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Bomb-Proof Wallpaper Developed
MikeChino writes "Working in partnership with the US Army Corp of Engineers, Berry Plastics has rolled out a new breed of bomb-proof wallpaper. Dubbed the X-Flex Blast Protection System, the wallpaper is so effective that a single layer can keep a wrecking ball from smashing through a brick wall, and a double layer can stop blunt objects (i.e. a flying 2×4) from knocking down drywall. According to its designers, covering an entire room takes less than an hour."
If this can stop projectiles from penetrating the wall, then think about the protection it could offer from tornados and hurricanes. Obviously not a direct hit, since there'd be far more structural damage, but how much of that damage caused by flying debris could be mitigated. At the very least, the protection it could offer for occupants.
Um, you might want to check your history again. The longbow was the weapon that made plate body armor obsolete.
As for the other thing, that's the whole idea: better armor makes them develop bigger bombs. That is a back-and-forth that has been going on for centuries.
I should qualify this a bit. A major problem with mail was that arrows tended to punch through it. Especially arrows that had a long sharp point, designed to work against mail. It might not penetrate enough to be a killing shot but that's rather irrelevant in battle: the idea is to make as many of the enemy as ineffective as possible. A couple of flesh wounds can take out a combatant; it need not be an arrow through the heart.
So some groups started attaching plates to their mail in front, in order to better deflect the arrows. (And other blows: they then realized that plates tended to spread the impact of other weapons as well, minimizing injury.) Plates worked so well that a few groups got the idea that covering the whole body in plates would make the ultimate warrior. And indeed, from s defensive standpoint, plate armor withstood sword blows and thrusts and also arrows much better than any of the older stuff did.
Henceforth, the elite classes would wear plate armor, and the lower classes would use mail or leather or lesser forms of armor. But the only time when mail and plate were commonly used together (i.e., large quantities of both plate and mail), was in that earlier, intermediate period when plates were added to mail as an add-on, as it were.
This is definitely not intended as a complete history, but a brief summary and generalization. Still, the main point is that among other things, the bow and arrow drove the change from mail to plate armor, and then, with the development of the longbow, made that obsolete as well.
Amazing what can be done with some bent pieces of wood.
It's not that simple, different arrow heads were effective against different armour types, this is why sometimes chain was worn with plate.
Arrows with thin, pointed heads (bodkin arrows) were more effective against chain mail armour because they could pierce between the links and split them much more effectively than wide edged broadhead arrows could.
In contrast, bodkins weren't terribly effective against plate - not so much because of the shape, but because they were rarely hardened. Whilst hardened broadheads fired from longbows could penetrate plante they were far from the death's knell of plate, hence why the Spanish conquistadors in South America were plenty happy to use it still despite the natives being extremely skilled archers having indepently created longbows.
The real death's knell for plate was the spread of firearms, something the native people of South America did not generally have (they had looted weapons and such but not widespread) as a weapon to fight back against the conquistadors.
Even certain silk armour was popular in some parts of the world, because it didn't tear when hit by a broadhead and so the silk could be used to remove the head preventing infection from the arrow head. It would sometimes be used under chain, plate or both.
Really, it's just not as simple as longbow beats plate, the only weapon to successfully have a long reign against pretty much all types of personal body armour has been the firearm until the invention of kevlar.