盔甲(armor)，亦称body armour。

在战斗中用来使武器发生偏转或承受住其袭击的防护性装具，它也可以用来保护动物和交通工具等。古代的战士用兽皮和头盔保护自己。西元前11世纪，中国武士穿戴用犀牛皮制成的盔甲；西元前5世纪，希腊重装步兵穿着厚厚的多层亚麻胸甲。14世纪以前，整个罗马帝国和西欧国家都将锁子甲（chain mail）作为主要的盔甲，它是一种形似一件简单衬衣的盔甲。硬片式盔甲在古代希腊人和古罗马人就使用过，约在13世纪在欧洲又重新出现。它一直居支配地位，17世纪火器的出现使得盔甲显得都过时了。18世纪硬片式盔甲就完全消失，但头盔在第一次世界大战中重新出现在战场上，後来还成为大多数士兵的一种标准装备。保护身躯的现代盔甲称为防弹背心（bullet proof vest），它是将小合金钢片缝进或钉进衣服里，至少保护住胸部和腹部。有时用玻璃纤维，碳化硼或多层尼龙纤维取代金属片，不仅可以提高保护能力，而且也改善了穿着的舒适性。克耩纤维（Kevlar）已广泛地运用於此类盔甲。

English version：

armor

Protective clothing that can shield the wearer from weapons and projectiles. By extension, armor is also protective covering for animals, vehicles, and so on. Prehistoric warriors used leather hides and helmets. Chinese warriors used rhinoceros skin in the 11th century BC, and Greek infantry wore thick, multilayered metal-and-linen cuirasses (armor covering the body from neck to waist) in the 5th century BC. Shirts of chain mail were worn throughout the Roman Empire, and mail was the chief armor of Western Europe until the 14th century. Ancient Greeks and Romans used armor made of rigid metal plates, which reappeared in Europe around the 13th century. Plate armor dominated European design until the 17th century, when firearms began to make it obsolete. It began to disappear in the 18th century, but the helmet reappeared in World War I and became standard equipment. Modern body armor (the bulletproof vest) covers the chest and sometimes the groin; it is a flexible garment reinforced with steel plates, fiberglass, boron carbide, or multiple layers of nylon fabric. The synthetic Kevlar is now widely used for such armor.

参考文章

• 古代盔甲之我的浅见素材