Kevlar invented before WW2

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Deleted member 1487

What if prior to WW2 Kevlar was invented and known to everyone like nylon was? I find it an interesting technology POD because of it's varied uses beyond armor:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevlar#Applications
How might it influence technologies in WW2 is all sides have access to the lightweight, high strength material? Just the armor portion allows for all sorts of applications, up to and including lightweight aircraft armor and potentially even other components. Same with personal armor and for ground vehicles. Not sure about how cost effective for tires it would be though. How might we see it being used?
 
What if prior to WW2 Kevlar was invented and known to everyone like nylon was? I find it an interesting technology POD because of it's varied uses beyond armor:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevlar#Applications
How might it influence technologies in WW2 is all sides have access to the lightweight, high strength material? Just the armor portion allows for all sorts of applications, up to and including lightweight aircraft armor and potentially even other components. Same with personal armor and for ground vehicles. Not sure about how cost effective for tires it would be though. How might we see it being used?

For what it was originally meant for, better belting material for tires. Most WWII era tires used cloth belting, steel and other materials was after 1948

Even if they knew about it, unlikely to use for flak jackets, where Nylon was know about during WWII, but not used as armor till the Korean War

OTL GE was working on fiberglass armor plates in 1943. These were known as Doron. The problem wasn't with the Glass, Nylon or even Kevlar, but in developing a stable resin to bind the fibers together
 

Deleted member 1487

For what it was originally meant for, better belting material for tires. Most WWII era tires used cloth belting, steel and other materials was after 1948

Even if they knew about it, unlikely to use for flak jackets, where Nylon was know about during WWII, but not used as armor till the Korean War

OTL GE was working on fiberglass armor plates in 1943. These were known as Doron. The problem wasn't with the Glass, Nylon or even Kevlar, but in developing a stable resin to bind the fibers together
Nylon was a lot weaker than Kevlar though...but ballistic nylon was used for WW2 flak jackets:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_nylon
I'll have to look into Doron.
 
What if prior to WW2 Kevlar was invented and known to everyone like nylon was? I find it an interesting technology POD because of it's varied uses beyond armor:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevlar#Applications
How might it influence technologies in WW2 is all sides have access to the lightweight, high strength material? Just the armor portion allows for all sorts of applications, up to and including lightweight aircraft armor and potentially even other components. Same with personal armor and for ground vehicles. Not sure about how cost effective for tires it would be though. How might we see it being used?

you will have to refresh my memory (cannot find the article at present) on the German use of spaced armor? my understanding it was fairly effective?

could kevlar be introduced into a sandwich type defensive scheme? that might be effective but spare some increase in weight? IDK but if it could that seems the biggest possible change.
 

Deleted member 1487

you will have to refresh my memory (cannot find the article at present) on the German use of spaced armor? my understanding it was fairly effective?
'Spaced' armor in the WW2 wasn't really what something Chobham armor was, it was just a 'skirt' of mild steel plate to help deflect AT rifle side shots without having to add a ton of extra armor all over the AFV. It did what it was supposed to do and a version was developed to deal with HEAT that is still used today (mesh metal).

could kevlar be introduced into a sandwich type defensive scheme? that might be effective but spare some increase in weight? IDK but if it could that seems the biggest possible change.
Sure, but would they think of that? Chobham armor was developed to deal with the improvements in HEAT that didn't exist during WW2 and IIRC all these special spaced armors couldn't deal with multiple hits the way RHA could and was more common in say WW2. Sloped armor and extra external plates was probably the way to do during WW2, but as an inner liner to stop spalling it would be very useful and I think what they use today:
http://www.composhield.com/Spall-Liner.370.aspx
 
My thinking would be that post-Great War the Germans look at the failed use of steel armor to reduce casualties but great success in their helmets. That could lead to an early pursuit of the "flak" vest, albeit using Nylon, to do what helmets did. In that pursuit a Kevlar might look rather appealing, obviously in hindsight for both a vest and helmet. Could we see the Air Force adding incentive as the pilot is worth protecting and weight is a higher concern? Obviously some ATL with surviving Imperial Germany has both the Army and expanded chemical industry to pursue these. In such a scenario some 20 years of effort might get us the crude early style vests by the eve of some alternate second war. A war that could further propel the efforts to see a modern-ish Kevlar in use akin to OTL by the 1960s?
 
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