Armour (or armor) is protective covering, most commonly manufactured from metals, to prevent damage from being inflicted to an individual or a vehicle through use of direct contact weapons or projectiles, usually during combat.
While early armour tended to be worn as clothing intended to defend its wearer during combat between armed forces, armour has been used throughout recorded history, manufactured from a variety of materials, non-metallic and metallic. For much of military history the manufacture of metal armour in Europe has dominated the technology and employment of armour. Its production has been influential in the evolving industrial revolution, and influenced commercial development of metallurgy and engineering.
Armour production was a cause of the development of many important technologies of the Ancient World, including wood lamination, mining, metal refining, vehicle manufacture (chariot), leather processing, and later decorative metal working.
Armour was commonly used to protect only soldiers, foot and mounted. Starting with the rudimentary leather protection, the personal armour evolved to mail and full plated suit of armour. Armour was the single most influential factor in the development of firearms that revolutionised warfare, and has returned in the shape of armoured fighting vehicles in the attempt to enable ground troops to breach field defences unscathed. Sailors and pilots have also benefited from use of armour, with armoured warships dominating naval warfare until the building of the aircraft carriers.
War animals such as elephants and war horses, have also benefited from armour, the application for the later called barding. Armour has also been produced for hunting dogs that hunt dangerous game, such as boars.
First modern production technology for armour plating was used by the navies in construction of the Ironclad warships, and reaching its pinnacle of development with the battleship. It was the naval engineers that also constructed the first World War I "tanks" giving rise to armoured fighting vehicles protected by vehicle armour.
In modern ground forces' usage, the meaning of armour has expanded to include the role of troops in combat. After the evolution of armoured warfare, heavily armoured military forces are organised using armoured infantry, mounted in armoured fighting vehicles and replacing light infantry in many situations. In modern armoured warfare, armoured units equipped with tanks and infantry fighting vehicles serve the historic role of both the battle cavalry, light cavalry and dragoons, and belong to the armoured branch in a national army's organisation (sometimes, the armoured corps).
Air forces also sometimes employ armour. Aerial armour has been used, notably, in protecting the pilots during the Second World War, and in designing heavily armoured aircraft that would be expected to suffer more than usual damage from ground fire.
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Etymology
Although many think of armour as coming into use with the age of the knights, hence "shining armour" of the Romanticism, the word only makes an appearance in English as a borrowing from the French in the Middle Ages dated from 1297, as a "mail, defensive covering worn in combat" from Old French armeure, itself derived from the Latin armatura "arms and/or equipment" with the root arma "arms or gear". The word was reintroduced into the English language with the introduction of metal-clad warship in the mid 19th century.
Materials
Over the centuries a wide variety of materials have been used to manufacture personal and vehicle protection, including: hides, leather, bone, laminated wood, bronze, iron plate, rolled steel, and composite materials such as Kevlar, Dyneema and ceramics.
The resistance to penetration of armour is related to the thickness of the steel—2mm armour requires about three times as much energy to defeat as 1mm armour.
Use of armour
Armour had been used by all combat and many support Arms of Service, including: infantry, cavalry, artillery, warships, railway troops, aircraft, combat engineers, military medicine troops, and on occasion improvised use by logistics troops.
Characteristics of armour
Since the 15th century, most parts of the human body had been fitted with specialized steel pieces, typically worn over linen or woolen underclothes and attached to the body via leather straps and buckles and points. Mail protected those areas that could not be fitted with plate; for example, the back of the knee. Well-known constituent parts of plate armour include the helm, gauntlets, gorget or 'neckguard', breastplate, and greaves worn on the lower legs.
A suit of Gothic plate armour
For the elite full-body plate armour was custom-made for the individual. Most armour was bought off the shelf and some was modified to fit the wearer. The cost of armour varied considerably with time and place as well as the type of armour, coverage it provided and the cost of decoration. In the 8th century a suit of Frankish mail had cost 12 oxen; by 1600 a horseman's armour cost 2 oxen[1]. A typical suit of full plate harness cost around 1 pound sterling in 14th century England[2] and a man-at-arms in the same period made 1 shilling per day and so his armour cost about 20 days pay.[3] Plate armour was limited to those who could afford it: the nobility, landed classes and mercenary professional soldiers, who did most of the fighting in the Medieval period. Soldiers of lower standing generally wore less armour. Full plate armour made the wearer virtually impervious to sword blows as well as providing significant protection against arrows, bludgeons and even early firearms. Sword edges could not penetrate even relatively thin plate (as little as 1 mm). Also, although arrows shot from bows, crossbows and early firearms could occasionally pierce plate especially at close range, later improvements in the steel forging techniques and armour design made even this line of attack increasingly difficult. By its apex, hardened steel plate was almost impregnable on the battlefield. Knights were instead increasingly felled by polearms such as the halberd and blunt weapons such as maces or war hammers that could send concussive force through the plate armour resulting in injuries such as broken bones, organ haemorrhage and/or head trauma. Another tactic was to attempt to strike through the gaps between the armour pieces, using daggers, spears and spear points to attack the man-at-arms' eyes or joints.
Contrary to common misconceptions, a well-made suit of medieval 'battle' armour (as opposed to the primarily ceremonial 'parade' and 'tournament' armour popular with kings and nobility of later years) hindered its wearer no more than the equipment carried by soldiers today. It should be remembered that an armoured knight would be trained to wear armour from his teens, and would likely develop the technique and endurance needed to comfortably run, crawl, climb ladders, as well as mount and dismount his horse without recourse to a crane (a myth probably originating from an English music hall comedy of the 1830s, and popularised in Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court). A full suit of medieval plate is thought to have weighed little more than 60 lb (27 kg) on average, considerably lighter than the equipment often carried by the elite of today's armies. (For example, SAS patrols have been known to carry equipment weighing well over 200 lb (91 kg) for many miles.
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