Abstract: A ballistic helmet body made up of a plurality of plies formed from flat hexagonal blanks of ballistic fabric. Before being formed to the shape of the helmet body each blank is slit along lines extending from spaced points around the periphery thereof toward the center to form a generally circular central area and a plurality of contiguous segments extending outwardly from the central area. When the blanks are formed to the shape of the helmet body, adjacent segments overlap over first portions to leave second portions which do not overlap. As successive plies are laid up they are relatively oriented so that second portions of one ply are covered by first portions of another ply.

Abstract: A method of making a ballistic helmet and a helmet made by the method in which each of the plies making up the body is formed from a hexagonal blank cut from ballistic cloth and provided with slits extending from the apices thereof toward the center to form a central area and segments extending from the central area. As the blanks are laid up in a mold cavity the segments overlap to provide first portions which overlap and second portions which do not. As successive blanks are laid up they are rotated slightly to stagger the portions of adjacent plies. As the laying up operation proceeds, progressively smaller blanks are laid up between adjacent relatively larger blanks.