The Grabenpanzer, or Sappenpanzer (trench armor), also called lobster armor, was a German-made steel fist used as personal body armor during the “Great War.”
The Grabenpanzer consists of four pieces of articulated steel: a large chest plate and three other plates that cover the user's abdomen and groin. The different plates were connected with canvas straps.
Each plate also had a thick felt block inside to silence the sound of steel plates hitting. The armor divided into separate parts allowed the user to be more flexible.
The Grabenpanzer weighed between 9 and 11 kg depending on the model and was generally combined with a thick steel front plate for the user’s Stahlhelm (helmet), which added even more weight to the soldier.
For this very reason, the Grabenpanzer was not produced for assault troops, but for machine gun teams and soldiers in sentimental service, operating in static positions, where they were highly exposed and unprotected against an enemy rifleman. This also explains why there was no protection for the user's back, as an machine gun was expected to be facing the enemy at all times.
The thickness of the Grabenpanzer varied by size and manufacturer, but the plates were usually 3.25 mm thick. The armor would have blocked a machine gun or a pistol bullet, but a rifle bullet less than 250 meters would have penetrated it.
However, the Germans ordered 500,000 Grabenpanzer for their troops on the Western Front, although the actual amount of units produced was probably much smaller. The armor began being delivered to machine gun crews in March 1916 and was used throughout the remainder of WWI

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