Original Item: Only One Available. This is a fantastic WWI photo of 3 Imperial German Soldiers wearing the infamous “Machine Gunner’s Armor”. There are two really interesting aspects of this image, the first being that all 3 had their armor modified by having a rifle butt stop added as well as hooks for load bearing equipment. The second interesting thing about this image is the shorter soldier in the center has “HELFT UNS SIEGEN!” written on the front of his breastplate. This translates to “HELP US WIN”, which was the slogan for a promotional poster for the sixth German war loan issued by the German Empire in the third year (spring 1917) of World War I. The poster is considered the first official column poster of the war propaganda of the German Reich in World War I.
The postcard was invented in Austria in 1869, as a way of increasing post office business by reducing the time and postage of letter-writing, and their popularity quickly spread throughout Europe. At first only pre-stamped, plain cardboard postcards were used, but soon they carried all manner of artwork and photographs besides their personal message. The postcard industry reached its peak during World War I, as millions of civilians and soldiers sent hasty messages back and forth. Soldiers at the front could only send terse, pre-printed cards from the trenches ("I am well", "I am wounded", "I am in receipt of your letter", etc.), but they could easily find commercial postcards in the villages just behind the front lines.
The civilians on the Home Front had a vast array of sentimental or humorous or patriotic postcards to send to the men in the trenches, as you can see from some of the examples in this album. Photographs and pictures are wonderful social records of the war, but the handwritten messages on the postcards' other side are even more intriguing. It makes you wonder about the soldier who sent them, whether or not they survived the war.
The image is in wonderful condition and is still very clear. The reverse side is filled with German cursive style script which is also still clear and would be a perfect translation project.
A wonderful item ready for further research and display.
Modern body Armor
Body armor made a brief reappearance in the American Civil War with mixed success. During World War I, both sides experimented with shrapnel armor, and some soldiers used their own dedicated ballistic armor such as the American Brewster Body Shield, although none were widely produced. The heavy cavalry armor (known as cuirass) of Napoleonic France, as well as the German, British and Second French empires were also actively used throughout the 19th century, right up to the first year of World War I, when French cuirassiers went to meet the enemy in armor outside of Paris. The cuirass represents the final stage of the tradition of plate armor descended from the late medieval period. Meanwhile, makeshift steel armor against shrapnel and early forms of ballistic vests began to be developed from the mid-19th century to the present day.
Plate armor was also famously used in Australia by the Kelly Gang, a group of four bushrangers led by Edward "Ned" Kelly, who had constructed four suits of improvised armor from plow moldboards and whose crime spree culminated with a violent shootout with police at the town of Glenrowan in 1880. The armor was reasonably effective against bullets and made Kelly seem almost invincible to the policemen, who likened him to an evil spirit or Bunyip with one constable reporting that
"[I] fired at him point blank and hit him straight in the body. But there is no use firing at Ned Kelly; he can't be hurt"
However it left sections of the groin and limbs exposed; during the infamous "Glenrowan Affair", gang member Joe Byrne was killed by a bullet to the groin, Kelly was captured after a fifteen-minute last stand against police (having sustained a total of 28 bullet wounds over his body), and the remaining two members are thought to have committed suicide shortly after. Although the recovered suits were almost immediately mismatched, they have since been reorganized and restored and today remain as a powerful symbol of the Australian outback.
In 1916, General Adrian of the French army provided an abdominal shield which was light in weight (approx. one kilogram) and easy to wear. A number of British officers recognised that many casualties could be avoided if effective armor were available.
The first usage of the term "flak jacket" refers to the armor originally developed by the Wilkinson Sword company during World War II to help protect Royal Air Force (RAF) air personnel from flying debris and shrapnel. The Red Army also made use of ballistic steel body armor, typically chest plates, for combat engineers and assault infantry.
After World War II, steel plates were soon replaced by vests made from synthetic fiber, in the 1950s, made of either boron carbide, silicon carbide, or aluminum oxide. They were issued to the crew of low-flying aircraft, such as the UH-1 and UC-123, during the Vietnam War.
The synthetic fiber Kevlar was introduced in 1971, and most ballistic vests since the 1970s are based on kevlar, optionally with the addition of trauma plates to reduce the risk of blunt trauma injury. Such plates may be made of ceramic, metal (steel or titanium) or synthetic materials.
