Materials
The flak jacket consisted of manganese steel plates sewn into a waistcoat made of ballistic nylon (a material engineered by the DuPont company); therefore, flak jackets functioned as an evolved form of plate armour or brigandine. The first flak jacket weighed 22 pounds.
During the Korean and Vietnam wars, the flak jacket was changed and the manganese steel plates were replaced by other materials. The U.S. Army's vests (Body Armor, Fragmentation Protective, Vest M69) weighed under eight pounds and were made of several layers of ballistic nylon. The vests used by the U.S. Marines (Vest, Armored M-1955) weighed more than ten pounds and were a combination of ballistic nylon layers and fiberglass plates known as Doron. Doron was made of the fiberglass fibers in an ethyl cellulose resin under high pressure. It was named after then Col. Georges F. Doriot, then director of the Military Planning Division, Office of the Quartermaster General.
The generation of armor developed in the 1970s through the National Institute of Justice incorporated layers of soft armor in the form of DuPont’s Kevlar fabric, which has since become synonymous with ballistic protection and a general term used for several similar (aramid-based) materials.
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Famous quotes containing the word materials:
“Artists, whatever their medium, make selections from the abounding materials of life, and organize these selections into works that are under the control of the artist.... In relation to the inclusiveness and literally endless intricacy of life, art is arbitrary, symbolic and abstracted. That is its value and the source of its own kind of order and coherence.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)
“Herein is the explanation of the analogies, which exist in all the arts. They are the re-appearance of one mind, working in many materials to many temporary ends. Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakspeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it. Painting was called “silent poetry,” and poetry “speaking painting.” The laws of each art are convertible into the laws of every other.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Though the hen should sit all day, she could lay only one egg, and, besides, would not have picked up materials for another.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)