In most video games, movies, etc. helmets/body armor don’t appear to be very effective at all, especially helmets, with the protagonist blasting through them with ease. Is it that easy to puncture in real life? If so, why use such poor equipment?
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Armor can mean you take less damage from a hit – like, the person with no armor gets shot, goes down and bleeds out, but the person with armor gets shot, goes down but recovers later.
In a game there’s no difference between those because we rarely think about what happens after a fight. But if you, personally, were going into combat, you’d gladly wear armor that could make you the second guy instead of the first guy.
Body armor has to balance many purposes. Let’s look at modern ballistic armor, since armor has obviously changed a lot over the eras.
To stop a bullet, you need a reasonably thick sheet of metal and/or ceramic. Thick enough that covering your whole body would be well beyond too heavy to walk around. If we instead cover only the center of the body, we can have this thickness of armor without limiting mobility *too much*. It still can’t be thick enough to stop a heavy or purpose-built AP round, but it can stop a standard rifle round. This is modern ballistic body armor.
As for helmets, thirty pounds of metal sitting on your head would seriously hinder movement. You couldn’t turn your head very efficiently or balance well – that’s a huge hindrance. Instead, we use less material. It will deflect smaller bullets or glancing shots, but a direct hit will pass through. This protection is far better than nothing.
Additionally, while it can’t stop a direct hit from a bullet, it can help a lot with debris and shrapnel. Falling rocks, dirt, concrete, or steel could concuss you, and shrapnel could kill you. Helmets protect against these fates.
To talk about the trope of arrows punching through medieval plate armor -It doesn’t happen. Plate armor was effectively invulnerable to arrow fire.
Knights in plate armor were semi-invulnerable to many weapons (arrows, spears), but vulnerable to warhammers (designed to stun the armoured opponent) and specific anti-armour weapons. The normal way to kill an armored knight was to bring him to his knees and then swarm them before they could get up. Once pinned to the ground by superior numbers the helmet could be gotten off or weapons could be used at joints in the armor.
But here is a historian whose specialty covers a this subject talking about plate armor versus arrows (and swords and spears and axes).
[https://acoup.blog/2019/06/21/collections-punching-through-some-armor-myths/](https://acoup.blog/2019/06/21/collections-punching-through-some-armor-myths/)
So a knight in full plate armor could be attacked with almost any one handed weapon and be fine even with a clean head shot. Much shy of a pole arm you can’t get through the armor. That said every suit has gaps that daggers can get through. The best way to kill a heavy armored soldier is with a pole ax or a dagger once you get them to the ground. For lighter armor like chain mail slash weapons are not useful but blunt force like a mace or stabbing like spears can break through the links.
Helmets strong enough to stop a bullet completely would weigh so much that your neck would snap as soon as you turned to look at the person next to you… Helmets protect you from shrapnel, the stuff that comes off of explosions nearby. nothing can effectively protect you from everything. “Bullet proof” vests and such can stop most common bullets, but your ‘soft tissue” in your torso still absorbs some of the impact so you are severely bruised under them from the force of it. A helmet like that might stop the bullet but would still allow the force to crack your skull.
There are two parts to your question, so two parts to the answer. I’m going to be blunt for both:
> In most video games, movies, etc. helmets/body armor don’t appear to be very effective at all, especially helmets, with the protagonist blasting through them with ease.
Video games and movies are not reality. Things that happen in movies and video games are not realistic. Protagonists blast through enemy armor whenever the plot requires the protagonist to defeat the enemy. When the plot requires the enemy to win, then the protagonist will magically not be able to blast through their armor anymore.
>Is it that easy to puncture in real life? If so, why use such poor equipment?
No, it’s not that easy to puncture in real life. If it was, then no one would use the equipment. People *do* use it because it *is* effective.
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