The laminate armguard was AFAIK used by front-rankers in Dacia to help cut down on the rate of amputations... I'd imagine the Eastern legions would have been fond of scale cuirasses instead of mail, as it works better against arrows (which were something of an ubiquitous hazard in the region).

As for World War casualties, yeah well. At least French and English units were normally regionally based, which had the aforementioned benefits RE "knit" and general sense of togetherness but also the flipside that heavy combat casualties could have disproportionate effects on the demographics of smaller locales. There aren't too many towns in either country that didn't have their war dead remembered in a monument or few, I think...