Super wood

[RedDevil]

Once compacted, it cannot be crushed together any further. A bullet hit will disperse in all directions, increasing the amount of mass involved in stopping the bullet, therefore limiting its progress.

Command troops used strategically positioned sand bags to protect their parachuted lightweight vehicles against mines and gunfire. (The sack under the seat was called the ball saver, after pinball games )
Sand has no structural strength whatsoever, but cannot be compressed either. It does catch bullets and whatnot.

[Daschicken]

Originally Posted by RedDevil

I wonder, considering paper is basically dispersed wood fibers without lignin, whether it wouldn’t be wiser to press packs of paper sheets to create a super wood like material, yet more uniform than when using plain wood?

Well...Paper tends to....explode when compressed enough. They would have to work around that.

[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by Daschicken

Well...Paper tends to....explode when compressed enough. They would have to work around that.

Just like wood does if you roll it. It needs to be compressed in some kind of mold so it cannot escape sideways.

[California98Civic]

OFF TOPIC: whenever I see this thread title "Super Wood," I hear Beavis and Butthead giggling saying "hehe, he said 'wood.' "

[Varn]

Super wood, that is Lignum Vitae. It offers better properties than ceramic bearings and lasts longer than many ceramic bearings. Used in power plants and nuclear submarine.

[Varn]

Paper for stopping bullets. Absolutely. It will shred but lasts a long time. We recycle bullets from our berms. The berms are made from pallets filled with old business papers. Last time we tore one down it gave us 73 pounds of lead.

[freebeard]

Interesting stuff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lignum_vitae#Uses

It was the traditional wood used for the British police truncheon until recently, due to its density (and strength), combined with the relative softness of wood compared to metal, thereby tending to bruise or stun rather than simply cut the skin.

The belaying pins and deadeyes aboard USS Constitution and many other sailing ships were made from lignum vitae.
....
The aft main shaft strut bearings for USS Nautilus (SSN-571), the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, were composed of this wood. Also, the bearings in the original 1920s turbines of the Conowingo hydroelectric plant on the lower Susquehanna River were made from lignum vitae. The shaft bearings on the horizontal turbines at the Pointe du Bois generating station in Manitoba are made from lignum vitae. Other hydroelectric plant turbine bearings, many of them still in service, were fabricated with lignum vitae and are too numerous to list here.[8]

[Varn]

Something closer to home with Lignum Vitae.
https://www.hydroworld.com/articles/...ing-rehab.html

A fairly lengthy article describing how the ceramic bearings were wearing out too fast and they were replaced with the original super wood

[freebeard]

What I like about the story is that, as with deep, hot abiotic oil, it's a resource that replenishes slowly and people exceed the replacement rate at their peril.

[ASV]

sounds like an improved version of the compressed wood used in old German war gliders