

The armour covered the men's torsos, upper arms, and upper legs, and was worn with a helmet. The maker's stamp (Lennon Number 2 Type) was found inside several of the plates.

Each of the four Kelly gang members had fought a siege at a hotel clad in suits of armour made from the mouldboards of ploughs. One of the stated aims of Kelly was the establishment of a Republic in North East Victoria. By this time the Victorian Government had a reward for the capture of a member of the Kelly Gang at £8,000 (equivalent to $2 million Australian in 2005). During the 1880s, a gang of Australian bushrangers led by Ned Kelly made basic armour from plough blades. Simple ballistic armor was sometimes constructed by criminals. The vest has since been sent back to Korea and is currently on display to the public. The US Navy captured one of the vests and took it to the US, where it was stored at the Smithsonian Museum until 2007. The vests were used in battle during the United States expedition to Korea, when the US Navy attacked Ganghwa Island in 1871. Kim Gi-Doo and Gang Yoon found that cotton could protect against bullets if 10 layers of cotton fabric were used. The Heungseon Daewongun ordered development of bullet-proof armor because of increasing threats from Western armies. The Cork Examiner reported on his line of business in December 1847: Īnother soft ballistic vest, Myeonje baegab, was invented in Joseon, Korea in the 1860s shortly after the French campaign against Korea. One of the first examples of commercially sold bulletproof armour was produced by a tailor in Dublin, Ireland in the 1840s. The armor would be left badly dented but still serviceable. The outer layer was designed to absorb the bullet's energy and the thicker inner layer stopped further penetration. ĭuring the English Civil War Oliver Cromwell's Ironside cavalry were equipped with Capeline helmets and musket-proof cuirasses which consisted of two layers of armor plate (in later studies involving X-ray a third layer was discovered which was placed in between the outer and inner layer ). Its actual effectiveness was controversial at the time. Similarly, in 1590 Sir Henry Lee expected his Greenwich armor to be "pistol proof". In 1561, Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor is recorded as testing his armor against gun-fire. In 1538, Francesco Maria della Rovere commissioned Filippo Negroli to create a bulletproof vest. Soldiers and police tactical units wear hard armors, either in conjunction with soft armor or alone, to protect against rifle ammunition or fragmentation. The vest may come in a soft form, as worn by many police officers, prison guards, security guards, and some private citizens, used to protect against stabbing attacks or light projectiles, or hard form, using metallic or para-aramid components.

The Improved Outer Tactical Vest (IOTV) in MultiCam, as issued to United States Army soldiersĪ bulletproof vest, also known as a ballistic vest or a bullet-resistant vest, is an item of body armor that helps absorb the impact and reduce or stop penetration to the torso from firearm-fired projectiles and fragmentation from explosions.
