In 1897 the French Canon de 75 modèle 1897 appeared. This gun is considered to be the first "real" modern piece of artillery and was capable of firing shrapnel, as well as high explosive bullets. Yet it took another 18 year till the first Steel helmets hit the field.
Why did it take so long to come up with a way of protecting the heads of the soldiers from artillery fragments? Was there simply no need for said way of protection before WW1?
Shrapnel, by itself, doesn't do a lot to encourage helmets. Firstly, shrapnel bullets come in more horizontally than vertically:
and for troops in the open, most hits will be on the body. Secondly, shrapnel bullets, at typical battle ranges, will be moving at over 300 m/s (1000 feet/s), and will have a very good chance of penetrating a typical WW1 steel helmet (which could stop a pistol bullet at 600 feet/s, with about 250J of energy, while a shrapnel bullet would typically have over 500J of energy). Shrapnel could be fired on a higher trajectory, for a more vertical pattern, but drag would slow the shell down and thus the shrapnel bullets would be slower (and could be stopped by a helmet).
Trenches provide excellent protection against shrapnel (again, it comes in more horizontally than vertically). Trench warfare drove a shift to much more use of high explosive shells, which damage through blast and/or fragments (shell splinters). Trench warfare also meant that heads were relatively more exposed, compared to the body. Helmets which would stop fragments/splinters, even if they didn't stop rifle bullets or shrapnel bullets, were useful.
How well did helmets work? In WW2, they appear to have reduced the number of wounds by about 10% (stopping about half the hits on the helmet from causing wounds). See https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/btlnvf/were_helmets_that_soldiers_wore_effective_during/ for more details on this. Without widespread use of digging in for cover, the effect would have been less.
Hey there,
Just to let you know, your question is fine, and we're letting it stand. However, you should be aware that questions framed as 'Why didn't X do Y' relatively often don't get an answer that meets our standards (in our experience as moderators). There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it often can be difficult to prove the counterfactual: historians know much more about what happened than what might have happened. Secondly, 'why didn't X do Y' questions are sometimes phrased in an ahistorical way. It's worth remembering that people in the past couldn't see into the future, and they generally didn't have all the information we now have about their situations; things that look obvious now didn't necessarily look that way at the time.
If you end up not getting a response after a day or two, consider asking a new question focusing instead on why what happened did happen (rather than why what didn't happen didn't happen) - this kind of question is more likely to get a response in our experience. Hope this helps!
