HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT OF MEANS OF INDIVIDUAL ARMOR PROTECTION FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY
The historical path, traversed from the creation of the very first and extremely primitive means for protecting the human body from the various striking factors of the battlefield to the modern combined-arms bulletproof vest that provides all- round and reliable defense of the serviceman, is large enough and in the quantitative measurement is nothing more than a fragmentary an exposition of the history of mankind. This is not surprising, since the history of the human race is the history of continuous wars and all kinds of armed conflicts, differing only in the purpose and scope of their conduct. The article describes the history of the development of bullet-proof vests from the time of antiquity to the beginning of the 20th century, including the period of the First World War, since this period of history is a vivid confirmation of the need for the personnel of armies of all times and peoples in the means of individual armor protection. It shows a long, technically complex way of improving the armor that laid the foundation for the development of fundamentally new types of personal protective equipment for the human body on the battlefield (15 figs, bibliography: 12 refs).