Is there any actual advantage in wearing pauldrons in modern

>>51532807

You like armpit entry wounds/fighting without arms?

>>51532807
The advantage is obvious: they protect your shoulders. A lot of modern body armor covers the shoulders. There's no reason to have pauldrons so big they hinder your peripheral vision like in WoW or Warhammer, but those are inteltionally stylized cartoons.

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>>51532910
>>51532932
Do militaries employ shoulder armor en mass to their troops? How effective can it actually be? Wouldn't it encumber troops with extra weight?

It just came to mind that I never see any troops with such a protection, only chest and neck guards.

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>>51533126
Most modern militaries face shrapnel and firearms. For those, protect your vital gibs from piercing damage.
In Warhammer and fantasy settings, being armored against slashing is important, and having armor like pauldrons that protect against slashing and bludgeoning from above is important.

>>51532932
Well, in 40k they reason it with:
a) Pauldreons lower themselves as a wearer turns his head to not obstruct his vision
b) They house a reactive armor layering and thus are capable of stopping a cumulative missile (if only once and get ruined in the process) unlike all other pieces of the armor. They are the only piece of armor that can be that thick, big and easily replaceable without impeding wearer's movement

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>>51533126
The US used spaulders as extra armor vs IEDs. Helps protect the shoulders, armpits and sides from bomb fragments.

>>51532807
>>51535135
> actual US soldier here

Pauldrons are cool, but in modern combat, all they do is hinder the person.

It's important to protect your vital areas like your head and your chest. Extremities really aren't important and any armor on your shoulders limits the amount of movement you have. I don't know if you've ever had to shoulder a rifle in the prone with pauldrons on, but it fucking sucks. Even just putting on elbow pads makes movement a lot more difficult.

On the modern battlefield, dexterity and speed are more important than being more heavily armored.

The only people who really use the shoulder pads, and the extra neck armor that they make are the HMMVW gunners since they don't have to move and theyre a pretty open target.

>>51533126
Mostly when you see ballistic armor that covers more of the body than a simple vest, it has a separate piece for each upper arm. There's often a little gap at the shoulder between the two pieces of armor, just so that you can raise your arm easily, but a lot of the shoulder is still covered.

>>51535060
That's kind of nuts. Why would you put your best piece of armor over such a non-vital area? So the rest of you can be vaporized, but your shoulders are perfectly intact?

Also, you still want peripheral vision when you're just moving your eyes and not your head.

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>>51537762
It's 40k.
They loved the idea of fuckhuge pauldrons in Judge Dredd so they added them in.
Everything else is just pseudo-justifications fans could come up with.

In the end, you can just say it is as it is because the Imperium finds it cool.
Weapons and armor have a long tradition of being partially practical and partially aesthetic in nature.
Just apply the same principle to the satirically dumb humanity of the future and you're done with it.
Heck, you could say the Space Marines are superstitious and the big pauldrons somehow tie into it.

>>51537762
>non-vital
I'd say the head is pretty vital, and the only time it should be threatened is from the sides. If its in front of an astartes, its dead, and if its behind then his brothers have failed him.

>>51535305
t. paraplegic