Body Armor
Body armor for soldiers in the battlefield originated in ancient times. It is described in the wars of the Israelites in the Old Testament. It was worn by Goliath and by Saul. The Greek’s and Macedonians wore body armor, as did the ancient Romans, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Aztecs, and Chinese. Armor was made of metal alloys, chains, leather, reeds, and wood. It was often supplemented with shields. The Romans developed a tactic whereby several soldiers moved forward protected from the front by the raised shields of the front ranks, and from above by the upraised shields of the other ranks. It was called a phalanx.
The crusaders advanced dressed in armor and their opposing enemies protected themselves accordingly. It was during the Middle Ages when peasant soldiers began to be mustered with no armor at all, and gradually the practice of shielding a soldier with personal armor came to an end. By the time of the French and Indian War in North America, a small shield of throat armor was part of the formal address of an officer, George Washington’s portrait from that time features him wearing one. Even the heavy cavalry of the armies of Napoleon and the vaunted Hussars of later wars wore body armor, though it was largely symbolic.
Then the use of armor vanished. Bullets fired from increasingly high muzzle velocity weapons rendered it useless. Armor increased in vehicles and vanished from soldiers. During the American Civil War the use of a helmet was non-existent, they were replaced by slouch hats, kepi caps, or nothing at all. The same was true in the armies of Europe, although many cavalry units retained helmets as a part of their full dress uniform, but not for use in combat. By 1914 the helmet had returned, but the use of body armor was non-existent.
Beginning around the time of the Vietnam War it returned. Body armor in the form of flak jackets were issued for the use of combat infantry. Flak jackets were originally developed by England’s Wilkinson Sword Company to protect RAF pilots from German anti-aircraft fire which was called flak. Over the years since, improvements in materials such as Kevlar and others led to improvements in the protection of infantrymen from shrapnel, and from bullets fired from a moderate distance by the enemy. Helmet’s became more efficient and offered greater protection despite weighing less than the steel pot helmets of earlier generations.
Today body armor has returned for troops placed in harm’s way, lighter and cooler than that worn by ancient soldiers, but immeasurably more effective in saving lives and reducing casualties. The body armor is backed up with clothing designed not to burn. The manner of protecting soldiers from wounds to the head and torso continues to be studied and improved. Just as the battlefield itself as evolved, so has the warrior which appears upon it, his or her weapons and protection the results of the experiences of millions of soldiers on battlefields of the past.
Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“Les Savants de Bonaparte” by Robert Sole, 1998 (in French)
“The Great Industries of the United States”, by Horace Greeley and Leon Case, 1872
“Ford’s Forgotten Aviation Legacy”, by C. V. Glines, Aviation History Magazine, May 2008
“The Black Battlefleet”, by Admiral G. A. Ballard, 1980
“World War One: The tank’s secret origins”, by Greig Watson, BBC News, February 24, 2014