Originally Posted by Avatar_notADV
A big part of the problem with analyzing attacks thrown in Nanoha is that, basically, the -vast- majority of them aren't intended to be lethal. Nanoha's generally trying to get people to sit still and listen, not waste them; for Fate, Nanoha was just in the way, not her actual target. The knights were specifically going around not actually killing people. We can't be -sure- that Reinforce 1 was actually going all-out - there's a big difference between "seal Fate in a world specifically designed to make her happy" and "kill them all". So far the drones, presumably lethal, haven't even singed anybody. So the number of confirmed, "I am trying to kill you" attacks against human personnel so far is -one-, whatever hit Nanoha back when, and we don't even really know that for sure. Hell, even Precia didn't kill anyone.
So frankly, we don't have any way to judge what a full-power you-gonna-die hit looks like, because we haven't seen any of them hit somebody. We might have if Vita didn't cover Subaru from Teana's stray shot - presumably Tea is going all-out to pop drones - but I'm just as glad that Subaru didn't provide live-fire tests for the jacket. ;p
We can safely conclude that the barrier jackets do provide significant defense against things which are purely physical damage (getting blown through a wall). We can conclude that they provide at least some level of magical defense against big-ass incoming (Nanoha's Starlight Breaker), though we don't know how well they'd fare on their own against a killer shot. We do know that it's possible to get injured through the jacket by a sufficiently powerful attack, even if the jacket isn't itself damaged. We do know that Nanoha got practically killed by an attack that left her jacket mostly intact, though we have reason to suspect that her magical problems may have interfered with its function. We also know that Fate's barrier jacket did her zero good against Precia, though it's always possible that Precia was just hitting Fate -that hard-.
We don't have enough data to conclude anything about "magical" or "physical" contents of attacks, save that some attacks have a definite "physical" component that can punch through an AMF easily (Vita's balls, Zafira's spears, Nanoha's Stardust Fall, Fate's lightning.) Assuming that the flying drones have some AMF, and that Nanoha can bust them without even turning off her barrier, we can imply that (a) Nanoha kicks that much ass, (b) she can do a Variable Shot-type effect, (c) that her bright and shiny attacks aren't purely magical, or (d) she's the title character and the writers aren't being consistent. Your call.
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