Hello, dear Forum users! As you know, I recently found a memoir where it was said about the body armor of a German soldier. It’s a very good theme to add more content to the game. I would like to draw your attention to this - adding to the game is always a positive thing. At the same time, I would like to tell you about the various types of body armor in the Red Army.
Obverse and reverse sides of SN-39 (3.7 mm) from the collection of VIMAIV and VS. There is a “bullet sample” mark on the upper section. The riveting of the suspension loops of the “groin” section was performed “on the knee”, which led to a mismatch of the profiles of the sections
But the “heavy” version with an armor panel thickness of 3.7 mm, which received the abbreviated name SN-39, was probably made in an amount of about 200 pieces. Some of them were used up during the tests. Structurally, the SN-39, like all subsequent models, consisted of two vertically arranged sections-armored panels made of hot-rolled sheets of silicon-manganese-nickel steel 36CGNA. The upper (chest) armor panel was shaped according to the shape of the chest and had a shoulder pad riveted with four rivets (made of ordinary structural steel) with a slot for a shoulder canvas belt on the left side (from the shooter).
The front (upper image) and back sides of the SN-39 (3.7 mm) armored panels, found by search engines in the area of the concentration of 3 bat. 355 sp 100 SD before the offensive in the vicinity of D.The amount. The armored components have obvious traces of a “military bullet sample” – they were fired from both the front and back sides, at close range.
The 150 SN-39 breastplates remaining after the tests were sent for military trials to the active 7th Army, more than ever, by the way, at the height of the Soviet-Finnish War during the preparation of a decisive assault on the main defensive strip of the Mannerheim Line.
A captured fighter in an upgraded SN-40A without a right shoulder strap, the hook loop of which is attached from the inside (two rivets at the upper left (in the photo) edge of the chest section. Both sections have traces of the factory “bullet sample”
NII-13 took into account the wishes of the troops, increasing the thickness of the armor by 0.5 mm (up to 4.2 mm with a tolerance of +0.3 mm), practically without changing the design of the breastplate. The next prototype of the breastplate received the abbreviated name SN-40.
More body armor types will be in a next suggestions.
