CODEX: THE KOVENANT IMPERIAL ARMY.

Imperial Body Armor - 3

Composite Carapace personal armour.
Development date: Year 200 Millenium 25.

During January the 5th in the year 190, Millenium 25, the Kovenant Empire had been rapidly expanding towards the northern parts of the galaxy, towards areas previously considered completely unknown to human explorers and driven by the zeal and with great national pride, many Kovenant leaders felt that the time was right to expand towards the northern reaches of the galaxy in order to colonise and claim large sectors of the galaxy in the name of the Kovenant Empire.

However, as Kovenant Military Expeditionary fleets made their way towards the area, the soldiers there started running into issues... Mainly issues with their armour, when performing conquests of worlds and reclaiming lost human Colonies in their thousands, the Kovenant Imperial Army and especially the regular Imperial Army soldiers and Stormtroopers were requesting a brand new piece of armour that they can use to finally replace their Carapace armour sets, for to spite its high protection value, its weight, clunky nature and the fact it was awkward and mobility restricting meant that it was extremely unpopular among soldiers.

For that reason, in an attempt to rid themselves of such heavy and cumbersome armour, tens of thousands of Imperial Army officers, alongside 25 million Kovenant soldiers fighting in the northern campaigns all launched a universal complaint about it by which each soldier wrote a letter that was to make its way towards Kovenant High command, explaining their experience with handling said Carapace armour.

NOTE: The Armour was so universally disliked that even even regular army soldiers, who did not wear the armour themselves had their own concerns about it as well, since it made their trusted and crack Stormtroopers mobility restricted and on a few occasions even outright slowed the advance as Stormtroopers were simply left breathless and absolutely physically exhausted from fighting in said Carapace armour.

And fortunately, their calls to have Carapace replaced did not go unanswered, infact Kovenant High command was planning on retiring Carapace armour entirely, Infsct earlier that year they had stopped production entirely and had already started revealing all Carapace armour sets that were either being delivered or already in the hands of Imperial Army Regiments.

Funnily enough Kovenant armour units were relieved and they happily handed back the armour sets.

And as for high command and the German arms manufacturer Krupp, they once again had to make a new set of armour that would replace the unpopular Carapace and they had plenty of problems to fix.

The problems with Carapace that needs to be addressed is as follows, according to a field report published by the Imperial Army Intelligence Agency:

A.) Carapace, while highly protective is also very mobility restricting. It is not only very heavy but it has also caused many soldiers to collapse due to over exhaustion while wearing this armour.

B.) Carapace also has no way of being repaired once it was damaged or even destroyed. Even a single penetration of the armour could not be repaired without having to fill in said hole with fresh, molten Carapace mold which the Imperial Army simply did not have the equipment nor time to do and the soldiers, rightfully so, said that they were not reasonably expected to have to repair it themselves.

C.) Due to the frequency in which it is often used in large scale engagements, in which the armour is regularly destroyed and thusly made useless, it would have been outright Impossible to use and as such, was reclaimed by the manufacturers to be melted down into cast Carapace mold again so that it may be forged into new armour.

D.) Extreme weight also lessens mobility of the soldier and makes it harder and more exhausting to fight, especially when in a prolonged engagement, particularly, when Stormtroopers are tasked to hold out when they have captured a portion of the enemy line for long periods of time until reinforcements can arrive.

E.) The elaborate process in which it is manufactured and than reused again makes logistics difficult, as the logistics of each Regiment would be needed to transport all those broken pieces of armour to be brought back to the manufacturers (Krupp) however due to the relentless demands of battle, logistics simply had no leeway to move tens of thousands of broken pieces of heavy armour around and as such, soldiers simply gathered them up and than placed them with temporary storage bins, which often inconvenienced soldiers, as they were tasked with collecting and than storing literally thousands of broken armour pieces.

Taking this points and reports into consideration, the Kovenant and most importantly the arms manufacturer Krupp were now working on designing a brand new and more feasible replacement for Carapace armour plate.
For this reason, the engineers over at Krupp had proposed to use a new type of Composite that they had been experimenting with for over 2 decades.

Known as "Composite Carapace" it was essentially a chemical composite that was typically stored in large containers in a thick, white liquid form, which in turn were stored within large warehouses. Each one of this containers hold up to 660,000 gallons worth of this composite substance.
Composite Carapace was unique in that it can be stored in this liquid state for decades if needed and than when they are needed, the Composite can be taken from the containers and than used to cast body armour plates.

To do this, the composite would be poured into individual casts in which form the shoulder pads and the breastplate, as well as casts for added protection for the chest, back, and stomach areas, as well as for those parts over the side of the body.
Once poured into said casts they are than mixed in with Type 22 protective composite, the same one used in uniformed armour and than, the casts were scent to be put in a heavy duty and extremely hot furnace in a process that took 3 hours.

Once those 3 hours had been completed, than the casts would be removed to reveal that the Composite had hardened into a hardened form according to what the cast was shaped into.
Once this process was complete, than manufacturing would start attaching this different pieces togheter.

The end result, was Composite Carapace Armour.

Composite Carapace armour had solved many of the problem that the previous model had.

For one it way much lighter, weighing only about 10 pounds, which is practically no weight at all relative to the size of the armour.
This also meant that it solved two problems at once, because it was light and it was also very comfortable to wear thanks to soft padding within the armour itself. This combined with the light weight made it so that this new set of armour in particular much easier to move around with, thus solving 2 problems.

The new armour also solves the problem of field repair... While soldiers still could not repair it themselves, they could send broken armour pieces to Company headquarters instead, where in the Company's logistical unit would take in the broken armour pieces and rather than sending it back to the manufacturers, instead the Logistical units were provided with mobile furnaces, alongside the casts used to create the armour to begin with... The Logistical unit would than take out the broken pieces of the armour and than placed bsck into the casts, where in the men would than pour in the cast full of Composite Carapace, before they placed them in the furnace again.
Ensuring that that they can always be repaired and reused constantly.

Because of this favourable traits, the Composite Carapace armour was deemed an excellent successor avd replacement and after undergoing field trials with frontline units entered mass production. Reaching the Kovenant units that needed them the most, specifically, the Kovenant Stormtroopers.

Upon reacting this men it instantly became popular among assault troops, though like with the previous armour it was limited to the Stormtroopers due to them needing it more as the premiere assault troops and the fact that Uniformed Armour was already perfectly sufficient.

Still, Composite Carapace proved its worth in the battlefield.