ARMOUR

also spelled Armor, also called Body Armour, protective clothing with the ability to deflect or absorb arrows, spears, lances, swords, bullets, or other weapons that may be used against its wearer in combat. Types of armour generally fall into one of three main categories: (1) armour made of leather, fabric, or mixed layers of both, sometimes reinforced by quilting or felt, (2) mail, made of interwoven rings of iron or steel, and (3) rigid armour made of metal, horn, wood, plastic, or some other similar tough and resistant material. The third category includes the plate armour that protected the knights of the European Middle Ages. This armour was composed of large steel or iron plates that were linked by loosely closed rivets and by internal leathers to allow the wearer maximum freedom of movement. Presumably the use of armour extends back beyond historical records, when primitive warriors protected themselves with leather hides and helmets. In the 11th century BC, Chinese warriors wore armour made of five to seven layers of rhinoceros skin, and ox hides were similarly used by the Mongols in the 13th century AD. Fabric armour, too, has a long history, with thick, multilayered linen cuirasses worn by the Greek heavy infantry of the 5th century BC and quilted linen coats worn in northern India until the 19th century. The advantage of chain mail (q.v.) is that it is quite flexible yet is relatively impervious to slashing strokes (though a thrusting weapon can force the rings apart in spite of their riveted closure). In the form of a simple shirt, mail was worn throughout the Roman Empire and beyond most of its frontiers, and mail formed the main armour of western Europe until the 14th century. In Europe, strips of mail were also worn underneath plate armour to close any gaps left between the rigid plates. Mail shirts were worn in India and Persia until the 19th century, and the Japanese used mail to a limited extent from the 14th century, though the rings in Japanese mail were arranged in a variety of ways, producing a more open construction than found in Europe. Mail sleeves, leg harnesses, and hoods have also been worn. Armour made of rigid plates was used by the ancient Greeks and Romans and reappeared in Europe about the 13th century. Plate armour dominated European armour design until the 17th century, by which time the use of firearms had made body armour in general obsolete. Complete suit of German armour, about 1510 Ancient Greek infantry soldiers wore plate armour consisting of a cuirass (a piece of armour covering the body from neck to waist), long greaves (armour for the leg below the knee), and a deep helmetall of bronze. The Roman legionary wore a cylindrical cuirass made up of four to seven horizontal hoops of steel, with openings at the front and back, where they were laced together. The cuirass was buckled to a throat piece that was in turn flanked by several vertical hoops protecting each shoulder. Apart from helmets, armour made of large plates was probably unknown in western Europe during the Middle Ages, and mail was the main defense of the body and limbs during the 12th and 13th centuries. Mail hoods covered the head and neck, and mail leggings covered the legs. Mail, however, did not possess the rigid glancing surface of plate armour, and, as soon as the latter could be made responsive to the movements of the body by ingenious construction, it replaced mail. Thus plate armour of steel superseded mail during the 14th century, at first by local additions to knees, elbows, and shins, until eventually the complete covering of articulated plate was evolved. A complete suit of German armour from about 1510 shows a metal suit with flexible joints covering its wearer literally from head to toe, with only a slit for the eyes and small holes for breathing in a helmet of forged metal. (See the Figure.) The armour suits of royalty and aristocrats were often elaborately gilded, etched, and embossed with fine decoration. In the 16th and 17th centuries, improvements in hand firearms forced armourers to increase the thickness and, therefore, the weight of their products, until finally plate armour was largely abandoned in favour of increased mobility. Armour cuirasses and helmets were still used in the 17th century, but plate armour disappeared completely in the 18th century, since it was by then useless against most firearms and only hampered the soldier's mobility. One basic piece of armour, however, the helmet (q.v.), reappeared on the battlefield during World War I and became a standard piece of equipment for most soldiers. The principal purpose of modern body armour is to stop or deflect shell or grenade fragments and bullets. Some use was made of armoured clothing in World War II, but it was found to be too heavy for regular use in combat. Modern body armour uses small plates of alloy steel sewn or stapled into a garment that covers at least the chest and groin. The separately attached but overlapping steel plates give great freedom of movement as well as protection. Fibreglass, boron carbide, or numerous layers of nylon fabric sometimes replace the metal plates and tend to increase not only the protection but also the comfort of such garments. Modern body armour that covers the torso is called a bulletproof vest.