Just curious about the development and evolution of body armor... I remember that older vests had "trauma plates" that fit in small pockets of some vests and covered the heart but was Ranger Body Armor the first type to consist of a carrier with chest-sized plates?  Was that the birth of the dedicated plate carrier?  Or something else?

Modern body armor vests with hard plates have been around a long time.

I think one of the first modern plate carriers may have been Diamondback Tactical's.

I saw them in haji shops back in 2004, i thought they looked cool but too small. I never saw them until then....we were just going from flaks to OTVs

I have one. Still a great carrier.  People hem and haw about what's best, but there are so many good PC's on the market these days.

Interceptor?

In my limited knowledge I'm going to go with this.

If I had to make a SWAG, I'd guess at some point in the mid to late 90s a Special Operator went to LBT or somewhere and asked for a stripped down vest for just an armor plate, and thus the 'plate carrier' was born

IIRC, the "Chicken plate carrier" was one of the earliest carriers with semi-modern ballistic plates.  Used for helicopter aircrews.

I remember someone posting some pics of a vietnam era type plate carrier. It was actually pretty cool. I'd like to see that again.

Variable Body Armor system. Ballistic nylon base vest similar to the main issued one of the time with an external 30cal rated plate carrier system (I think rated to stop 308 not sure of the velocity). Not the first as the aircrew chicken plates came before though. The variable body armor system was the first for US (and maybe all western) troops and one of the first to incorporate ceramic (I want to say the early aircrew chicken plates were steel, not sure). The plate was funny shaped though and exceptionally heavy for its protection level though. By the weight standards of the day though for personal gear it was seen as way too hevy to be of much use. Still a cool system though. They come up for sale from time to time.

Chicken plate - Vn era then maybe the Ranger Body Armor with plate outside of the many Police models with trauma inserts. Of course you could count the steel plate armor or WWI or the Korean War era USMC plate armor.

That is still the norm for concealable body armor, FYI.