A brief history of body armor

A Brief History of Body Armor Ever since the dawn of time, protecting oneself from the outside world has become one of the more basic needs of man. In the Stone Age, all one had to shelter their body from outside elements was a mere loincloth. Over time, as man became more wary of his surroundings, the need for protecting the body grew exponentially. As man developed its surroundings to improve his life, the need for protectiveness was reduced to needs for warfare and combat.

Starting from bare shields, and then growing to full body armor and now to bulletproof vest.

The history of body armor is an old one, with the earliest belonging to 4th century japan and ancient china.

In the middle ages, armor then developed to become a suit made of steel, which was worn and popularized by knights. With the dawn of the gunpowder era however, the armor was discarded, due to the manufacture of it being expensive. People sought to have battalions of unarmored soldiers with guns instead of getting armored knights, which were expensive.

Metal armor did remain in use for quite some time after this however, with civil war soldiers getting vests made from iron and steel. The industrial era brought forth new developments, with a tailor selling bulletproof vestand armor products in the 1840’s.

In the First World War, soldiers were notoriously under protected. This led to different companies producing armor, but it was out of the price range for most soldiers, so it had little effect. In 1915, the British Army Design Committee attempted at commissioning body armor to soldiers.Bulletproof vest has come far in these times. With the many conflicts going on in the world nowadays, there is great need for it. Kevlar is the preferred material used nowadays. Kevlar is essentially popular because it is both lightweight, and offers good protection from bullets.