Armour for soldiers

During the First World War, the size and scale of some of the weaponry produced devastating wounds and losses on soldiers. In order to provide some protection to the men in the front lines, armies explored the possibility of providing them with different types of armour.

Wounded British soldier holding his steel helmet, which has been pierced by a piece of shrapnel, during fighting on the Somme Front near Hamel in December 1916. - © IWM (Q 1778)

Wounded British soldier holding his steel helmet, which has been pierced by a piece of shrapnel, during fighting on the Somme Front near Hamel in December 1916. – © IWM (Q 1778)

Soldiers in the British army at the outbreak of the war were not provided with much in the way of protective clothing. The British military uniform for the time was made of hard-wearing brown khaki which did, at least, provide a measure of camouflage in the fields of France and Belgium but was not designed to provide any protection to the body of the wearer. The British and French armies began to equip men with steel helmets in 1915 in a bid to protect the heads, one of the most vulnerable parts of the body in trench warfare, of their men from falling debris and glancing blows from bullets or shrapnel. Despite the utility of these helmets, they still left something to be desired. The German-designed Stahlhelm provided better protection to both the head and the shoulders of their soldiers. These helmets became so synonymous with the German army that allied nations proved reluctant to design similar headwear in case it led to confusion in the trenches.

Body armour design

Following the development of steel helmets, the major combatants began to investigate the possibility of equipping soldiers with varying degrees of body armour. The nature of the fighting on the Western Front, the weapons employed, and the open spaces of No Man’s Land meant that soldiers could easily become exposed to devastating artillery bombardments or fire from rifles or machine guns. Armour was not likely to save a man from a direct hit by an artillery shell or short-range concentrated fire, but it could help deflect the force and damage of some attacks and potentially save the life of the wearer.

Body Armour (Commercial), British - © IWM (EQU 3896)

Body Armour (Commercial), British – © IWM (EQU 3896)

The British Army produced different body armour based upon three production criteria. ‘Hard’ armour was dersigned to be rigid and often featured bare metal plates or large squares of metal held inside a canvas support. Such armour was designed to afford maximum protection to the body and vital internal organs for the wearer but, as a consequence, was often heavy and cumbersome to wear. ‘Intermediate’ armour followed the canvas layout of the ‘hard’ armour but reduced the size and number of the metallic plates. The final form of ‘soft’ armour contained layers of material such as silk or cotton bundled tightly within a canvas vest. As the Imperial War Museum explains, each of these forms had limitations.

Rigid [hard] armour was heavy and thus uncomfortable and not practical to wear in the assault, whilst the separate metal links of the intermediate if hit with sufficient energy could embed in to the man’s body with the projectile, and the latter [soft] although sufficient to absorb the impact of low-velocity strikes (as intended), was rendered useless in wet weather when saturated.

Germany pioneered a form of ‘hard’ armour that eventually came to be known as ‘lobster armour’ for its design and appearance on the wearer’s body. The British soon came to copy the design and soldiers of each nation often scavenged armour from prisoners or captured trenches. Commercial versions of body armour were also available and family members took it upon themselves to buy armour for their loved ones and have it posted to them abroad.

Body armour in battle

Eastbourne Gazette 26 July 1916

Eastbourne Gazette 26 July 1916

The use of body armour by soldiers was never widespread during the First World War. The cost of both producing large numbers of armour vests, and also the expense of family members buying them for their relatives in the army meant it was never a cost effective proposition at the time, despite the fact it may well have saved large numbers of lives if it had been effectively tackled. Soldiers were also wary about wearing something that weighed them down, particularly in muddy conditions, and made them slower and less agile during an attack.

However some soldiers did choose to wear armour and there were clear cases of it saving their lives as a result. Sergeant Baker of the Sussex Regiment participated in the Battle of the Boar’s Head in 1916 where he was wounded. He reported to a journalist from the Eastbourne Gazette how his body armour saved him from a far more serious injury.

“I had a narrow escape in this attack. I was wearing a Dayfield body shield and a bullet struck me just below the right shoulder blade and about an inch below the top of the shield. It did not penetrate the shield but turned upwards and gouged its way out through the fleshy part of the shoulder.”

The Davey Body Shield was an example of ‘hard’ armour that featured solid metal plates contained within a canvas vest. In the example of Sergeant Baker the vest performed exactly as designed, by deflecting the bullet away from his torso and ensuring that what could have been a life threatening wound was far less serious. Given the casualties the Southdowns Battalions suffered at the Boar’s Head, Baker could certainly count himself as fortunate to have escaped with just a wound.

Body armour never became a common item of soldier’s attire during the First World War and also saw only limited use in the Second World War. It was not until more modern conflicts that serious consideration would be given to ensuring that soldiers’ bodies were as well protected and armoured as possible.