Re: [GZG] Tech Levels

Erm? Absolute statements like that always make me twitch.

While it's certainly true that body armour was not widely used by  
ground troops during this period, there certainly was technological  
development in the field. Other posters have referred to the use of  
armour in the trenches of WW1, and so-called "bullet-proof vests"  
were sold commercially in the inter-war period. More importantly,  
first the British RAF and later especially the United States Army  
Airforce sponsored a lot of work on body armour for aircrew, and  
hundreds of thousands of sets were manufactured and deployed by the  
end of WWII. Similar armours were also issued to naval personnel in  
WWII and saw some use by US ground troops in Korea, especially the  
thirty-odd thousand issued by the Marine Corps.

There's a reason why the generic name for body-armour in the modern  
era is (or maybe *was*) "flak jacket"; they descended from the "flak  
suits" worn by bomber crews, and were intended to stop relatively low- 
velocity splinters and fragments, although the were also effective  
against low-performance bullets.

Oh, and let's not forget the first piece of body armour for the  
modern era. The humble tin hat...

Best regards, Robert Bryett

On 05/02/2009, at 13:29 , John Atkinson wrote:

> Thing to consider: From approx 1700 to approx 1960, there was NO  
> technological development in the area of body armor.

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