In Action: Winchester 1897 Riot Gun
The interesting Associated Press photograph above shows a Detroit police officer firing a 20-inch barrelled Winchester 1897 Riot Gun at someone wearing unusual protective armour. It certainly looks like something out of 1950s sci-fi film. The officer appears to put several shots into the armour at relatively close range.
The armour appears to enclose the wearer with leg armour included but the wearer’s arms appear to be inside the main body. The photograph dates from April 1958, but few other details are available. The body armour’s design is attributed to an inventor, Harvey S. Freeman, it isn’t clear if Freeman is one of the men examining the armour in the second photograph. Sadly I haven’t been able to find any further information on Freeman or a patent for his armour.
However, I did find the design mentioned in an edition of Mechanix Illustrated magazine which describes the armour as a “60 lb plastic shell” with “headlights for night cops”. A September 1958 edition of Popular Mechanics also features Freeman’s design. It not only notes that Freeman was wearing his armour during the shotgun test, noting “I hardly felt a thing” but it also describes the make-up of the armour in more detail: “He perfected the armor from an alloy of plastic and fiber glass.” The article concludes by noting that Freeman called his invention the ‘Armadillo’.
Incidentally, while searching for more information about Freeman’s armour I came across another article from a 1956 edition of Mechanix Illustrated which shows a similar but slightly different version of body armour tested by Detroit Police. The photograph accompanying the armour shows the rear of the armour as well as a wheeled armoured shield. This may be an earlier iteration of Freeman’s design as no inventor is mentioned, it does have a similar set of vision slits, a headlamp and a similar shape.
Sources:
Images: 1 2 3
‘Flatfoot Version’, Mechanix Illustrated, Sept. 1956, (source)
Freeman’s Armour in Mechanix Illustrated, 1958 (source)
‘Armor of Plastic and Glass Fiber Protects Man From Bullets’, Popular Mechanics, Sept. 1958, (source)
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