy greater than the field strength of
the zone, or it will be repeled. (this also works in reverse, a
superconducting 'bullet' will pass right through, but hopefully will not
have the properties need to make a good style of munition.)

This 'aplied' magnetic field os the simple form of a magnetic shield
system, the most energy consumptive of all type of shielding, and also the
easiest to make.

The next layer consists of plasmel 5, which has enough 
give not to shatter under vibrational intensity.  The final layer should 
be a metal coating consisting of aluminum and silver.  This provides the 
least magnetic resistance with the highest reflectivity allowing lasers 
to more easy bounce off which the individual superconductors provide 
small electromagnetic repulsion fields for a distance of about 58 cm.

High reflectivity is good, but what about a photo-voltaic coating. Turning
the laser back into electricity and absorbing it. Even a coating that
burns off would be useful, as the material burns away, it takes energy with
it, and a sustained blast at any one point would be needed to punch through
to the armour underneath, which is reflective. Of course, this would be
susceptible to scratches and othe impacts, but is low cost enough that it
doesn't mater (just spray on a new coat, you can even have a small 'can'
of it stored somewhere for quick touchups)

Remember, this is only theoretical and rushed.  They still do not have 
the computer simulations back on how it would work.  According to my 
people, it will take at least two weeks of sims in the situation I 
described to fully check out how it will work.  They also warn that 
computer sims do not reflect what could happen in real life unless the 
process used to put it together was done in highly controlled conditions 
and under conputer construction control.

Except for the fact that only have access to material data in most cases,
I've simulated dozens of different systems and for my money collapsed
matter is still the best bet.

Collapsed matter? Here's how you make some: 

1) Harness the output of an average yellow sun for one year, store, and set
aside for later use.

2) Take the piece to be collapsed, and make it out of a pure iron at about
twenty times size

3) Suspend piece in a magnetic field, heat, and bombard with ionized
hydrogen, to align the crystal structure. (make sure you use only pure
ionized hydrogen)

4) Take the energy you have stored, and in less than one millionth of a
second, transfer the energy to the piece.

5) Voila, done. isn't theoretical math wonderful?

Oh yeah, why iron? It's cheap, and stable when collapsed (so is gold) so
it doesn't spontaneously collapse whatever touches it, or re-expand to
it's original size, shedding the energy you placed with it.

How one actually would turn this into a viable manufacturing process is
beyond me, so don't ask.



--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew Stodden				|
bg715@freenet.carleton.ca               | 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------