Slightly different take
Hope you don't mind me jumping in - I read this and thought that it would work really nicely into my Alternative Winter War scenario - but my first cut was as slightly pre-WW2 Body Armor. How does the following scenario sound for "realism".
Lightweight Body Armor for the Maavoimat
Reported in “The Times” London (UK), 23 October 1940. In March 1940, Sotamies (Private) Arto Luhtala survived a Soviet mortar shell landing ten feet away from him. The explosion threw him into the air, but he suffered nothing more serious than badly bruised ribs. Sotamies Luhtala told this reporter at the time that “another soldier on the same patrol stopped six burp-gun slugs with his jacket. All he got out of it was a couple of bruises.” The reason they both survived without serious injury has up until now been a military secret closely guarded by the Finnish Army – lightweight body armour of an innovative design with which most Finnish soldiers fighting on the frontlines are equipped. However, now that the Winter War is over and a Peace Treaty with the Soviet Union has been signed, this closely guarded military secret can now be revealed – and the Finnish Government has approached our military with an offer to sell the design to our Army. An offer that our Government has shamefully declined, to the disgust of this Reporter who saw how effective it was during the fighting in the Winter War. One can only surmise the reasons behind our military’s decision.”
This was the only news report on the Maavoimat’s innovative Lightweight Body Armor that saw the light of day during WW2. The Maavoimat had ensured strict censorship on foreign reporters based in Finland throughout the Winter War and no reports of this useful piece of equipment emerged during the fighting. The Reporter who wrote this short piece for The Times unfortunately died in an accident in the London Underground two days after the short article appeared in The Times and nothing further was written on the subject. However, it can now, many years later, be revealed that the Suomen Maavoimat had in fact introduced with some success an innovative and effective Lightweight Body Armor that was widely used by their soldiers both in the Winter War, throught the remainder of WW2 and into the 1950’s. This story is a living example of the splendid cooperation, interchange of information, and integration of efforts on the part of the Maavoimat, the Finnish Forest Product manufacturers and Neste (the Finnish Oil Refining company which had branched out in the late 1930’s to include the manufacturing of Chemicals) in the development of a superior instrument of warfare. It is one in which we can all take a great deal of pride; members of the military, members of industry, and Finnish taxpayers alike.
It pertains to the development and use of non-metallic body armor - a highly engineered and designed combination of wood, phenolic resuns and glues developed by a team of researchers from various Finnish forest product manufacturers over the years 1936-1938. In 1935, the Maavoimat issued a secret research contract for the development of effective lightweight body armor for our Finnish soldiers. Our Forestry Industry responded to the challenge by putting together a team of our leading research and development scientists who accepted this challenge with zeal and determination. The willingness of these companies to pool their efforts into one single military program is indicative of the genuine spirit of cooperation developed between the military and industry in the years before the Winter War. After numerous experiments with various combinations of materials and processes, in May 1937, the R&D Team laminated a mixture of fibrous wood and bakelite in a special manner which provided encouraging ballistic values. After this initial success, the R&D Team was authorized to intensify its research program. It thoroughly investigated the bonding properties of all available resins together with the production of high-strength plywood and wood pulp mixtures, together with the best types of fabric weaves to provide greater strength and lamination together with fabrication processes to provide optimum results.
The end result was, by mid-1938, a wood and phenolic resin laminate of 20 different layers. The phenolic laminate was made by impregnating layers of a base material (in this case a wood pulp mix similar to but far stronger than paper) with phenolic resin and laminating the resin-saturated base material under heat and pressure. The resin was fully polymerized (cured) during this process. The phenolic laminate was then laminated with sheets of a thin wood-resin mix in multiple layers which were then pressed using 1,800 tons of heated pressure that fused everything into a super-resistant, quarter-inch-thick panel. The plates were approximately 1/4 inch thick and cut into five inch squares which were then inserted into pockets in a canvas vest that covered the front and back portions of the torso as well as the shoulders. The vest weighed approximately 8-10 pounds. The plates could be molded to fit the contours of the chest or back and the design of the vest using curved to conform with the contours of the body.
Maavoimat Body Armour – introduced on a large scale in 1939
The Maavoimat reported after extensive trials: "Although tree wood may not seem like the most impenetrable defense for soldiers, when combined with resins and glues it creates a sturdy shield against exploding mortar fragments. It will not stop direct fire from rifle or machinegun bullets, but it will protect against ricochets, slow-moving shrapnel and grenade and mortar fragments.” Such was the confidence of the Maavoimat evaluation team that in a demonstration to senior officers of the GHQ, one of the team fired a .45 caliber pistol at another member of the team wo was wearing the armor in order to demonstrate its effectiveness. As a result of the demonstrations and the evaluation reports, the Maavoimat ordered large scale production of the vests. By late 1939, enough were available to equip some 50,000 Maavoimat soldiers and with the outbreak of the Winter War, production was stepped up considerably. There was never enough body armour to equip all front-line soldiers – and many soldiers did not like wearing the armor as they felt it restricted movement too much. Overall however, the body armor saved a considerable number of lives and both the military and the participating companies of the forestry and chemical industries have been more than rewarded by the knowledge that these body-armor jackets returned many of our Maavoimat soldiers to their families who otherwise would have been listed "Killed in Combat."
