Weapon Type
Armor
Protective equipment worn in combat.
Category Overview
Overview
Armor is protective equipment worn by combatants to reduce injury from weapons. It represents the defensive side of the eternal arms race between offense and defense — every improvement in weapons has driven improvement in armor, and vice versa. From animal-hide garments and wicker shields to modern ceramic plate carriers, armor has been a constant element of military equipment across all cultures.
The Arms Race
The history of armor is inseparable from the history of weapons:
| Offensive Innovation | Armor Response | |---------------------|---------------| | Bronze sword | Bronze helmet and shield | | Iron sword | Iron plate and mail | | Crossbow | Plate armor | | Longbow | Thicker plate; angled surfaces | | Musket | Plate abandoned; speed prioritized | | Rifle | Fieldworks; dispersal | | Machine gun | Steel helmet; body armor | | Modern firearms | Ceramic/composite ballistic plate |
Major Subcategories
- Helmets — Head protection; among the most universally adopted armor items across all cultures. See: Helmets.
- Body Armor — Torso and limb protection; from leather and linen through chainmail, plate, and modern ballistic vests. See: Body Armor.
- Shields — Handheld or fixed barriers; the oldest and most universal armor form. See: Shields.
Materials History
- Organic — Leather, layered linen, quilted fabric; cheap; provided surprising protection; limited to low-velocity impacts
- Bronze — First metal armor; excellent protection; expensive
- Iron/Steel — Progressively replaced bronze; chainmail (flexible) and plate (rigid)
- Modern — Steel, aluminum, Kevlar, UHMWPE, ceramic composites; protection against firearms
This article is a stub. Contributions covering specific armor types, cultures, and materials are welcome.
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Bascinet
The bascinet was the most widely worn helmet of fourteenth-century Europe: an iron skull cap drawn up into a point, with a curtain of mail… Continued…
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Brigandine
The brigandine was a body armor made of many small iron or steel plates riveted to the inside of a fabric or leather covering, so that only… Continued…
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Brodie Helmet
The Brodie helmet is the shallow, wide-brimmed steel helmet designed by John Leopold Brodie in 1915 and worn by British and Commonwealth… Continued…
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Chimalli
The chimalli was the round shield of Aztec warriors and other peoples of central Mexico. War shields were usually made of woven cane or… Continued…
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Corinthian Helmet
The Corinthian helmet is the classic helmet of the Greek hoplite: a bronze helmet beaten from a single sheet, covering the whole head and… Continued…
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Cuirassier Armor
Cuirassier armor was the three-quarter plate armor worn by heavy cavalry in Europe from the late sixteenth century to the middle of the… Continued…
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Flak Jacket
The flak jacket is the fragmentation-protective vest of the mid-twentieth century: first the steel-plated flak suits of American bomber… Continued…
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Gjermundbu Helmet
The Gjermundbu helmet is the only nearly complete helmet known from the Viking Age. It was found in 1943 in a tenth-century burial mound on… Continued…
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Gothic Plate Armor
Gothic armor is the name collectors give to the full plate harnesses made in the German lands of the Holy Roman Empire from roughly 1460 to… Continued…
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Great Helm
The great helm was the fully enclosed, flat-topped or sugarloaf helmet of the high medieval knight, worn from around 1220 until the mid… Continued…
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Greek Aspis
The aspis was the great round shield of the Greek hoplite: a deep bowl of laminated wood about 90 centimeters across, often faced in thin… Continued…
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Hussite Pavise
The Hussite pavise was a large rectangular shield used by the Hussite armies of Bohemia in the fifteenth century. Tall enough to cover a… Continued…
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Ichcahuipilli
The ichcahuipilli was the quilted cotton armor of the Aztecs and other peoples of central Mexico. Made of layers of cotton packed between… Continued…
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Kettle Hat
The kettle hat was an open-faced iron or steel helmet with a wide brim, known in French as the chapel de fer, the iron hat. It appeared in… Continued…
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Linothorax
The linothorax was a body armor made of many layers of linen glued or stitched together, worn by Greek hoplites and later by the Macedonian… Continued…
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Lobster-Pot Helmet
The lobster-pot helmet was the standard helmet of European light-armored cavalry in the seventeenth century. Known in German as the… Continued…
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M1 Helmet
The M1 helmet was the steel combat helmet of the United States armed forces from 1941 until the mid 1980s, worn through the Second World… Continued…
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Mail Hauberk
The mail hauberk was the principal body armor of European warriors for most of the Middle Ages: a long shirt of thousands of interlinked… Continued…
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Mongol Lamellar Armor
Mongol lamellar armor was the body armor of the heavier Mongol cavalry in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It was built from… Continued…
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Montefortino Helmet
The Montefortino helmet was the most common helmet of the Roman Republic, worn by legionaries from the fourth century BC into the first… Continued…
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Morion Helmet
The morion is the open steel helmet with a tall comb and a brim swept up to points at front and back that armed pikemen and arquebusiers… Continued…
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Norman Kite Shield
The kite shield is the long, round-topped, tapering shield carried by the Norman knights of the Bayeux Tapestry and by armored horsemen… Continued…
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PASGT Helmet
The PASGT helmet was the standard combat helmet of the United States armed forces from the early 1980s until the mid-2000s. Its name stands… Continued…
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Pickelhaube
The Pickelhaube is the spiked leather helmet of the Prussian and Imperial German armies, adopted by King Frederick William IV in 1842 and… Continued…
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Plate Carrier
A plate carrier is a piece of body armor equipment: a load-bearing vest built to hold hard ballistic plates over the chest and back, the… Continued…
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Roman Lorica Segmentata
The lorica segmentata is the articulated iron plate cuirass that has come to define the Roman legionary in the modern imagination… Continued…
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Roman Scutum
The scutum was the large shield of the Roman legionary: an oval, and later rectangular, shield curved to wrap around the body, made of… Continued…
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Targe
The targe is the round shield of the Scottish Highlands, used from the late Middle Ages until the Jacobite Rising of 1745. Made of two… Continued…
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Viking Round Shield
The round shield was the main defense of the Viking warrior: a disc of wooden boards, usually about 80 to 95 centimeters across, with an… Continued…
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Zulu Isihlangu
The isihlangu was the large oval cowhide war shield of the Zulu army. It stood about as high as a man's shoulder and is closely tied to the… Continued…