>>2426298I can only speak for chain mail, but there have been a great number of modern weaves developed long after chain mail was last used. A lot of the new weaves sacrifice favorable aspect ratios (AR) for a denser, thicker weave. AR is the ratio of wire diameter to ring diameter. The smaller this number the stronger the ring, however the higher the number the more rings you can connect to it. The most common weave you'll see in this thread is called European 4 in 1 (E4-1) where each ring has four other rings connected to it. However Japanese 3 in 1 and 4 in 1 have also been historically used, as well as logical progressions of European such as 6 in 1. This is a picture of a modern weave called Unbalanced European 4 in 1. The advantages of this weave include all of the advantages of balanced E4-1 including efficient area coverage per ring, relatively lightweight, and easy to make. Its main unique advantage is that each individual ring is harder to isolate when attacked, spreading out the damage across all the rings in the area and effectively making it harder to break. Naturally battle-ready armor would be riveted or welded whereas this sample is not.
tl;dr: We can make some things better, yes, but only marginally.
I have more examples if anyone want to know more but since this is a historical thread I won't presume to continue.
