Hector comes in a close third after Achilles in the contest for the coolest armor of the Trojan War.
Okay ... Achilles was the coolest soldier in either army so you have to have something extra special to even be mentioned in the same sentence with Achilles ... in The Iliad, most of the men who were mentioned in the same sentence as Achilles were either dead or getting ready to die ... that’s just the kind of guy that Achilles was.
When Achilles refused to fight the Trojans, his companion Patroklos put on Achilles’ armor and charged into the fight ... the Trojans and the Achaean Greeks all saw Achilles’ armor and assumed that Achilles was inside it ... the Trojans started to retreat and the Achaean Greeks pushed forward ... as Patroklos got closer to the walls of Troy, he became overbold and really ticked off the god Apollon.
Apollon didn’t like Achilles very much and he liked Patroklos even less ... Apollon knocked Patroklos from his chariot and Hector stepped up to deliver the killing blow ... Hector took Achilles’ armor from Patroklos body and put it on ... it really didn’t fit Hector too well because Achilles was a giant of a man and Hector was only an XL ... Zeus reached down and fitted Achilles’ armor to Hector’s body.
Hector looked great and very cool but Achilles had some new divinely-made armor and looked much cooler ... Hector was wearing Achilles’ old armor when Achilles came to get it back ... Hector knew that if he fought Achilles and won, he would get Achilles’ new armor too ... that would have been double-cool ... the two men squared off but Hector didn’t do too well ... he died in Achilles’ armor ... only three people can claim to have died in Achilles’ armor ... Achilles of course, his best friend Patroklos and his worst enemy, Hector.
There’s no question as to whether Hector had cool armor but it was only the third coolest armor at Troy.