It would have to be very significantly better, though, since Ed's design would be more costly. He's correct that it would be stamped, but the dies would be _much_ harder to make, and, I suspect, not last as long. That chews up a lot of time, and the time of the most skilled of all your workers to boot.
Jonathan_S wrote:Wouldn't the valleys where the dimples met tend to act as a shot trap? They'd tend to be weaker than the 'dimple' because it's a sharper bend, and the adjoining dimple(s) would tend to prevent the bullet or shrapnel from continuing to ricochet off...EdThomas wrote:Good points. If the surfaces were dimpled, sort of inverse golf balls, you would have no flat surfaces or bends. I'm imagining this as one piece of metal with the final shape being pressed "stamped?" in. The steel pot I remember had no seams so I always figured it had been stamped or pressed. IIRC the edge was folded over as a strengthening and safety measure.
Also, I'm not an engineer but a "dimpled" surface would seem to make the helmet more resistant to penetration because the radius of the dimple curves would be shorter than the radius on the conventional steel pot.
Probably better off with a clean curved design without dimples or facets.