Hardplate Chest

The Hardplate Chest is the heaviest armor piece of the Hardplate Series, as well the heaviest armor piece in. As such, it is also the toughest piece of armor out there, with the Black version by itself providing nearly 90% physical defense with Fortified maxed out (12 Fortified along with a few points in Body Armor Expert can provide the full 99% physical defense)! Depending on how you play, it is semi-matched by the Heavy Trooper Vest, Titan Teslashock, and Dragonfly Vest. The Hardplate Chest has absurdly high physical defense, good thermal defense (close to the Ronson Vest), and moderate chemical defense (close to the Dragonfly Vest), along with a massive movement penalty to compensate for the defensive stats it has. If you don't care about the movement penalty, or if you are a Heavy with a lot of Skill Points in Heavy Gear, this works well for defense, bossing (with help, anyway), and mobbing anything in your way.

Trivia

 * This vest has "Rubicon" written on the collar.
 * This armor piece is more like a breastplate than a vest.
 * The Heavy Trooper Vest's description says it's the only armor rated full 7 for defense against various types of attacks. As Hardplate's defense is far higher, the scale would need to be modified.
 * The /Black Hardplate Chest constitutes over 45% of the entire series' movement penalty.
 * This is overall the strongest armor piece in SAS 4.
 * The version of this vest is still weaker than a Black HVM Kevlar Vest, so defense-wise, all Black armors are better than  armors, as long as they are a decent grade.