Vulnerable to firearms, exposed to swarms of bullets and shrapnel, threatened by suffocating gases, traceable by aerial reconnaissance, the soldiers of the Great War found themselves defenseless. In the early months of the war, their only shelter was the trench: a long ditch dug in the ground, reinforced inside with stone walls or containment nets, elevated with sandbags and metal shields. When a soldier left the trench, they abandoned all protection; the same trenches lost much of their effectiveness when they were bombarded. If in 1914 the French cavalry used steel armor, infantrymen once exposed had to seek shelter in the irregularities of the terrain or in craters caused by explosions and run towards the enemy trench to occupy it, avoiding being caught in the firing sector of machine guns and artillery. Educated by the vulnerability of infantry in the Russo-Japanese War and the Balkan Wars, various countries experimented with mobile shields equipped with loopholes and armor that recalled ancient models, with which infantrymen could approach the enemy. In Italy, for example, various models were adopted including the French Degré. In Italy, several thousand steel armors were produced. The most famous were Farina armors, equipped with chest, shoulder covers, helmet, sometimes a tasset. Corsi armors also gained some popularity, consisting of overlapping plates that protected the chest and abdomen. The armors were distributed to soldiers who had to leave the trench to cut through barbed wire barriers or place explosive tubes; a generalized adoption was not decided because the armors did not protect against direct fire from individual firearms and machine guns, and also due to their weight that slowed down soldiers' movements during attacks. Attempts were also made to protect personnel aboard aircraft but with limited success in this case as well.