This weekend seems to be body armor weekend, and Ned Kelly's armor comes to mind. Ned Kelly was declared an outlaw after a confrontation at his home with the Australian Victoria Police, and having dispatched 3 of them was off into the bush. The police caught up to him and his buddies at Glenrowan in 1880 and shot it out, not knowing Kelly and his gang were armored up.
Ned Kelly's father was from Ireland and after getting tangled up in some legal trouble got sent to prison in Tanzania. Ned was born around Melbourne and was in trouble continuously. The police didn't have much patience for his antics either, and he was in and out of jail often. In 1878, he was suspected of an attack on a constable, and the police went in search of him, and found him in the hills outside Melbourne. In a confrontation, three of the police went to their reward. Ned and his buddies were declared outlaws, and in Australia that meant anyone can shoot to kill them, and a trial wasn't necessary.
With that declaration, Ned and his gang really did become outlaws and started robbing banks. While taking hostages during the heists, Ned and his gang usually entertained them and let them go, and also burned any mortgage documents he found, such that he became a folk hero. The final confrontation was at the Glenrowan inn, where police surrounded the gang.
All four gang members were suited up in homemade armor that easily deflected the low velocity black powder rounds fired at them. There were lots of speculation on who made the armor, but now it appears it was made by the gang members themselves in a makeshift bush forge using plough mouldboards. Tests on the plates show heating of the metal was uneven and of a low temperature. They probably beat the plates flat over a log and sewed the pieces together. In the end it didn't help, as the armor didn't cover their legs and other areas, and 3 of the gang were shot and killed in the hotel, while Kelly was shot in the legs and brought down, and later hanged.
