The history of helmet development.

January 4, 2022

 

The role of helmets in the history of wars

The most vulnerable – and the most precious – part of the human organism is the head. Consequently, throughout centuries, since the early fights in ancient history, people have always tried to protect their heads as much as possible, especially during battles or other military conflicts.

At first, ancient people made their protective head garments out of woven twigs, leather, animal skins, wood, birch bark, and other materials found in the surrounding nature.

Initially, the technology was quite complicated and relatively expensive, and only wealthy people could afford a helmet, especially those made of gold or copper, as a cheaper variant. Later on, when people learned how to extract and process various metals, they started to produce metal helmets. The oldest found helmets are from the tombs of Sumerian kings and are dated back to approximately 3000 BC.

So the majority of warriors who were not as rich continued to wear flax or leather round-shaped hats – in some countries even up to the Middle Ages. Sometimes these hats were enhanced with metal plates. Then gradually, bronze head garments came into use, slowly giving way to iron helmets.

As for shape and design, the helmets also vary considerably from century to century and from country to country, evolving from simple protective hats to greatly improved helmets which were aimed to protect not only the top of the skull but also the nose and other fragile areas of the face, i.e., the eyes, ears, cheekbones, and neck.

In Medieval Russia and in many Middle-East and Asian countries of that time, the helmet was additionally merged with a metal-chain piece of armor covering the neck and the upper part of the shoulders, thus considerably increasing the protective effect of the garment.

The rounded or conical shape of helmets also provided additional protection as it could redirect the vector of the applied force of the stroke, thus significantly decreasing this force or even making the weapon slide off the helmet, causing no or minimum harm.

Another kind of improvement was horsehair or feather plumes on top of the helmets, which also absorbed the stroke's force. Moreover, the enemy would also waste precious seconds and efforts to overcome the inertia of this mishandled stroke, which would benefit the wearer of such a helmet.

Various crests and horns or similar seemingly decorative helmet elements – alongside scaring the enemies – also served the same function of redirecting and minimizing the force of the stroke.

Apart from the protective function, these décor elements were essential for differentiating your companion in arms from the enemy and low-rank warriors from their commanders.

To further improve the protection and increase comfort, sometimes the woolen, fur, or leather hats were worn below the helmets to absorb some force of the weapon stroke. Or the helmets themselves were covered with a layer of such materials on their inner surface. This was also quite useful in winter periods as this kind of hat served as good protection from cold though it could bring certain discomfort in hot weather.

The improved weapon was invented, the more enhanced the head and face protection became. Please think of the knights of Middle-Age Europe with their iron or steel helmets, covering everything but two small slots for eyes to see through.

However, the situation drastically changed as the fire weapon came into use. And so did the war-prosecution methods. The mobility of the troops and the number of guns became far more crucial factors for winning the battle than slow-moving iron- or steel-covered army.

Thus, gradually, the metal helmets were almost totally forgotten, giving way to fabric and leather shakos and cocked hats, which were very common in Europe during the Napoleonic Wars. They mainly served as decorative and troops-and-ranks distinguishing head garments. Only Dragoon troops retained their metal helmets at that period.

Helmets during the Great War

However, this trend was then re-assessed as a rather careless one, and by the time World War I had spread over Europe, most armies were re-equipped with metal helmets, though of a different shape.

Although the metal head garment had lost its effectivity against bullets, the helmet's primary function that came into light was to protect the head from shrapnel, shell fragments, and stones resulting from shells' explosions over trenches.

First, the steel Adrian helmet was designed in France. It was initially provided to the French soldiers. It later was ordered by the Russian troops and even redesigned by the Russians into a one-piece steel helmet with higher-level protection capabilities compared to the original three-piece riveted Adrian helmet. However, only a tiny part of the helmets of the later version was produced in time to equip the army. They were delivered only to some front-line troops.

Then came the British Brodie helmet, which was officially called "Mark I shrapnel helmet" but was widely known as "tin hat" and even a "dishpan" with its broad brim giving primarily a good protection from shrapnel and fragmentation shells.

The German soldiers were initially equipped with leather Pickelhaube (translated from German as "a steepled helmet"). It had a spiky crest made of steel. This helmet was widely used before World War I, but it actually performed a decorative function rather than a protective one against shell fragments, so the Germans soon decided to replace it with a Stahlhelm (translated as "a steel helmet" from German). It was famous and quite recognizable in shape due to its two very unusual side "horns," which were the tubes with ventilation holes and were initially designed to be fitted with a strengthened steel front plate for additional forehead protection. However, these steel plates weighed up to 5 kg each and were not very popular among the soldiers.

Another helmet modification that gained extreme popularity during the Great War was camouflaging.

While the weapons were becoming more and more improved, the possibility of protecting the soldier's head from the bullet was becoming more dependent on the ability to camouflage than on the thickness of the soldiers' helmets.

The steel helmets were originally extremely recognizable against the surrounding landscape in daylight as they shone brightly, reflecting the sun's rays. So the soldiers started to cover the helmet surfaces with mud or paint to make them less visible to the enemy. Even dark green or brown cloths were sometimes tied over the helmets to create some camouflage.

As the tendency grew popular, even unique multi-colored patterns of ochre, brown, and green were designed. Special mixtures of paint and mud or sand were prescribed to improve the camouflaging characteristics.

Helmets during the WWII

During World War II, the Germans were wearing steel helmets of a new modification known as Stahlhelm M-35 ("35" standing for the year of their coming into the application). As the need for mobility of the army had increased, the M-16 model of 1916 was considerably improved. Thus, the helmet became significantly lighter; its visor and neck-flap parts grew much smaller, thus decreasing the helmet's weight. The steel alloy used for the helmet had also greatly improved both in its weight and bullet-proof characteristics. As a derivative from the Stahlhelm M-35, the M-38 helmet also appeared, which were produced in several modifications, tailored for different purposes of each particular kind of military branch – varying in shape and the width of the brim.

The French soldiers continued to use slightly modified Adrian helmets as they were pretty light originally, thus allowing a high level of mobility.

The British soldiers were using Мark II and then Мark III helmets, which were improved versions of the Мark I.

The Soviet soldiers were wearing cast-solid steel round-shaped SSh-40 helmets ("SH" standing for the abbreviated "Steel Helmets" in Russian), which were of quite a good quality and proved themselves capable of protecting the head both from bullets and shell fragments. As for the color, usually, they rarely were much camouflaged and mainly were painted khaki green if not for the winter periods and snow-covered landscapes.

The US helmet of that period was the M1 helmet, provided from 1941. It replaced the M1917 Kelly helmet, which was like the British Brodie. The new M1 helmet had no more resemblance to the dishpan and looked more closely to the Soviet SSh-40 helmet in design. They also were made of Hadfield manganese steel alloy of excellent quality and proved highly effective against bullets. They were provided with a cotton liner and then were further improved with a textile camouflaging covering which had holes to put the small tree branches and grass stems into them for additional camouflage protection.

Helmets during the Korean and Vietnam campaigns

This M1 helmet was used extensively for quite an extended period. After World War II, it was in service during the Korean campaign in the early 1950s.

In 1961, a new modified helmet came into use. Now it had a 5-layer nylon-based lining with phenol-formaldehyde resin, which provided much better protection from shell fragments and increased general ergonomic characteristics of the helmet.

These modified helmets were widely used during the Vietnam campaign of 1964 – 1975. Only in the 1980s was it gradually replaced with a new-generation Kevlar PASGT headgear.

So, throughout history, we can see a gradual development of the head protective garment – starting from non-metal types to the most improved contemporary material helmets evolving alongside the development of the weapons applied and the general progress made by the humans in other spheres of life to serve its primary function – to provide the optimal level of protection and safety whatever style of fighting is preferable.