During World War II, whether soldiers were able to block bullets with soaked cotton duvets was a hotly debated topic. In that era of relatively backward technology, people managed to use the resources around them, even if only to try to slightly slow down the power of bullets, which was what soldiers could do at that time. At that time, body armor was not yet widespread, and soldiers hit by bullets on the battlefield faced extremely high mortality rates, which forced people to try various ways to improve their chances of survival.
In this case, some French soldiers came up with a seemingly unreliable but remarkable method: they tried to use soaked quilts as a kind of protection. The idea of this method seems simple: a soaked quilt shrinks, increasing density, which slows down the bullet and makes it impossible for the bullet to penetrate deeply. The state of technology at the time limited their search for better solutions, and this seemingly ridiculous attempt became important.
However, this approach is not without reason. Experiments have shown that when wrapping an object that simulates a human body with a soaked quilt, the penetration depth of the bullet is relatively shallow, and completely different without any armor. Experts explain that after the wet quilt shrinks, the connections between the cotton are tighter, and this tightness plays a certain deceleration effect, although it cannot completely block the bullet, but it greatly reduces the degree of injury.
However, this approach also has significant drawbacks. First of all, the soaked quilt is large, which has a great impact on the speed of movement of soldiers. In an emergency, this method can become a burden, affecting the mobility of the soldier. Secondly, despite slowing down the bullets, the safety of the soldiers could not be guaranteed. The effectiveness of this method is relatively limited and far from comparable to modern body armor.
In general, this attempt to fend off bullets with a soaked quilt, while justified, was not practical in real combat. With the advancement of science and technology, modern fighters have more advanced and efficient protective equipment, which provides strong support for them to perform tasks more safely on the battlefield.