Gun technology is never invented. What eventually replaces steel

Nuclear powered swords.

>>54340045
Carbon fibre or Tungsten.

>>54340045
Nothing; steel is at a materials science sweet spot for ductility, hardness, and strength.

Titanium is inferior for plate because of it's worse volume to strength ratio. Aramids like kevlar, OTOH, are probably great for padded armor.

>>54340045
Type 2 steel, it is basically steel but with less carbon

Unobtanium

>>54340045
My dick.

What about some sort of ceramic or composite, like diamond coated polycarbonate?

I'm not a materials guy, just sounds like the future of -not-steel-

>>54340082
You could potentially use titanium for the mail and other non-thick metallic parts to take advantage of the strength to weight since we're not applying it to thickness.

Various polymers could replace leather in various 'soft' areas in the armor as well.

Problem I'm seeing here though is that if we assume industrial application without firearms, armour outstrips the strength of a human being quite readily - especially if you could field that armour on a wide scale rather than your elite units and mercenaries.

Do we still have crossbows? If so heavily geared crossbows with immense tension might be able to overcome this high-end infantry armour. Vehicle-mounted siege weapons would also likely be employed to check things with overwhelming power.

Super Alloy Z

>>54342474
the thing is, armor doesn't effectively stop crushing blows (unless you go full exoskeleton, at which point weight is an issue) or coups de grace. the hammer is still a hard counter to your kevlar, and the pike and dagger are still a hard counter to the big tin cans on horses (no guns means no internal combustion) that need to exist to survive angry peasants with hammers.

>>54340045
Hand grenades and explosive-tipped melee weapons.

Soldiers wear reactive armor. Literally strap more explosives to yourself to defend against explosives.

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275KB, 421x360px

>>54342585

>>54340045
Assuming literally everything else minus guns is invented, we probably don't invent bullet proof armor/fabrics like kevlar, and that's about the biggest difference.

We still have bombs, planes, tanks, missiles, rockets, ships, cannons, lasers, etc. We still invent all that shit, and steel is an incredibly important item in the manufacture of many of those items. The materials we use now in place of steel in many of those items would likely be developed.

Assuming weapons technology just stops dead around the time guns were invented, nothing replaces steel. There's no reason to replace steel. There's no reason to event different technology when there's no advancement, either.

You didn't really think this through, OP.

>>54340082
Kevlar is shit against blades. It'd be terrible armor.

>>54340045
Gunmetal

>>54340045
Titanium, it's basically steel but better.

>>54345341
Except not really

>>54345350
Doesn't it have the same density as steel but in a lighter package?

>>54340045
Nothing, because now we do all our killing with rockets, bombs and super-crossbows.

>>54345388
Different physical properties. Titanium is not steel +1.

>>54345455
'Kay.

>>54340045
Counter-intuitive as it sounds, steel replaces itself.

Modern, industrial steel-making and metallurgy is such a step up from medieval techniques that they're essentially different materials. Once upon a time, Damascus steel swords were the stuff of legends and modern metallurgy considers the material they're made of obsolete.

>>54340045
Nothing does. Steel is amazing.

>>54348776
Not true. Good steel is good steel. We can just make more of it reliably and to our particular needs. The idea that a sword made from Damascus steel is automatically inferior to one made today with 1040 steel is false.

>>54345388
Density and 'lightness' are kinda related friend. Titanium has a lower density and therefore an equal sized piece of Titanium would be lighter than the comparable steel. (4.5g/cm3 vs 7.845g/cm3) The advantages of titanium are in places like corrosion resistance with comparable strength. You should however consider cost, Titanium is expensive. Steel is cheap. The reason we use steel is because as>>54340082 said it's a sweet spot. Ductile, hard, strong and cheap. Never ever ignore cheap.

>>54342198
Ceramics generally speaking are brittle, not exactly something you want to hit things with or have things hit.

Source: I'm a Materials Science Student

>>54349390
I mean, they are very similar in terms of quality, but I think increased reliability alone is enough to class it as a replacement, especially if it's enough to go from "this is a rare status symbol" to "hey we can start to mass produce this kind of thing", since that's a pretty important requirement for somehthing that's going to be military standard.

>>54342474
>armour outstrips the strength of a human being quite readily

P I L E
B U N K E R S

>>54340045
Is it just gun tech?
Or does everything after guns not exist?

>>54349562
This guy gets it.

I'll always have a soft spot for that impractical, amazing weapon.

Some version of impact vest might replace armor, or at least be used on the joints and connecting pieces. It's filled with a non Newtonian fluid that hardens in relation to the force of a hit, like a really primitive version of Dune bodyshields.

>>54345132
>we probably don't invent bullet proof armor/fabrics like kevlar

Probably still gets used for flak jackets and the like. More to protect from shrapnel or debris from near-misses by siege weapons in this scenario, or from bombs if those get invented.

>>54340045
Material of choice will continue to be more and more advanced kinds of steel, as anons have said. There are dozens of different kinds of steel for all applications in modern usage, so you can hand-pick the best steels available for armor and weapons based on utility and, more importantly, *cost*.

Armor would probably change in design more than anything else. Modern armor is designed to stop pistol ammo and shrapnel, but the only things which stop rifle rounds are heavy ceramics that have to be replaced after they're hit. Compare a knight who may wear the same suit of armor repeatedly, minus some replacement parts. A human arm can only whack a stick against armor with X amount of strength, so after materials science brings armor up to a certain level of strength, future advancements mostly have to focus on making it more lightweight, mobile, and affordable.

>>54340045
>Nothing, because the only way we never figure out how to make guns is if we fail chemistry so hard we can't make anything better than steel anyway