Past And Present

"People for thousands of years have been developing bullet resistant armor"

Past

15th Century
  • 15th Century when Plate Armor made its first appearance in Medieval Europe.
  • This armor was made from iron and steel plates.
  • The armor protected the chest and lower limbs. This armor made the wearer invulnerable to sword slashes and spear or pike thrusts.
​Early 18th Century 
  • 1800s the Japanese experimented with silk armor.
  • They were the first to put 30 layers of thick silk together and use it as an armor.
Late 18th  century
  • 1893 Chicagoan priest Casimir Zeglen conceived a way to weave a 1.6mm steel plate between four layers of silk.
  • He claimed  his ½ pound vest could stop a .44 caliber.
  • The vest was made to protect the wearer from the low velocity pistol bullets of that era. Ultimately they found the vest too hot and too expensive because of the amount of silk required. ​

Present

Picture
Present day vests do their job. In fact they save approximately 3,000 lives per year. Currently, body armor is comprised of non-woven and/or woven fabrics. There are specific level vests for particular areas of combat.
  • Level 3 vests are used by police officers.
  • Level 4-5 are used by S.W.A.T. teams depending on the situation.
  • The military uses level 6.
The most widely used vest material is Kevlar.
         
          Disadvantages:
  • They only cover the torso area leaving many body parts exposed
  • Bad mobility
  • Heavy
  • Poorly ventilated

​Although, there are competitors with more advanced technology such as Liquid Armour (using non-Newtonian fluids) which is extremely heavy and Dragon Skin Armour (Dragon Skin Armour has not passed inspection by the army)
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