"Kevlar" in the 1920s?

An idea that just popped into my head: How could a Kevlar like material be developed in the 1920s or 30s? What kind of effect would that have on WW2?

What do you think, unlikely or not?
 
Well, In response to that, maybe weaponry would have advanced much faster and further. With the need for more powerful and destructive weapons, guns and such would have had more caliber, force, etc.
 
Well, In response to that, maybe weaponry would have advanced much faster and further. With the need for more powerful and destructive weapons, guns and such would have had more caliber, force, etc.
Given most modern bullet proof jackets only provide limited protection from 7.62mm assult rifle rounds, I doubt a 1920s/1930s version is going to offer much protection against a full powered 30cal, .303 or 7.92 round.
 
There was a good deal of experimentation starting in WWI, when metal turned out not to work very well. I think the biggest obstacle is that kevlar is so counterintuitive - really thin filaments woven into really pliable fabric stop bullets?

Now, if anybody had done serious research into Chinese 'silk' and 'paper' armour (that's a simplistic descriptor but I don't know what they're called in Chinese), there is a good chance they would have come up with the principle earlier. Early variants would have been bulky, ridiculously expensive and very uncomfortable, but probably a bit better and a lot lighter than the WWII 'flak jacket' with its monster inserts. I'm not sure any synthetic fibre before '45 was good enough for the purpose, so these things would eat silk and a lot of people at DuPont would spend the war breeding spiders. If Nylon was already good enough, ballistic nylon is also a likely early development. From then on, the industry will just try to use any synthetic fabreic or foil to see if it works, so kevlar will be an early candidate and have its stellar career.

No big difference on the battefield, I guess. Armour is nice, but it doesn't actually stop bullets from hurting you.
 
There was a good deal of experimentation starting in WWI, when metal turned out not to work very well. I think the biggest obstacle is that kevlar is so counterintuitive - really thin filaments woven into really pliable fabric stop bullets?

Now, if anybody had done serious research into Chinese 'silk' and 'paper' armour (that's a simplistic descriptor but I don't know what they're called in Chinese), there is a good chance they would have come up with the principle earlier. Early variants would have been bulky, ridiculously expensive and very uncomfortable, but probably a bit better and a lot lighter than the WWII 'flak jacket' with its monster inserts. I'm not sure any synthetic fibre before '45 was good enough for the purpose, so these things would eat silk and a lot of people at DuPont would spend the war breeding spiders. If Nylon was already good enough, ballistic nylon is also a likely early development. From then on, the industry will just try to use any synthetic fabreic or foil to see if it works, so kevlar will be an early candidate and have its stellar career.

No big difference on the battefield, I guess. Armour is nice, but it doesn't actually stop bullets from hurting you.

There was a guy named Casimir Zeglen who made silk bullet proof vests and jackets around the turn of the century. He developed a technique of layering silk of certain type of weave. He was the first but there were imitators. Franz Ferdinand was wearing a bullet proof jacket at the time of his assassination, only he was shot in the neck.

The concept of fabric armor was well accepted. European royals, fearing Anarchists and assassins, had their coaches and cars custom armored with silk inside. The trouble was, this was extremely expensive. It was also useless against rifle cartridges. In fact even Kevlar is usually good for pistol cartridges only. Rifle proof body armor is relatively recent and it use a ceramic or steel plate in addition to the Kevlar or Spectra. Even today only wealthy nations could afford it. These high tech fabrics degrade quickly and has to be replaced all the time. It's one thing to equip today's small armies, but to do it for huge WWII type conscript army would be impossible.

Nylon flakjackets were used during Korea. These were designed to reduce injuries from fragmentation, not bullets. Before Nylon flakjackets many armies issued various types of steel armor. The Germans had one in WWI. These were only issued to high risk personnel such as machine gunners, tankers, bomber pilots, etc. These were again only designed to stop fragmentation.

Synthetic fiber was still in infancy in OTL. At best Nylon technology may be more mature by WWII and every soldier gets a flackjacket. If people knew about the ballistic resistance properties of ceramic earlier a ceramic plate insert could improve the Nylon jacket's performance. It would be good to have since steel was precious. Still wont stop rifle bullets though.


This is a good read:

http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/woundblstcs/chapter11.htm

 
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