Progression Of Body Armor

Aaron Spuler is a firearms enthusiast and recreational shooter. Follow more or his work at The Weapon Blog

Body armor is, without a doubt, an integral part of keeping safe for people working in a number of sectors – law enforcement, military, maritime, security and media personnel all use it in their day-to-day operations. Lately, civilians, hunters and gun enthusiasts have also taken a keen interest in the advantages body armor can provide. But how did such a piece of highly specialized equipment come to be so mainstream?

Body armor has existed in one form or another for thousands of years, and certain iterations will likely be very familiar to most. Whilst there have been revolutionary advancements in the field, the ideas and even some of the techniques have remained largely the same.

The first versions of armor to protect against gunshots appeared in the 18th century, made of layers of cotton and sufficient enough to protect against rudimentary firearms. In the 1870s, Australian outlaw Ned Kelly famously crafted entire suits from steel for himself and his gang members for the final, ill-fated standoff with police that led to his capture. During the Korean War of the 1950s, U.S. forces used armor made of fiberglass, nylon and heat-treated aluminum. Today an array of protective gear is available including the soft ballistic vests favored by police and S.W.A.T. team members, often made out of Kevlar, a lightweight fiber five times stronger than steel. Hard armor plates, on the other hand, are made of thick ceramic or metal engineered to withstand high-powered assault weapons and are more often used in the military.

Body armor can be highly effective when worn properly; some analysts cite its use as standard equipment for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan as reasons why troop fatalities in those conflicts have remained at historically low levels (even as a larger proportion of soldiers return home injured or maimed by wounds that previously would have killed them). But the same evolution that has likely saved thousands of lives is now raising the question of whether tighter regulation would save even more. When laws vary so widely from place to place and the civilian purchase of body armor becomes more common, the lines get more difficult to draw.

DuPont® began experimenting with plastics in the 1960s in the form of Aramids, strong yet lightweight fibers. These fibers were used by DuPont® to create a fabric called Kevlar, a name synonymous with modern body armor. Kevlar has an extremely high strength-to-weight ratio while remaining flexible and lightweight, offering great potential for use as body armor. It was quickly shown to be excellent at dispersing energy and coping with impacts, and was promptly adopted as body armor. Aramids and plastics were soon embraced by a number of companies who began to create similar products, and as a result body armor became more accessible than it had ever been, not to mention far lighter and stronger than ever before.

Body armour can be highly effective when worn properly; some analysts cite its use as standard equipment for military and police forces as reasons why fatalities have dropped to historically low levels Currently, today’s modern generation of Kevlar body armour can provide protection in a variety of levels designed to defeat most common low- and medium-energy handgun rounds. Additional hard or ceramic panels have been developed to supplement soft body armour to defeat rifle fire is of either semirigid or rigid construction.