BULLET-PROOF SHIRT.

Hastings Standard, Volume XII, Issue 5846, 9 May 1908, Page 3 (Supplement)

BULLET-PROOF SHIRT.

Russian Invention That Foils Anarchists Some additional experiments hare just been made at St. Petersburg with a bullet-proof alloy, the invention of an officev of Engineers, LieutenantColonel Tchemerzine, of the Russian Army. Mauser bullets, which, when fired almost point-blank, pierced a target composed of eight thicknesses or ordinary one-millimetre (l-2oin.) steel, merely flattened themselves in mushroom shape against the scales of metal half a millimetre thick arranged by Colonel Tchemerzine in a silken fabric. The clothsilk there was no ing intended for military use also proved impermeable both to rifle and revolver bullets, and as the projectiles remained embedded in the silk there was no ricochetting or splintering. Colonel Tchemarzine has explained that the fundamental idea of his invention is" the closing of the pores of chromo-niekel steel/' He succeeded in accomplishing this operation by means of great hydraulic pressure at a very high temperature. Among the metals used in the process are platinum, silver, iridium, and vanadium. The result of filling the pores is to obtain a substance both harder and more ductile than steel, and with three and a half times greater power of resistance. A cuirass made of the alloy and of sufficient size to protect the chest and back weighs only oil)., and its presence cannot be detected when worn under ordinary clothing. The military authorities sent several thousands of Colonel Teh ormerzi lie's cuirasses, helmets, and shields to Manchuria towards the close of the Russo-Japanese war, but they arrived tco la to to bo of service to the troops.

The- cuirasses are now being largely employed by the police in various parts of Russia, when invading the haunts of military revolutionaries.