Body Armor: Re-Inventing The Wheel PartI

As I was reading an article from Euphoric Reality called Saving Ryan's Privates regarding new armored shorts, I was struck by their similarity to medieval armor from Europe and even Japan. As can be seen in this image of a knight circa 1066 and the Battle of Hastings, warriors had long determined the necessity of adding protection to their upper legs and groin area. This knight is wearing a one piece chain mail hauberk that includes leg areas that are not simply a product of a split skirt on a long shirt, but actually complete enclosed legs.

Several other thoughts percolated as I looked at images of armor, both modern and ancient:

War, however technologically advanced materials or weapons, still depends on man to wage it. Regardless of advances, in order to win a war, there are only two options, completely destroy the enemy population (as in exterminate; nuclear) or occupy territory with men. Since even modern war requires this manpower, it is imperative that the aggressive parties retain a ready supply of men along with munitions. Since a dead man can be of no further assistance and it takes somewhere between 15 and 18 years to develop a human being that can actually serve strategic purposes (as opposed to just being cannon fodder which still needs to be replaced and cannot occupy land), it is even more imperative that the individual soldier be protected as a priceless commodity, particularly since his war experience provides the basis for future successful tactics. To this end, man has forever been attempting to create individual protection, more recently referred to as armor, since man figured out how to skin an animal and tan it's hide. With each successful attempt at reducing harm to the individual warrior, the opposing force has always spent an equal amount of time figuring out how to defeat that protection.

Second, the vulnerable areas of the body have never changed even if medicine has advanced enough to repair certain injuries, other traumatic injuries to the same areas are still deadly.


Third, the type of wounds that can be suffered do not change. They can be broadly classified into three types: blunt force trauma, penetrating wounds and amputation of limbs.


Fourth, with every evolution of armor, weapons and tactics, the armorers responsible for creating personal protection for warriors continuously "re-invent the wheel".

Roman circa 182 BC

Rome circa 200 AD




...............................Saxon-Norman circa 1066




Circa 15th century





Italian circa 16th century









..........Cromwell's Cavalry circa 1644



French Cuirassier Napoleonic Wars




WWI Soldier w/simple chest plate and helmet





Personal Body Armor Vietnam also referred to as a "flak jacket"



Interceptor Body Armor 2005




.........Armored shorts




This man would recognize his modern counterpart.



This man would certainly recognize his.








There are problems with "up armoring" men in modern manouver warfare. Mainly, the weight and the configuration can greatly reduce speed and mobility. On the other hand, when your infantry forces now rely on vehicles to speed them to their destination and the most deadly force that they will face is not necessarily a bullet but thousands of pieces of shrapnel, close up and personal, some of which actually may be derived from the vehicle they are riding in, that type of personal mobility maybe secondary to survivability. Even more so, as the enemy adapts and learns how to defeat the armor on mobile units, it becomes even more necessary to protect the individuals. Add to that the cost of casualties, not just in tactical or strategic significance, but political as well, the need for appropriate body armor becomes even greater.

New technologies may be developed to protect or defeat. New materials can be stronger and lighter. However, the wounds and the biophysics of a human remains the same thus the type and places of protection do, too. There is something that can be learned from the evolutionary history of armor even further back to the Greeks and Trojans, much less Roman or Medieval periods. Each evolution had a specific design feature meant to defeat a specific type of weapon advancement or wound whether that be from blunt weapons, sharp heavy swords or projectiles. Based on the apparent slow and painful re-invention of modern body armor, it seems clear that those involved in creating this armor need to go back and learn (if they ever did) these evolutions and reasons.

Or, the DoD or it's contractors need to hire a few historians, metallurgists and modern day metal armor makers to go along with their biophysics and engineering majors so they can learn this lesson a little faster. It's all good and well that we develop new materials to strengthen and lighten the armor, as the good armorers of the 13th and 14th centuries found when they were able to create steel plate armor beaten to within a 1/4th of an inch yet still able to perform it's primary duty. but, aside from articulation, the engineering and design of the armor itself provided additional protection.

In part II of "re-inventing the wheel", we will review the evolution in the specific design of both the armor and the weapon it was meant to defeat and how it might apply to modern body armor.

Thank you Mudville Gazette for the link.