Eli5 why aren’t ballistic masks more common in warfare?

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You very rarely see depictions of soldiers wearing bullet resistant face masks. I understand that these only protect from small caliber weapons but wouldn’t you take all the protection you could get?

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When firing a rifle you put your cheek on the stock in order to see along the sights and get a good stable sight picture. But a ballistic mask would get in the way of this. And you need very good visibility so you can see movements around you and so that your friends can see your eyes for communications. Also when running around it is important to be able to breathe well so you need big openings in front of your nose. Others around you also need to hear you when you scream orders so the mouth needs to be clear as well. And the helmet covers your head down to the eyebrows so you can not have other things interfering with it. And the mask is heavy and uncomfortable for use over long periods of time. Essentially the ballistic mask is not practical for soldiers on the front lines.

The protection you get from them is also extremely limited. I am not sure what you define by small caliber weapon but the smallest pistol you can find on a battlefield will mess up someone wearing a ballistic mask pretty bad, either going through the mask directly or create so much spalling on the inside that it may as well have gone through. Even most artillery shrapnel will go through the masks currently in sale. For practical uses the armor needs to be something like 10-15mm thick which is basically too much to hang on your face. You would be pretty useless in most positions on the battlefield. Ballistic masks works much better at paintball or softgun then in a real war.

It is possible for them to have some limited uses though. If we go back to WWI, which is probably the most comparable combat to the current Ukraine war, then Germany did develop quite extensive armors for special uses. This did include a brow plate which reinforced the front part of the helmet and made it close to bullet proof. Even though it did not protect the face it did protect more vital parts of the body. It was primarily used by machine gunners, snipers and observers. These were the ones who would often stick their head above the trenches so their head would be visible down to their eyes. The extra protection meant they were protected from incoming direct fire from the other trench. However it was not continued into WWII or adopted by other armies, they used armor shields and sand bags instead which soldiers in static positions could hide behind.

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