Put A Lid On It :: Combat Helmets Of The Cold War Era :: Leather :: Steel :: Plastic :: Kevlar Helmets

GETTING HIT IN THE BODY IS SURVIVABLE BUT A HEAD SHOT IS A REAL SHOW - STOPPER. GADGE HARVEY TAKES A LOOK AT HOW COLD WAR WARRIORS PROTECTED THIS VITAL PART OF THEIR ANATOMY

POTS, LIDS, BONE DOMES.. Theres one thing despite their myriad nicknames you can be sure of; steel helmets have been cursed by soldiers for centuries, only to be later blessed when they saved the wearer's life.

Since Lhe ear y days of organised warfare, steel helmets have been prolific and ancient examples have been found across the globe. Unlike many other parts of the body, the skull is hard to damage but if you can, a head wound is often fatal and the first warriors were quick to realise this.

Throughout the Cold War years nearly every nation adopted a form of hardened manganese steel head protection, (with basic through to complicated carrier/liner inner systems) and notably the last few years of the period began to see experiments with plastic and ballistic nylon lightweight helmets occurring, largely in the West among the NATO nations.

While metal head protection has been around almost as long as the ability to forge and shape metal itself has, the actual design of steel helmets changed dramatically during WWII and the vast majority of Cold War Warriors would be seen up until the 90s using (essentially) WWII designs.

GREAT WAR ORIGINS - THE LEGACY OF WORLD WAR ONE

To see the true origins of the modern infantry helmet we have to look back to WWI At the beginning of the 20th century, personal armour had fallen almost entirely out of fashion. Some cavalry wore ceremonial helmets and breastplates but the fighting man went to war in 1914 wearing a soft cap or at bestr a leather helmet (like the classic German "pickelhaube" with its "comedic" spiked crown). Hideous casualties from artillery bursting overhead of static trenches andr to a lesser degree, injuries inflicted by snipers on anyone foolish enough to stick their head out of the parapet, caused the "top brass" of the belligerent powers to look into a way of eliminating the high explosive and shrapnel threat that was causing almost 75 per cent of casualties in some sectors.

The British and French (and their allied nations) opted for almost medieval designs in quite separate ways. The British "Brodie" Mkl helmet with its "soup bowl" style was designed to protect a soldier from overhead missiles falling down into a trench with its wide brimmed shallow design, similarly troops poking their heads up for sneaky peak had a chance to deflect an oncoming bullet striking the smooth curved dome.

"THE FIGHTING MAN WENT TO WAR IN 1914 WEARING A SOFT CAP OR AT BEST, A LEATHER HELMET (LIKE THE CLASSIC GERMAN 'PICKELHAUBE' WITH ITS COMEDIC" SPIKED CROWN)"

While this sounds well thought out, the actual origins of this style of helmet design can be seen as early as the 14th century, although in medieval warfare the intention was for the helmet to protect against overhead blows swung down upon the wearer from hand weapons. The French went for an equally archaic design (reminiscent of Roman helmets) with their "Adrian" helmet and its re-enforced "comb" to deflect blows from the top of the skull (this style was also adopted by the Russians in very limited numbers in WW2) but it is with the technologically innovative Germans where we the finest theories were put into practice.

In fact these early German designs are so good that helmets clearly inspired by the German "model 1916 stalhelm can still be seen in service today.

The Germans had opted for a well thought out and visually distinctive style that not only protected the skull from above but swooped down at the side and the back before flaring out, offering incredible protection to the sides of the face, ears and neck. In fact post-WWI studies ascertained that had the British adopted the German style, head injuries could be minimised by up to 50 per cent! It wasn't done, by the way as it was seen to be "not British" to follow the German example - regardless of how many lives it may have saved!

DISTINCTIVE SILHOUETTE

In this possibly apocryphal anecdote, however, lies an important grain of truth. The steel helmet is a boon in terms of protection but also a curse when it has such a distinctive shape. The head and silhouette of the helmet is often the first thing a patrolling soldier sees of his enemy - so much so that soldiers since WWII have taken great pains to break up the outline of the "unnatural" helmet shape with scrim, netting and local foliage. During the 1970s the US even produced thousands of fake plastic Soviet "look alike" helmets to put over U5 helmet liners, to make the "opposing force" on exercise look like a "real enemy"r which illustrates how important a shape of the helmet is to identifying friend from foe.

During WWII the allies were held back by each nation using its own distinct equipment with little or no standardisation. Moves to replace the UK helmet, found lacking outside a "trench warfare" environment, with the US "M1" model (vastly superior to the UK MKII of the time) were shelved when it was found that UK headphones would not fit under US helmets. Adopting the German or Russian model was out of the question and so the UK "compromised" with the MKIII or "turtle shell" assault helmet, which came into service in the last years of WWII and looked like the bastard child of a British MKII and a US MKI helmet. This quickly introduced "interim" design would serve the British Army in various modified forms up until the mid-80s!

The rest of NATO, however, would adopt the US M1 steel helmet with a separate liner (usually consisting of compressed wood fibre or plastic) for decades, creating a degree of standardisation as West Germans, Americans, Belgians, Norwegians and many other nations adopted the US model under licence, often changing minor features like chinstraps and liners. The Ml helmet had many advantages over its competing British MKIII model, not least was the fact that the pull out liner allowed the soldier to use the helmet as a water carrying pot and, in emergencies, even cook in it (although this was discouraged as repeatedly heating the steel could weaken its protective qualities).

Across the Iron Curtain the Warsaw Pact (WP) was also standardising its soldier's head protection. During WWII the Russians had begun the war using the French "Adrian" helmet but soon created their own domestic entry into the world of bone domes and, in the process, created another world icon... The M40 steel helmet.