Armour, or Armor is a layer of material meant to protect from harm. While any material, such as wood, animal skins, cloth, and paper, can be used in its composition, most manmade armor is made of metal, primarily for its durability and resistance to breakage.
Many animals also have natural armor, namely armadillos, turtles, the extinct ankylosaurs, and numerous arthropods, such as crabs, scorpions and bugs. Natural armor is usually made of keratin or bone. They are mostly used to protect against predators, although they can also be used as protection or weapon in interspecific fights, such as by ramming attacks, like by some tortoise species.
The most famous uses of armor in human history are armored vehicles of the modern day and suits of armor from the medieval periods. Vehicular armor was and is still largely composed of solid metal, meant to deflect hits and dissipate energy and bulletproof glass which are made up of layers of glass with a plastic sheeting between them. The majority of 21st-century tanks, however, are equipped with explosive reactive armor (ERA), meant to protect from high-explosive projectiles. Modern body armor for humans is also very different from plate armor used in the 19th century, mainly composed of numerous composite materials and fibers such as Kevlar to dissipate impact force, leave little excess weight to inhibit the wearer's mobility and most importantly, to protect its wearer from bullets.
Domesticated animals will also have armor in military forces, though for mobility reasons, not every part of the animal is able to be covered.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Centaur body armor is a hybrid of armor for horses and humans. The armor for the lower half is composed of a thick weave of cloth that is resistant to sword strikes and arrows, while the armor for the upper half is standard medieval metal plate armor that extends to cover the upper half of the horse torso lower body. Centorea's armor in particular has a helmet with a hole in the back for her ponytail to feed through, in a similar position to where most visual mediums depicted knight helmets with feathers.
- Outside of standard business suits, the Monster Ops: Neutralization team wears flak jackets in the field (except for Doppel, who hates wearing clothes, which is in fact a cultural aspect of the Shapeshifters and Ms Smith as she doesn't normally apprehand hostile criminals). In addition, Tionishia in particular has a more heavy-duty suit of armor for breaking through walls and it's somewhat ironic for Zombina to wear armor, since as a Zombie she is unaffected by injuries (although there may also be methods to destroy a Zombie for good).
- According to her secrets, Lala owns a complete set of black-lacquered western-style armour, but because of its heavy weight she doesn't like wearing the entire set and therefore only wears select pieces of it.
- In real life, personal protective equipment can be considered a type of armour. An example would be Yukio's special protective suit, a homemade Environmental Suit upcycled from an old-fashioned diving suit.
- A common practice in any visual medium is for female characters to wear what is essentially a metal bikini as armor, most often as fanservice. Most additional armor pieces include shingaurds, gauntlets, boots, and occasionally gloves, loincloths, and/or shoulder pauldrons. Most likely due to complaints and criticisms of practicality and sexualizing women, this has been heavily phased out in official works in favor of more modest full-body plate armor, though to maintain some level of fanservice the armor is often shaped around the form of the wearer. Unofficial fanart (and most animated Pornography), however, still regularly depicts what is now termed "bikini armor".
See Also[]