Very interesting. I have been rolling around the idea of incorporating the Kevlar vest I have laying around into a gambeson or linothorax for a couple of years. It would be hot compared to an all linen gambeson, but the kevlar would only be in the chest and back area, so it may not be too bad. I have tried to penetrate the kevlar with knives without much success. Just for the fun of it, I may do some experimenting to see what it takes to defeat a kevlar vest with an edged weapon.

My former fencing group found a bunch of korean-war era flak jackets in a dump recently. They said with a little modification (I think they pulled out the shoulder pads?), the jackets serve decently well as sparring jackets for their steel bouts using hanwei 'federschwert' swords.

Another one got wrapped around a heavy kicking bag to pad it for use as a pell.

It took me some time to find it, this is from 6 years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul5YggVw5hs


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul5YggVw5hs