Cool Moments in History: Chinese Paper Armour

Wait what!?!? Paper armour that's not a thing right?

You're damn right it was, made by none other than the paper inventors themselves, the Chinese. Or to be more specific the Chinese of the Teng dynasty around 600AD.

Unfortunately no armour has survived to modern times, I wonder why that was. But despite it's obvious flaws in longevity it was in fact a very formidable armour and is believed to of remained in use up until the 11th century.

source

Mythbusters did it!

When I first heard of this paper armour and began to research it, amazingly enough some of the most informative material came from sites dedicated to mythbuster shows.

They built a paper suit and matched it up against a set of steel armour. They found it to be comparable to the steel armour against swords and arrows but inferior against blunt force.

They also concluded that it allowed for greater mobility and was less likely to tire the wearer out.

Here is an after show where they talk about it more.

I even found some references to it being effective against early firearms, although they did seem to be taken out of use around the same time as firearms became a staple in military affairs.

sources :

http://mandarinmansion.com/articles/Chinese%20Paper%20Armour.pdf

http://mythbusters.wikia.com/wiki/Paper_Armor_Myth

http://historum.com/war-military-history/66231-chinese-paper-armor.html

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@fiveboringgames