page_title: Bulletproof vest
section_title: Industrial era
hierarchical_section_title: Bulletproof vest / History / Industrial era
caption_attribution_description: English: Ned Kelly armour, located at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, www.slv.vic.gov.au
context_page_description: A ballistic vest or bullet-resistant vest, often called a bulletproof vest, is an item of personal armor that helps absorb the impact and reduce or stop penetration to the body from firearm-fired projectiles and shrapnel from explosions, and is worn on the torso. Soft vests are made of many layers of woven or laminated fibres and can protect the wearer from small-calibre handgun and shotgun projectiles, and small fragments from explosives such as hand grenades.
  These vests often have a ballistic plate inserted into the vest. Metal or ceramic plates can be used with a soft vest, providing additional protection against rifle rounds, and metallic components or tightly woven fiber layers can give soft armour resistance to stab and slash attacks from knives and similar close-quarter weapons. Soft vests are commonly worn by police forces, private citizens who are at risk of being shot, security guards, and bodyguards, whereas hard-plate reinforced vests are mainly worn by combat soldiers, police tactical units, hostage rescue teams, and special forces soldiers
  Body armor may combine a ballistic vest with other items of protective clothing, such as a combat helmet.
context_section_description: One of the first examples of commercially sold bulletproof armour was produced by a tailor in Dublin, Ireland in the 1840s. The Cork Examiner reported on his line of business in December 1847:
  Another soft ballistic vest, Myeonje baegab, was invented in Joseon, Korea in the 1860s shortly after the French campaign against Korea. The Heungseon Daewongun ordered development of bullet-proof armor because of increasing threats from Western armies. Kim Gi-Doo and Gang Yoon found that cotton could protect against bullets if 10 layers of cotton fabric were used. The vests were used in battle during the United States expedition to Korea, when the US Navy attacked Ganghwa Island in 1871. 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 vest has since been sent back to Korea and is currently on display to the public.
  Simple ballistic armor was sometimes constructed by criminals. During the 1880s, a gang of Australian bushrangers led by Ned Kelly made basic armour from plough blades. 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). One of the stated aims of Kelly was the establishment of a Republic in North East Victoria. 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. The maker's stamp (Lennon Number 2 Type) was found inside several of the plates. The armour covered the men's torsos, upper arms, and upper legs, and was worn with a helmet. The suits were roughly made on a creek bed using a makeshift forge and a stringy-bark log as a muffled anvil. The suits had a mass of around 44 kg (96 lb) but eventually were of no use as the suits lacked protection for the legs and hands.
  American outlaw and gunfighter Jim Miller was infamous for wearing a steel breastplate over his frock coat as a form of body armor. This plate saved Miller on two occasions, and it proved to be highly resistant to pistol bullets and shotguns. One example can be seen in his gun battle with a sheriff named George A. "Bud" Frazer, where the plate managed to deflect all bullets from the lawmen's six-shooter.
  In 1881, Tombstone physician George E. Goodfellow noticed that a faro dealer Charlie Storms who was shot twice by Luke Short had one bullet stopped by a silk handkerchief in his breast pocket that prevented that bullet from penetrating. In 1887, he wrote an article titled Impenetrability of Silk to Bullets for the Southern California Practitioner documenting the first known instance of bulletproof fabric. He experimented with silk vests resembling medieval gambesons, which used 18 to 30 layers of silk fabric to protect the wearers from penetration.
  Fr. Kazimierz Żegleń used Goodfellow's findings to develop a bulletproof vest made of silk fabric at the end of the 19th century, which could stop the relatively slow rounds from black powder handguns. The vests cost US$800 each in 1914, a small fortune given the $20.67/1oz-Au exchange-rate back then, equivalent to ~$50,000 circa 2016, exceeding mean annual income.
  A similar vest, made by Polish inventor Jan Szczepanik in 1901, saved the life of Alfonso XIII of Spain when he was shot by an attacker. By 1900, US gangsters were wearing $800 silk vests to protect themselves.
  On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary was fatally shot, triggering World War I; despite owning a silk bulletproof vest, which tests by Britain's Royal Armouries indicate would likely have stopped a bullet of that era, and despite being aware of potential threats to his life including an attempted assassination of his uncle a few years earlier, Ferdinand was not wearing his on that fateful day.
  However, the point is mostly moot, due to the Archduke having been shot in the throat.
caption: Ned Kelly's Ploughboard Ballistic Suit
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