- Alternative meanings: vehicle armour, Armor (novel)
Armour (also spelled armor in American English),
is protective plates or clothing meant to shield a human from intentionally inflicted harm. Armour has been in use for
all recorded history, beginning with hides, leather, bone, progressing to
bronze, steel, ballistic cloth, ceramics, and depleted uranium.
Armour has been primarily a way to protect oneself from harm in combat and military engagements.
Armour was also commonly used to protect war animals, such as war horses and war elephants, from intentionally inflicted harm.
Armour, historically, was used to refer to any heavily armoured unit (heavy infantry/cavalry vs. light infantry/cavalry.)
History
All through history, the development of weapons and armour has literally been an
arms race, leading to different types of armour in different civilizations.
In European history, common armour types were the lorica segmentata, the chainmail hauberk, the gambeson and later the full steel plate armour used by late
medieval knights. In feudal Japan, laquered odoshi armour, a form of
lamellar, was popular.
Plate armour
See plate armour.
All different parts of the human body have been fitted with specialized
armour pieces, and an extensive nomenclature has grown up around this. The head and face is covered by a helmet (with the face protection sometimes being a visor), hand and fingers by gauntlets, the neck by a gorget, the chest by a breastplate,
the lower legs by greaves, and so on. Often
different armour pieces will cover overlapping parts of the body, as different materials and developments in armour made for shifting fashions.
Armour parts may be manufactured using a wide variety of materials and
forms. During the Middle Ages, cloth, soft leather, boiled leather, chainmail, and
steel plates were often used.
Contrary to common misconceptions, a well-made suit of plate armour did not hinder the wearer's movements much, and usually
did not exceed the weight of 60 pounds.
Modern personal armour
Today, bullet proof vests made of ballistic cloth (e.g
Kevlar or Dyneema) and ceramic or metal
plates are common among police forces, security staff and in some branches of the military. For infantry applications, lighter protection (historically known as a flak jacket) is often used to protect soldiers from grenade fragments and indirect effects of bombardment, but usually not small arms fire. This is because
assault rifles usually fire harder, higher-energy bullets than pistols,
and the increased protection needed to stop these would be too cumbersome and heavy to use in combat.
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