Why did body armor not become standard in WWI or WWII?
>>61975690Arguably cost, realistically because brass wasn't interested, so tradition with the excuse of mobility.
>>61975690Because they were heavy as shit
>>61975690>no man's land is ~1 km wide at minimum>both sides are using full-power cartridges as the smallest round>toxic gases everywhere>MG spam>arty>barbed wireI WONDER FUCKING WHY
>>61975690Burger here but the only guy who afaik took it seriously was a literal art history major (granted, director of the Met) and while his WW1 Yankee Savior platemail was badass, we could not even provide the expeditionary force with fucking rifles and had to borrow them from France, much less full plate, as peak American Astartes as that would have been.
>>61975690Because it's a thousand times easier to just make a bunker or trench line to hide behind, and they stop bullets a thousand times more effectively.
>>61975690The material science back in the early 20th century couldn't yield armor that could both stop full sized rifle loads AND be light enough to be worn for extended periods of time.
>>61975690>extremely heavy>requires good steel>can only protect against some shrapnel, pistol rounds, ricochets, and glancing hits from rifle rounds
>>61975876I'll elaborate on this>Be CO, 10 men under your command>Expect enemy assault tomorrow morning>Spend day digging foxholes, trenches and fighting positions>Everybody has cover AND concealment>"Armor" able to withstand all conventional weapons and most artillery shellsvs>Be CO>Pay local blacksmith your entire month's salary for some armor>Only enough to pay for one or two suits>The armor is ready two weeks after you and your men are all killed
>>61975900>>61975876That was kind of the point of the whole thing the Met guy was doing. He figured you were in the trench most of the time, basically stationary, and so gave you armor that could resist pistol/submachine/shotgun hits or rifle hits beyond a quarter mile. So the super spooky german stormtrooper squad drops into the yankee trench and none of their weapons are effective, but his are. I can see why it didn't catch on but it was a cool idea. The Met guy didn't realize that after all that time it was going to become a war of manevuever again a month after we showed up though, so it's kind of a moot point.
>>61975690Armour tech was pretty damn basic at that point. I genuinely think people forgot how to make good quality armour.Also it'd be a huge use of steel, very difficult logistically, and results said they were of limited utility due to weight and only rare real applicability.
>>61975920Oh, and I forgot to add>Armor can't even stop a rifle round, the most common type of projectile being shot at you
>>61975747You failed to provide an answer. The pl8s in OP are less for providing protection against full power rifle rounds than ensuring you don't bleed out in the mud from a shrapnel hit.
>>61975934Most common but not the most casualty producing.>King of the Battlefield
>>61975690Everyone seems to be thinking modern pl8s which is intended for small arms but something like a Vietnam era flak vest would have saved millions of lives if commonly employed.The tech just wasn't there to make it feasible.
>>61975934>>61975938The proposed US armor could defeat most rifle rounds at the median distance between trench lines, regardless of cover. Was irrelevant almost immediately but is an interesting counter-factual. Like what if the military observers had been heeded and realized what was coming, instead of a random program by the will we or won't we Americans.
>>61975930The places where we see the most armor being used are massive static battles like Fort Douaumont, where literally tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of men fought for the same square kilometer.There are many images of body armor being worn that has dozens of holes in it, because the previous (twelve) guy(s) wearing it got clapped, but it's probably still better than nothing.
>>61976010>>61975993I was looking up WW1 armor and I found this shitFucking kek
>>61976035Thanks for providing that great image of a clearly American uniform.
>>61975690Where these ever issued to airmen?
>>61976035Better than losing an eye
>>61975690Same reason full plate got phased out. It's expensive, and human lives are relatively cheap.
>>61975690Because the life of Bert Higgins, textile worker from Lancashire, was worth fuck-all to the ruling class.
>>61976047Did I say it was American?How about instead of being an uppity nigger YOU post some photos of WW1 armor, hmm?
>>61975900Bullets were not the killer in WWI, it was artillery as always.
>>61976035This is eye protection for tankers.It's an attempt to protect against spall.Here's a similar English mask worn in combination with a French helmet.This combo of gear was widely used by French, American, and British tankers.
You wouldn't need a suit of armor for every soldier though, only a small minority were in the front line at any one time, those men could use the armor. Or give it out to sentries and trench-raiders who had to be exposed. On the subject of steel, helmets could stop a rifle round if the steel was good enough. I remember reading that at war's end some allied soldiers too pickaxes to German stahlhelms and British army Brodie helmets. The stahlhelms were pretty easily penetrated whereas the Brodies resisted much better because they were made from quality steel which the Germans were short of.
>>61976102>that lad on the right with a dozen holes in his cuirass
Today's plate carriers do not guarantee to stop a rifle round, but it might make it a non-mortal wound rather than instant death, it's not a zero-sum game.
>>61976102What country are you from? Was it one of the nations that didn't issue helmets until two years into the war? I'd be mad if I wasn't American also. Condolences.
>>61976267>Was it one of the nations that didn't issue helmets until two years into the war?They all did that. I think France was the first country by a few months to issue steel helmets as standard. Those German spike helmets were just leather and canvas.
>>61976267You're being argumentative instead of being constructive. I'm not going to roll around in shit with you.Get some help.
>>61976321More on the Brewster
>>61976330>Me and the boys pulling up to the function
>>61975978Well we didn't have aramids so your only options for spall/fragmentation protection would either involve steel or very thick canvas or leather clothing. In either case it's going to be cumbersome and too difficult for anyone that isn't a sentry or tank crewman to wear. Though I concur, any kind of shrapnel armor would've changed the game in WWI, even if it provided little to protection from small arms fire
>MFW reading this thread
Russia's take on WW1 trench armor (probably a 1 of 1)
>>61976396You sure that is russian? looks like one of the armors designed by the guy from the Met
>>61975690First off, the best armor material we had was steel and the biggest threat was rifle rounds. You simply couldn't carry enough steel to stop rifle rounds, especially at close range. Pistol rounds, yes, but not rifle rounds. SecondTANK! Not only were they well armored (For the time) but also carried enough firepower to destroy entire bunkers from a distance. They did everything armored infantry could do but better.Third, we really didn't have enough nylon production for the 30 layer flak vests until After WW2. Mind, we did see flak jackets for air and navy crews but even then they were limited.
>>61975856Where can I read more about Yankee Savior platemail?
>>61976321Great point. You all really predicted armor trends and practicality better than the greatest country in the history of the word. That's why all plate setups look like... whatever the fuck you said.. Right?
>>61976649The cuirass is cool on its own, but that helmet is awesome. Almost reminds me of the East German helmet.
ww1 body armor does look freakin awesome ngl
>>61976711The Swiss M1918 helmet looks striking similar to the Model 5 despite the Swiss apparently having taken no inspiration from it.
>>61976569>the biggest threat was rifle roundsNo. Artillery/mortars was and still is by far the biggest cause of wounds and deaths.
>>61979490Cause of casualties, sure, but not due to the deadliness of artillery. Rather, artillery was deadly because generals would order 24 hour bombardments. There was a lot of artillery but the chances of any given shell hitting someone was low. Machine Guns were such a big threat that they essentially caused trench warfare. You couldn't charge through MG fire and the lines were so long they reached from the coast to the mountains. This meant the only thing to do was sit there and wait because taking artillery was preferable to facing a machine gun nest.
Somehow every attempt to make armor for infantry ended up being grabbed by aircrews
>>61976035If you think tanker spall guards are funny, wait until you see what they were doing on the Eastern Front
>>61981741For context, the way I've heard it told, these guys lived in mountain villages and had little to no contact with the rest of the world since the middle ages. When recruiters came to enlist them, they readied themselves for war as they knew it and reported in like this.
>>61981760Based
>>61975938>The pl8s in OP are less for providing protection against full power rifle rounds than ensuring you don't bleed out in the mud from a shrapnel hit.The issue is, you're still gonna catch some in the parts that aren't covered.This is a problem because of the mud, you're not crawling your ass out of that nor is anyone coming to dig you out.
>>61975938They fall in the mud for any reason, they're going to get tired and drown.
>>61976569>American proposed sentry armor was bad because it was all-steel >Only defeats rifle rounds at 100 yards and pistol/shotgun rounds at all ranges >Sentries deal with long range rifle fire and short range SMG/pistol/scattergun fire>Defeating all the common threat profile is bad. Let me guess, you're one of the counties we had to put down the moonshine to come rescue
>>61975690Except it did.WWI made everyone wear helmets - Adrian helmet, M16, all that. Tankers had chainmail masks to protect faces from spalling armour, some troopers got plate vests (which were more useful against shrapnel)During WWII the situation was just the same, however, due to various reasons there were less people trying chest plates. Soviet assault engineers wore helmets and chestplates, providing protection from shrapnel and pistol rounds. But those were damn heavy.
>>61981760It was more likely for the USSR invasion of Georgia. I doubt these lost crusader tribes fought for the Ottomans
>>61984441Actually, it was only good against rifle rounds at 300 yards. Most gunfights were at far shorter ranges than that. Only the US used shotguns and SMGs were rare, being reserved for assault troops. The armor was also useless against the German Grenade since those potato mashers relied on overpressure. So yeah, it really didn't stand up to the threat profile.
>>619856971. do you really think these guys would have had the literacy to understand that?2. do you think Russians would actually care?
