As we all know, close combat has always been dangerous, so its protective equipment has always been a concern.
Gas Mask
A gas mask is a personal protective equipment worn on the head to protect people’s respiratory organs, eyes and face, and prevent personal protective equipment from poisonous gases, dust, bacteria, toxic and harmful gases or vapors. Gas masks can be divided into full masks and half masks in terms of shape, and full masks are divided into positive pressure type and negative pressure type.
In the First World War, on April 22, 1915, in order to reverse the unfavorable situation of the war, the German side unexpectedly released 180 tons of chlorine gas to the assembled positions of the British and French troops, poisoning 5,000 Allied soldiers and killing 8 people. It was the first large-scale gas battle in the history of the world’s military.
The British and French coalition forces, which suffered heavy losses after the battle, immediately urged their governments to manufacture gas masks as soon as possible.
Before long, excellent scientists were sent to investigate the areas that had been contaminated with poison gas, and they found that all animals including naked insects and frogs dormant in the water were poisoned and died one after another. Only the wild boar survived unharmed.
According to research and experiments on wild boars, it is found that the long mouths of wild boars can arch the soil to find the roots and stems of plants and some small animals in the ground. When you smell a strong irritating odor, you put your mouth and nose into the soil and avoid the disaster. After doing further research, it was found that the loose soil particles adsorbed and filtered the poisonous gas, keeping them safe. As a result, scientists were inspired. According to the principle of soil filtering, they chose charcoal as the filter element, and soon designed and manufactured the first batch of gas masks imitating the shape of a pig’s mouth.
Today, more than 100 years after World War I ended, gas masks are also developing rapidly.
Qunqun doesn’t know much about this aspect, so here I can only list a few types of gas masks for your reference.
The earliest gas masks simply used substances such as activated carbon for filtering. Later, with the development of technology, gas masks began to become more and more advanced, and there were two types of gas masks, namely filtering and isolation.
Filter respirators consist of a mask and a canister (or filter element). The mask includes parts such as body, eye window, talker, breathing valve and headgear (or helmet). The canister is used to purify the poisoned air, and it is equipped with a smoke filter layer and a sorbent. The two materials can also be mixed to make a filter plate and assembled into a filter element. The lighter (about 200 grams) canister or filter element can be directly connected to the mask, and the heavier canister is connected to the mask through the airway.
The isolation type gas mask provides oxygen from the mask itself, and is divided into three types: gas storage type, oxygen storage type and chemical oxygen type. Isolation masks are mainly used in high-concentration poisoned air (when the volume concentration is greater than 1%), or in special occasions such as high-altitude, underwater or closed cabins with hypoxia. Modern gas masks can effectively defend against poisons, biological warfare agents and radioactive dust that may appear on the battlefield. Some of its weight has been reduced to about 0.6 kilograms, and it can be worn for more than 8 hours. After wearing a gas mask, optics, communication equipment and weapons can be used more conveniently. The full-face mask body made of high-quality silicone is anti-aging, hypoallergenic, durable, and easy to clean.
Chemical Protective Suit
Chemical protective clothing, abbreviated as NBC (nuclear biological chemical) suit, is designed to provide protection equipment for personnel and soldiers who are in direct contact with radioactive substances and chemical poisons. The emphasis on its protective performance should be considered according to its combat environment, and it should be ensured that soldiers or relevant personnel can ensure their flexibility when wearing such clothing, as well as skillfully operate and use weapons.
NBC is mainly used to ensure the safety of soldiers’ lives in nuclear, biological and chemical environments. In military operations, trained soldiers can quickly put it on in a short period of time and use it continuously for several days. Most NBCsuits use rubber and filters as the main filtration methods, which not only ensure adequate protection, but also ensure the breathability of the clothing. The Canadian Army’s NBC apparel does just that.
EOD Suit
EOD suits are special clothing that can protect against overpressure, debris, and shock waves generated after explosions, and provide all-round protection for EOD experts. The helmet is equipped with an intelligent battery-driven power supply system and exhaust system, as well as an intelligent sound amplifier and loud noise protection device. The EOD suit “lies” on the ground, like a person.
EOD suits are clothing that must be worn by EOD specialists to remove explosives or suspicious explosives.
Explosion-proof clothing should have the functions of anti-explosive fragmentation, anti-shock wave, anti-light wave, anti-flame rapid combustion, anti-overpressure and other functions that cause harm to the human body. Terrorism is the biggest challenge facing the current international community, and the use of explosives to destroy and cause casualties is a common method used by terrorists. Once suspicious explosives are found, they must be eliminated, removed and destroyed to avoid more casualties and property losses. The damage of the explosion includes: the damage caused by the high-speed solid object accompanying the explosive, and the shock wave, light wave, sound wave, negative pressure, etc. generated by the explosion to the surrounding.
Body Armor
The equipment just now gave everyone the feeling that it was designed to protect against all kinds of big killers, but this is the equipment commonly used by the special forces. Bulletproof vest, used to protect the human body from bullets or explosive fragments, is mainly composed of a jacket and a bulletproof layer. Clothes are usually made of chemical fiber items. The bulletproof layer uses materials such as Kevlar or nylon, and some body armors also add interlayers inside to install bulletproof inserts.
Bulletproof vests first appeared on the Korean battlefield. The US military was equipped with M52 nylon bulletproof vests, which reduced the total attrition rate at that time by 15%. After the Chechnya War and the Beslan hostage incident, the Russian army made it possible for every soldier to be equipped with body armor. In the military parade on Red Square in 2014, there were phalanxes wearing body armor and training uniforms in the foot phalanx of the Russian army.