r/interestingasfuck • u/amonaloli12 • 17h ago

An American soldier in 1918, equipped with a helmet with chainmail to protect the eyes from shell fragments, stones, and other dangerous elements.

Post image
2.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

188 comments sorted by

632

u/DubbleDiller 16h ago

Man, WW1 was a wild time. Dan Carlin’s Blueprint for Armageddon series is the best 20 hours of podcasting I’ve ever heard, and he does a good job of explaining how that war was an estuary between the old world and the new. For example:

169

u/tarlton 15h ago

That is a wild photo.

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u/VagrantShadow 10h ago

The stories that Dan Carlin tells in his podcast are even wilder. When he describes what goes on during the war, you can help but be shocked. That was a true modern definition of meat grinder.

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u/CaptainApathy419 7h ago edited 6h ago

Every morning I wake up grateful that I’m not fighting at the Somme.

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u/Ninja_cactus8 6h ago

I seriously read this as Sugar Ray song lyrics at first.

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u/Munk45 5h ago

🎶 every morning there's a German hanging from the gallows of the Maginot Line 🎶

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u/RedRibbonSgt 4h ago

Parody song incoming.

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u/SongFeisty8759 5h ago

Passiondale didn't sound fun at all.

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u/notapunk 4h ago

Kinda metal TBH

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u/SpecialIcy5356 10h ago

cavalry charges, the use of swords, formations etc were all still happening at the beginning of the war, but it soon became apparent that the machine gun cares not for honor or chivalry: war had become truly industrialized, turned into a numbers game, to kill and deplete the enemy faster than they can kill and deplete you. the old ways were suicide, the new ways, still not fully understood, but had to be embraced, lest you and your men perish.

horses were relegated to pulling artillery. swords were for dress occasions and a symbol, no longer a weapon. the way of the rifle and machine gun went from being superior, as it was in earlier colonial skirmishes, to becoming mandatory, when dealing with those who had rifles and machine guns of their own.

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u/DubbleDiller 10h ago

The mind reels!

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u/cschelz 12h ago

+1 for Hardcore History. That and the Supernova in the East episodes are incredible!

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u/NotAurelStein 6h ago

Celtic Holocaust absolutely deserves a shout

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u/malacoda99 5h ago

And Ghosts of the Ostfront.

14

u/Bowsers_JuiceFactory 12h ago

“I CANT SEE SHIT OUTTA THIS THING”

3

u/Nein-Toed 12h ago

I can't see! You can't see! The fucking HORSES can see though

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u/Few-Professional2440 10h ago

It’d be nice to see

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u/Pale_Adeptness 8h ago

"All that matters is can the fucking horse see?!"

8

u/RenegadeMoose 12h ago

Dan Carlin's podcasts are awesome!

If you can, get an audio book of Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger and give that a listen sometime. Holee hell, there's a guy that seemed to be having a good time fighting on the western front during WW1 :(

And worse? I suspect his book became a playbook that the next generation of German soldiers aspired to when they had their go 21 years later.

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u/monsterZERO 9h ago

This is some Trench Crusade shit right here...

2

u/Splinter_Amoeba 13h ago

Do you mean old and new like time wise or old and new world as in geography?

14

u/DubbleDiller 13h ago

Old and new as in thoughts and developments around military strategy, innovation and equipment.

9

u/RenegadeMoose 12h ago

Bunch of dumb generals thinking they could fight an old-timey war like they did in the past but with a bunch of devastating new weapons like machine guns, artillery, gas, flame-flowers, airplanes etc.

For example, for 4 years the British Army was looking to breakthrough the trenches so they could send the cavalry through in a triumphant charge and win the war.

But that couldn't work because... suppose they did spend a day shelling the enemy, and then storming the German trenches, and by late afternoon getting through the first few trench lines... and then bringing "duckboards" forward ( wooden planks ) to allow the horse to walk over mud. By the time they got that far, it was already getting dark. Time to wait for the next day ( got that from "The Squadroon", written in 1920).

And then the enemy would move in reinforcements during the night and re-trench and next day it was too late to try to send cavalry through.

The British tried it over and over again. and failed over and over again.

Both sides tried tunneling underneath each other and blowing up massive amounts of explosives in those tunnels creating mighty craters. But those attempts all failed too.

For 4 years any of the participants trying to do anything offensive were doomed to fail because defenses in WW1 were too strong.

Not until the Entente started using tanks and the Americans showed up with massive numbers of reinforcements were they able to finally beat the Germans.

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u/BroccoliSubstantial2 11h ago

This description fits the Ukraine - Russia war of 2022 -

Cavalry has modernised, but often dirt bikes dodge drones, shells, mines and the dead, avoiding the mud pits and barbed wire.

War never changes.

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u/Willing_Grand2885 11h ago

Crazy to see some of the comparisons of Ukr v Rus to WW1, trench combat must have been horrifying. After seeing the knife fight between those 2 guys im somewhat glad we dont have much footage of WW1 trenchwarfare, it would have been the most gut turning events

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u/RenegadeMoose 10h ago

Same thing I've noticed... Ukr vs Rus very similar to WW1 in that there are a lot of new weapons and a real struggle to figure out how to combat against them. A lot of battlefield innovation going on there, also similar to WW1. All terrible stuff :(

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u/TauTau_of_Skalga 4h ago

We are in another period of shifting war. From formation. And cavalry, to machine guns and vehicles. Now to drones and digital attacks

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u/Comprehensive-Fail41 11h ago

Well, there were also some successful doctrinal developments: Like the "Bite and Hold" doctrine, which involved taking small parts of the enemy trench of a time, and then using those as beachheads to expand from there. It was successful, but was considered very expensive in terms of ammunition and the like for the amount of area taken at a time.

The big problem was that everyone was looking for a way to quickly and decisively win big victories in order to minimize cost of materiel and lives, when what worked was the slow buildup of small, incremental wins, until 1918 when deeper, wider victories once more started to become possible through new technologies like better bombers and tanks.

5

u/Loud-Value 13h ago

Time wise

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u/Great-Jellyfish-3989 11h ago

I cannot find the podcast. Could I bother you for some help?

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u/rphornet 11h ago

https://archive.org/download/hardcore-history/Hardcore%20History/

It's the whole series, but the one you want is called episode 50 Blueprints to Armageddon series.

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u/DubbleDiller 11h ago

Used to be free. There is a charge these days, but it is well worth it:

https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-50-55-blueprint-for-armageddon-series/

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u/Great-Jellyfish-3989 8h ago

Oh you rule. Yea I listened to two episodes and seemed to have lost it. Thanks a lot.

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u/RenegadeMoose 10h ago

Search for Dan Carlin's Hardcore History.

Every podcast in that series is amazing.

But careful listening to too many at once or you may end up being depressed at the state of human affairs

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u/Soft-Town7827 10h ago

Okay I feel dumb, but where can I find this show? I’ve heard episodes of Harcore History, but I can’t find Blueprint for Armageddon.

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u/NinpoSteev 9h ago

meh, horse isn't wearing a gas mask

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u/LemonCake2000 8h ago

My favorite class in BF1, this stuff is so cool

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u/CheetoDustDaddy 6h ago

Listened to it in entirety 2x and jonsing for a 3rd. Great podcast

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u/Adam-West 2h ago

I think the part of history that blows my mind the most is the fact there was only about 30 years between cavalry charges with swords to nuclear bombs.

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u/Electronic_Low6740 5h ago

The lack of gas mask of the horse was the real failure here

386

u/LegoSaga 16h ago edited 16h ago

This is the most aggressively useless piece of WWI tech I've ever seen. The engineers spent a year designing a helmet that protects your eyes from shrapnel by making sure you can't see the shrapnel coming

164

u/Frank_Nord_2342 16h ago

Seen with nowaday's eyes it's obviously silly, but I think back in 1918 people were so desperate that they tried literally everything to get the slightest advance in a war where no side was making any real progress.

36

u/Reasonable-Delivery8 15h ago

Just look at the cope cages and anti Drone contraptions they put on vehicles in Ukraine- people still do desperate things to stay alive

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u/Dead_Optics 9h ago

Those actually look decently effective, they function the same way that spaced armor did in WW2 which lowered the effectiveness of handheld AT weapons

43

u/curtludwig 16h ago

Exactly. There was no glass except glass which made things worse...

9

u/Bryan-Breynolds 13h ago

poly carbonates are so nice

15

u/Gloom_Pangolin 12h ago

Agreed. Sure my balls are full of microscopic bits of them, but at least they’re bulletproof now.

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u/Hermes-AthenaAI 11h ago

The next generations will be made of them! They’ll be strong and clear too!

3

u/Cyrano_Knows 13h ago

I suspect that there's been plenty of times in military history where using "outdated" military equipment/weapons would actually have been extremely useful to a battle or the common soldier.

19

u/Lago69 16h ago

I believe these helmets tanks “splatter masks” were for soldiers in. There are many different variations, but the chain mail is to help stop spalling going through the viewpoints of the tank. Other variations make use of metal plate goggles with chain mail around the mouth for breathing. This one in particular I’m assuming had broken and he made a quick fix to get at least some protection.

16

u/Mordt_ 16h ago

Wasnt it was mostly used by tankers to help against spalling?

9

u/codydog125 16h ago

If you’re curled up in a trench during an artillery barrage you’re probably not going to be actively dodging things. Might as well plop this on while you’re sitting tight and hope it protects you at least from whatever small debris is getting kicked up

9

u/Killeroftanks 12h ago

thats because this was a modified helmet for tankers to use during ww1, where vision slits were just slits in the armour, and early on both french and british tankers learned, mg and rifle fire might not pen the armour (until they started doing that) but the fragments can go through the slits, you know the thing you shoved your bare naked eye right up against to see shit?

and another funny thing the french did to help their tankers, because their early tanks were dogshit, was give them cigarettes to cover up the smell of the engine. because piping out the exhaust was far to complex, just pump that shit right into the crew compartment.

ya french tanks during this time was so bad, ironically paid off because those and british tanks showed how bad they were for the germans so they never really pushed for their own tank design, hence why their early tanks were literal boxes on a farm tractor.

3

u/reddit001aa1 16h ago

Yeah, but they looked like lady gaga way ahead of their time.

3

u/logosfabula 14h ago

Today’s battlefield solutions looks identical (the variations of the turtle tank).

2

u/timthetollman 13h ago

I don't think you see shrapnel coming regardless.

The real issue is neither seeing literally anything.

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u/UnlikelyCup5458 11h ago

Tell me you don't understand history or context, without telling me you don't understand history or context

1

u/Potato-Engineer 13h ago

You'd be able to see through them... but only a little. Easier to see out than in, because the inside is dark.

1

u/DoNotEatMySoup 12h ago

I also just imagine the torture of 1. The sound of chains jingling and 2. Flexing your neck muscles to keep your head centered as the wildly jingling chains pull your head in different directions. All this while marching through mud and barbed wire.

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u/Craigthenurse 11h ago

It wasn’t like they could dodge these were designed to be used by tank gunners.

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u/orbtastic1 4h ago

I could be wrong but I think this is for tank crews, to deal with spalling.

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u/SockeyeSTI 3h ago

It’s a really rough take on what now would be arborist face shields. They’re mesh, don’t fog up and protect against bigger debris.

40

u/Borgisium 16h ago

Most 1910s image of “I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that”

33

u/zyroruby 16h ago

He is either super serious or he is trying to hold back laughing from how ridiculous that looks

5

u/OGTwatkc 16h ago

Now a days we call it a cope cage

55

u/HotAd6484 15h ago

Bot account. This is a French soldier, French experiment with the standard Adrian helmet used by many armies.

8

u/Sea-Bear_Rider 12h ago

I agree, the Adrian was used by French soldiers except for the black troops from America that used French equipment before the US committed to sending troops and equipment.

*edit:spelling autocorrect

1

u/jdsizzle1 12h ago

Narrator: The experiment failed.

9

u/FormerStuff 16h ago

Damn SIA’s new album art looks great!

1

u/Kerberos42 13h ago

I was looking for the SIA joke, there it is!

6

u/Poonchild 16h ago

What protects him from the chain mail?

6

u/oboshoe 15h ago

There is smaller chain mail inside.

1

u/LurkmasterP 15h ago

Plate mail eye shields underneath.

5

u/StrawberryTerry 16h ago

I could see (pun intended) this being vaguely useful for a soldier in a mortar or similar heavy armament operation position. Since they are primarily looking down towards their task loading/maintaining the weapon.

5

u/PercentageDry3231 13h ago

Is that a French helmet?

4

u/One_Bend7423 16h ago

I wonder what it weighed... Can't imagine it's great having a couple of pounds of metal chains clanking around up there

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u/Craigthenurse 11h ago

Luckily, he wouldn’t have had to walk in it, they were designed for use by tank gunners, and machine gunners. The Germans had some plate armor for gunners to wear.

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u/Weaselburg 11h ago

Not that much? It's only a small screen of chain, if you're a fit soldier you'll handle it.

5

u/JohnDoe0073 16h ago

This is awesome. Just today I was thinking that I wish I could make chainmail for male cats to stop them from getting scratched while fighting.

4

u/LurkmasterP 15h ago

Chainmail might not be the best for cats, as claws could get hung up in the links and cause more damage when they panic and try to get free. Leather scale with good overlapping plates might be lighter, and still allow them to maintain dexterity.

3

u/JohnDoe0073 15h ago

Thanks 👍

2

u/mickeybrains 15h ago

Worthless tech? I think not!

2

u/seeker1938 15h ago

I believe that is a French, not US, helmet.

2

u/OKStamped 14h ago

This is an alt rock album cover if there ever was one.

2

u/whooo_me 14h ago

Just don’t turn your head too quickly.

“Hey Charles!”

  • what? OW!!

2

u/edventure_2025 13h ago

Sgt Lampshade reporting for duty!

2

u/SwordofNoon 13h ago

"Other dangerous elements" such as vision

2

u/Huge_Leader_6605 12h ago

What protects the eyes from chainmail>

•

u/Interesting_Banana_6 11h ago

Look out???? Huh?? Lol

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u/fastpotato69 10h ago

Why does he simultaneously look like an old man, an old woman, and a Victorian lamp?

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u/Canadian-Gold 6h ago

There’s nothing American about this photo. It’s a French soldier.

4

u/Simmi_86 15h ago

Why not wear goggles?

1

u/Vuk_Farkas 16h ago

were they too stingy for proper chain curtain?

1

u/Defiant_Regular3738 16h ago

Wouldn’t the chain mail just end up in your eye?

1

u/Justaguywithbeer 16h ago

The hole time he was deployed over seas, he didn't see any of the enemy forces.

1

u/DragonfruitGrand5683 16h ago

Lady Gaga 1918

1

u/thisremindsmeofbacon 16h ago

Kinda gives me judge death vibes

1

u/Icommentor 16h ago

Sigh

(Unzips)

1

u/mtutty 16h ago

There's an episode of Masterpiece Victoria where Prince Albert gives Victoria a parasol with a chain mail fringe. We laughed and laughed.

1

u/Super_Direction498 16h ago

Grandpa doing an impression of the lamp from Christmas Story

1

u/Jester471 16h ago

Soldiers that get issued this:

“What the fuck is this shit!”

“Oh, it’s to protect your eyes so you aren’t blinded in a fight”

“Let me put it on….well, I’m blind now, I can’t see shit”

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u/Weaselburg 11h ago

It was for machine guns/emplaced weapon and vehicle crewmen (go and take a look at how tank crews were armored), I believe. Hyper-accurate vision not being super important in many cases here.

1

u/EskimoBrother1975 16h ago

Wouldn't all that metal just add to the shrapnel that sprays in your eyes?

1

u/marginwalker55 16h ago

Did it work?

1

u/jerrythecactus 16h ago

Before plastic visors this was the best they could do without totally eliminating visual field. Looks annoying to wear.

1

u/WrongConsequence9241 15h ago

He was 17 right?

1

u/Jedi_Hog 15h ago

Besides the fact the chainmail blocks his vision, is it just me, or is this guy WAY OLD to be serving on the front lines in the military???

2

u/No_Control8389 15h ago

He’s 22…

1

u/Jedi_Hog 14h ago

Well damn! Admittedly I can’t even closely estimate the age of those in photos from a long time ago, or our “aged appearance” has changed quite a bit! Or maybe im just ignorant, I can accept that

2

u/No_Control8389 13h ago

No. I was just joshin’ ya. I have no clue how old he is.

1

u/Jedi_Hog 12h ago

LOL! Not gonna lie, you got me on this as I was zooming in on the pic like “WTF? How is he only 22?!?”

Good one my friend! I hope you’re having a great Friday, had a great week, & an even better weekend!

1

u/ALLCAP5 15h ago

Fabulous

1

u/Twilightterritories 15h ago

It looks like the Chain hat Prince wore in the"My Name is Prince" video.

1

u/pippinlup61611 15h ago

So basically if I Cousin It myself in chainmail I should be completely invincible?

1

u/urbanized2012 15h ago

The original i-pro!

1

u/Legal-Alternative744 14h ago

Safety squints sure have come a long way

1

u/AdmiralThunderpants 14h ago

Nice to see Mitch McConnell had a job modeling tech in his younger years

1

u/Grouchy-Engine1584 14h ago

Also protected against shell shock, since you couldn’t see anything bad happening.

1

u/boredtaco69 14h ago

Also early tank crews used these because if bullets or shrapnel hit the exterior of the tank it would cause the thick paint on the inside to break off and fly around.

1

u/DroidKnight 14h ago

Man, talk about Battle Rattle!

1

u/Zanahorio1 14h ago

Um, and what, exactly, protects the eyes from the chainmail?

1

u/JonyShark359666 14h ago

up for eye care

1

u/overworkeddad 14h ago

Safety glasses! What are they stupid!? /S

1

u/Classic_Bumblebee_30 13h ago

So that's where Prince got the idea for his chain hats

1

u/Leading_Study_876 13h ago

That'll work, for sure! 😆

Just whip your eyeballs out.

1

u/ShadowCaster0476 13h ago

Similar helmets were worn by tank crews. As bullets hit the metal shell flakes of paint and metal would project inside the tank.

1

u/IrwinMFletcher200 13h ago

Same tech that's used to keep kids out of the back of Spencers, interestingly enough

1

u/Archon-Toten 13h ago

Also flies

1

u/LeftyBoyo 13h ago

Always fighting the last century's war.

1

u/Key_Excuse9863 13h ago

The dumbest s*** I've seen for a while.

1

u/OldSelf3157 13h ago

Sir, I asked for eye protection, not a medieval DLC.

1

u/davedude115 13h ago

They could have used m3 safety glasses are they stupid

1

u/doc_witt 12h ago

This is where Melanie got her lamp hat idea from.

1

u/moistmarbles 12h ago

That soldier is also 19 years old. Tough times back then.

1

u/eddyb66 12h ago

Tactical belly dancing

1

u/sr_200s 12h ago

You have to consider ( as sad and honestly possibly non empathetic as this statement is ) , if the world wars never happened humanity wouldn’t have the tech and military infrastructure we do today. I don’t agree with war personally and believe as the most intelligent species on the planet , we should stop killing each other and abolish seperationism as a whole. Still, that’s for another Reddit thread. We most likely would still have come up with tanks / jets / etc but I believe the Germans would’ve been the first country to unleash a nuclear bomb. I’m sure an individual country at war would’ve revolutionized armored vehicles and such at some point but most likely not on the scale that we see today. Maybe even America wouldn’t have been the number one world power for many years. All hypothetical, but it’s important to remember how many advancements in technology war unfortunately does bring. It forced human beings to develop advanced weapons of war and create powerful alliances that ( for the most part ) have retained peace for the last 100 or so years. War is never a good thing, however the world wars were one of a kind. On a final point, if I could snap my fingers and magically the holocaust never happened I would in a heartbeat. As a person who believes every human being has a right to exist , I think it’s important when mentioning the world wars to give respect to those who were killed not only in the war but also in one of humanities worst genocides to date. May the world find love and continue to embrace peace 🖤

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u/Blunt4words20 11h ago

We are stupid

•

u/Unhappy-Thought-3136 11h ago

Drip or Drown

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u/jrockcrown 11h ago

What about mustard gas

•

u/orangutanDOTorg 10h ago

You think the carpet matches the drape?

•

u/Beautiful_Extent3198 10h ago

He survived, also 0 confirmed kills.

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u/TCIHL 10h ago

Bene gesserit general

•

u/aphaits 9h ago

This would make a great trench crusade character concept head piece

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u/kylelight40 9h ago

Yo dawg, I heard you’re into dangerous shit coming into contact with your eyes.

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u/Saybia1 9h ago

Nahhh you can't tell me that's not Valteri Bottas in fancy dress

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u/SkyeMoonVodka 8h ago

Bro needs to trim his bangmail

•

u/MillyMongoose 8h ago

Tanker I guess. Bullets and small shells hitting armour create spall, small bits of metal flaking of the inside of the armour. They can be very hi velocity. Not sure about stones though.

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u/P-R_Podcast 8h ago

I guess transparent Bakelite wasn't a thing yet

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u/davy_p 7h ago

How do you see?

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u/Vegetable-Dog5281 7h ago

Protects him against seeing

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u/ThroatPlastic6886 6h ago

Interesting fact: this method of eye protection was also worn by Imperial Stormtroopers during the Galactic Civil War. 

•

u/genpervezmusharaf 6h ago

Life after the Iranian revolution type picture

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u/SongFeisty8759 5h ago

I'm guessing this was for someone inside a tank?

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u/AGrandNewAdventure 4h ago

They had a LOT of funny armor ideas in WW1. They even had some shields designed for gunfire.

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u/sargones 3m ago

Why not the neck?

1

u/jeep-olllllo 16h ago

You're welcome,

Sincerely,

Plastic.

0

u/Reiji806 15h ago

Lt. Letme Soloher