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Home » Armor » USMC: Armor Gaps Prove Fatal

USMC: Armor Gaps Prove Fatal

One of the rea­sons I never got too tweaked in Iraq was my con­fi­dence in my Interceptor body armor. Now, accord­ing to the New York Times, I should have pan­icked more.
interceptor_small.jpgPiggybacking on a Soldiers for the Truth expose, the paper reports on a “Pentagon study [which] found that at least 80 per­cent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to their upper body could have sur­vived if they had extra body armor.”

That armor has been avail­able since 2003 but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to sup­ply it to troops despite calls from the field for addi­tional pro­tec­tion, accord­ing to mil­i­tary offi­cials.
The ceramic plates in vests cur­rently worn by the major­ity of mil­i­tary per­son­nel in Iraq cover only some of the chest and back. In at least 74 of the 93 fatal wounds that were ana­lyzed in the Pentagon study of marines from March 2003 through June 2005, bul­lets and shrap­nel struck the marines’ shoul­ders, sides or areas of the torso where the plates do not reach.
Thirty-​​one of the deadly wounds struck the chest or back so close to the plates that sim­ply enlarg­ing the exist­ing shields “would have had the poten­tial to alter the fatal out­come,” accord­ing to the study.

Trouble with the Interceptor armor has sur­faced before. The Marines ordered the recall of more than 5,000 of the Interceptor Outer Tactical Vests (OTVs) back in May. Another 18,000 were recalled in December, says Soldiers for the Truth.
“For more than two years [Soldiers for the Truth’s] DefenseWatch has received reports and com­plaints from Grunts in Iraq and Afghanistan that the Interceptor gear is lousy,” the group notes. “In late October DW began receiv­ing reports for war fight­ers in Iraq that the American Armed Forces Network was warn­ing its radio lis­ten­ers there that the Coalition had received intel­li­gence about insur­gents snipers that were being trained to aim at areas of vul­ner­a­bil­ity between Small Arms Protective Inserts (SAPI plates) hard com­pos­ite armor plate — where Coalition war fight­ers wear­ing Interceptor armor are par­tic­u­larly vul­ner­a­ble.“
Still, 80% of casu­al­ties? That num­ber seems awfully high. Maybe the sam­ple was off, some­how. Or maybe I’m in denial.
UPDATE 01/​08/​05 10:05 AM PST: Over on the National Security Round Table list, Phil Carter — who’s cur­rently in Iraq — echoes what guys like Nicholas Weaver and Joe Katzman have been say­ing in the com­ments.

What trou­bles me about this story (and the larger debate) is this: It assumes that we can and should put an infi­nite amount of armor on our troops, and that the trade-​​offs between armor and effectiveness/​weight/​speed/​maneuverability are ille­git­i­mate. This goes to the “force pro­tec­tion uber alles” men­tal­ity that we talked about a few months ago. And I also think it reflects a larger igno­rance about com­bat that’s preva­lent among many crit­ics and deci­sion­mak­ers. Risk is inher­ent in com­bat. We try to min­i­mize and mit­i­gate the risks to the extent prac­ti­ca­ble, but ulti­mately, we have to take risks to win.

Phil Fraering also points out this AP story:

U.S. sol­diers in the field were not all sup­port­ive of a Pentagon study that found improved body armor saves lives, with some troops argu­ing Saturday that more armor would hin­der com­bat effec­tivenes…
Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division’s 3rd Brigade “Rakkasans” are required to wear an array of pro­tec­tive cloth­ing they refer to as their “happy gear,” rang­ing from Kevlar drapes over their shoul­ders and sides, to knee pads and fire-​​resistant uni­forms.
But many sol­diers say they feel encum­bered by the weight and restricted by fab­ric that does not move as they do. They fre­quently joke as they strap on their equip­ment before a patrol, and express relief when they return and peel it off. 

UPDATE 01/​11/​06 9:51 AM: This rules. In the com­ments, a for­mer Marine sergeant writes, “During the inva­sion phase of the war, only non-​​rates were issued SAPI plates. All NCO’s and above wore only the vest into com­bat. Following orders, I col­lected all ‘unau­tho­rized read­ing mate­r­ial’ from my Marines and then redis­trib­uted it to my NCO’s to wear in their vests as extra pro­tec­tion. So, we marched into war with porn instead of SAPI plates as added pro­tec­tion.”

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January 6th, 2006 | Armor | 3020141 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2006/01/06/usmc-armor-gaps-prove-fatal/USMC%3A+Armor+Gaps+Prove+Fatal2006-01-07+02%3A41%3A30jason You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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  1. Griz says:
    January 11, 2006 at 5:11 pm

    I’m a for­mer 0311 and a cur­rent police/​SWAT offi­cer. I think the main prob­lem is the typ­i­cal prob­lem with big gov­ern­ment, they have to bid out con­tracts and usu­ally don’t get the best over­all prod­uct. Pinnacle body armour has a level III vest (SOV-​​2000) that would be the best of both worlds (protection/comfort,manuverability) for grunts but it’s 5K per vest. Its alot cheaper to stick a steel plate that can only take a few hits before it gives out, in a car­rier. I know what car­ry­ing alot of gear can do to you, but I would per­son­ally add 17–18 lbs fight­ing in cities like in Iraq.

    Reply
  2. Dan says:
    January 12, 2006 at 3:44 am

    Will wrote about the North Hollywood shoot out and the Two A-​​Holes with all of the body armor. Those guys could not move worth a damn and had the fire power to keep offi­cers away.
    As soon and The offi­cers got the rifles from B and B guns. The prob­lem was over. The Armor stopped 9mm rounds yes but how many of our ene­mies are wag­ing war w/​9mm hand­guns?
    It’s apples and oranges. I think what they have is doing a decent job. Going back to the mid­dle ages, even chil­dren learned to find the chinks in armor.

    Reply
  3. Cpl H says:
    January 12, 2006 at 4:34 am

    Sgt DeRoche is about cracked the hell out. I don’t know where he’s been, or if he’s admin or what — but good train­ing and com­mand isn’t going to save you from a Hadji sniper with a 7.62 armour pierc­ing round. Especially about the time he takes aim at your shoul­ders or your lower torso. Don’t get me wrong, being able to keep on your toes always helps. But not from some­body try­ing to lay you out 500+m away. Better armour is in order.

    Reply
  4. Kevin Winters says:
    January 12, 2006 at 6:18 am

    We could fully armor every Marine and offer them the best pro­tec­tion pos­si­ble by issu­ing each and every one their own per­sonal M1 Abrams Tank.
    I don’t mean to make light of the sit­u­a­tion and I know that it smacks of sar­casm but tak­ing exam­ples to the extremes often serves to high­light the prob­lem and make it eas­ier to under­stand. So humor me and play along for a cou­ple of min­utes. Why don’t we issue each Marine his own per­son M1 Tank?
    Mobility — There are many required func­tions you can’t per­form from inside a tank so to their jobs it will be nec­es­sary to leave the con­fines of the tank. Now apply that logic to body armor, the heav­ier and bulkier you make it the more func­tions you will be required to remove your body armor to accom­plish. So now we reach a deci­sion thresh­old, which is bet­ter, body armor that offers less pro­tec­tion that allows you to per­form all required tasks while wear­ing it or body armor that pro­vides bet­ter pro­tec­tion but some­times has to be removed to per­form cer­tain tasks at those times pro­vid­ing no pro­tec­tion?
    Weight — Just like we wouldn’t be able trans­port them if each Marine were issued his own tank, at some point (at a much lower weight than most peo­ple real­ize) body armor weight impacts our abil­ity to trans­port Marines to the bat­tle­field. The weight that can be car­ried by the Marine’s main trans­port heli­copter the CH-​​46 Sea Knight is finite. Just because you can fit some­thing onto it doesn’t mean you can lift it off the ground. These heli­copters often oper­ate near max gross weight, you add 10–15 lbs of weight to each grunts load and you have to make up that weight some­where else. Do you carry less fuel decreas­ing the dis­tance you can travel? Do you carry less ammu­ni­tion for the air­craft weapons sys­tems putting every­one aboard the air­craft at greater risk? No the real­ity is your pay­load con­tin­u­ously gets smaller, now you can carry one less grunt per load, then with the next itter­a­tion of addi­tional pro­tec­tion and more weight two less grunts, etc.
    Cost — Here is the one every­one would like to pre­tend doesn’t mat­ter or fac­tor in but the cold, hard fact is that it does. Just as it wouldn’t be cost effec­tive to issue each and every Marine a tank for per­sonal pro­tec­tion at some point it isn’t cost effec­tive to improve body armor. If we took the cur­rent tanks in the inven­tory (because we have all the tanks we can afford) and said ok we have tanks, they keep you safe so only Marines with tanks can be for­ward deployed, we have now lim­ited the num­ber of Marines we can put into bat­tle. Now lets look at our armor sys­tems and apply the tank logic. If we develop per­sonal armor sys­tems that are so expen­sive we can only afford to equip a frac­tion of our force which is bet­ter, cheaper, less effec­tive armor that I can afford to pro­vide to each and every Marine or armor that is so expen­sive that I can only equip a sin­gle rifle com­pany?
    None of this means we shouldn’t con­tinue to research, fund and develop improved armor that is lighter, stronger and allows more mobil­ity, but we also have to real­ize that every­thing at some point is a com­pro­mise and not play to politi­cians that spend their time try­ing to cre­ate issues to use against one another. Just because some other form of pro­tec­tion is avail­able that increases per­for­mance on one end of the spec­trum it doesn’t mean that it is the best solu­tion because it is prob­a­bly lack­ing in some other area of con­sid­er­a­tion. It is the job of Marine Corps Systems Command to decide which equip­ment will be pro­cured they have to find that bub­ble where pro­tec­tion, mobil­ity and cost are all given the cor­rect amount of con­sid­er­a­tion. Don’t buy into sound­bites from politi­cians. The Marines at Marine Corps Systems Command who are involved in devel­op­ing, test­ing and procur­ing equip­ment want the Marines in the field to have exactly what they need to accom­plish their mis­sion.
    Kevin Winters
    GySgt USMC (Ret.)

    Reply
  5. Total says:
    January 12, 2006 at 6:42 am

    “We could fully armor every Marine and offer them the best pro­tec­tion pos­si­ble by issu­ing each and every one their own per­sonal M1 Abrams Tank.
    I don’t mean to make light of the sit­u­a­tion and I know that it smacks of sar­casm but tak­ing exam­ples to the extremes often serves to high­light the prob­lem and make it eas­ier to under­stand. “
    And some­times tak­ing the exam­ple to extremes serves to obscure the argu­ment entirely. Would increas­ing the size of the plates to increase cov­er­age of the torso really be equiv­a­lent to giv­ing every Marine an M1 Abrams?
    Please. Unless you think that the armor is absolutely per­fect the way it is and that fight­ing in Iraq has taught us noth­ing about our equip­ment, there’s a per­fectly rea­son­able dis­cus­sion to be had about its var­i­ous com­po­nents. That dis­cus­sion has–unfortunately–not hap­pened in these comments.

    Reply
  6. Pat McGilton USMC (Ret) says:
    January 12, 2006 at 8:14 am

    As a for­mer Marine and par­ent of a cur­rent Marine I agree we need we need to improve the armor. The solu­tion is not just larger plates using the same tech­nol­ogy. Our folks need lighter armor that pro­vides the desired cov­er­age. Years ago our sci­ence advi­sor would call me evert week with a new piece of tech­nol­ogy that “Only weighed” 5 pounds. I finally asked him after 4 such gad­gets what did he want me to leave home so I could carry the load, water, ammor, food, or sleep­ing gear? Weight and over­all mobil­ity for dis­mounted infantry is critical.

    Reply
  7. Cpl CM Grinage says:
    January 12, 2006 at 9:23 am

    Better armor is the way to go but, there are bet­ter ways then using heavy duty “met­als” that weigh you down. There are alter­na­tives out there in this world that can be used that are just as effec­tive and cheaper than what our gov­ern­ment pays today. Unfortunitly our gov­ern­ment doesn’t go shop­ping like it has a wel­fare bud­get, it shops like a “cheaper Bill Gates.”” Its not the most expen­sive but its sec­ond on the list lets get it!” For an exam­ple of one of those alter­na­tives, every­one knows what corn­ing­ware is but does every­one know that dur­ing the cold war before the design for corn­ing­ware changed was used as the nose cone for nuclear weapons. Now if a dish that we use to cook mom’s favorite meal in is strong enough to with­stand the pres­sures of what a nuclear weapon goes through there is some­thing there. Not to men­tion that the heat tiles on this coun­tries beloved space shut­tles are made of the same material.….America think about it.

    Reply
  8. magnus says:
    January 12, 2006 at 9:43 am

    Check this link:
    http://​www​.hk94​.com/​h​k​/​i​n​d​e​x​.​p​h​p​?​s​=​&​a​m​p​;​s​h​o​w​t​o​p​i​c​=​1​7​9​4​4​&​a​m​p​;​v​i​e​w​=​f​i​n​d​p​o​s​t​&​a​m​p​;​p​=​1​7​1​559
    Soldier cur­rently deployed in Afghanistan says his unit has had these plates for awhile and they have opted to not even use them; they hin­der mobil­ity too much.
    Let’s not get too excited about man­u­fac­tur­ing a lot of these plates. If our men can’t move around in this stuff, and are going to refuse to wear them, it’s a waste of money.

    Reply
  9. Josh says:
    January 12, 2006 at 9:55 am

    The FLAKs need to be lighter, b/​c with all the ammo and camel­bak full of water is heavy enuff to wear when­ever we go on 24hr oper­a­tions it gets a lit­tle heavy on the shoul­ders and dur­ing the blaz­ing sum­mers over here its not too cool and when­ever the gov gets the crazy idea to add more body armor, the marines are just gonna proudly accept their “charge sheets”

    Reply
  10. Alex Chaney says:
    January 12, 2006 at 9:57 am

    It was my expe­ri­ence that many, if not most troops, didn’t use the groin pro­tecter and that some would even forego the cur­rent SAPI plates. The sol­diers don’t need more and more weight. I’ve seen the weight on the cur­rent SAPI plate listed as 4 pounds each. That must be for the small size because my XL size plates were a lot heav­ier than that.

    Reply
  11. PD says:
    January 12, 2006 at 10:36 am

    Check out body armor called “Dragon Skin” made by Pinnacle Armor Inc. Also go to defencere​view​.com for info on it. Says that it will stop an AK-​​47 round in its tracks. Secret Service uses it.

    Reply
  12. Fredrick Peterkin says:
    January 12, 2006 at 12:00 pm

    When we think of more armor we need to remem­ber the Battle of Crecy on 26 August 1346 when 20,000 to 40,000 French attacked 12,000 English.
    The heav­ily armored French knights lost between 6,000 to 20,000 slaugh­ter as they lay in the mud inca­pacated by their heavy armor.
    The English lighly armored/​no armor lost 150–1,000 KIA.

    Reply
  13. K. Phelps says:
    January 12, 2006 at 1:39 pm

    The fol­low­ing (Below my com­ments) was posted on your page and I can­not even find such a web site (defensere​view​.com). It is ‘for sale’.
    Our men and women should have the best defense and the best equipt­ment that is avail­able. We give money to every­thing else don’t we, includ­ing coun­tries that don’t even like us.>
    “Check out body armor called “Dragon Skin” made by Pinnacle Armor Inc. Also go to defencere​view​.com for info on it. Says that it will stop an AK-​​47 round in its tracks. Secret Service uses it.“
    Posted by: PD at January 12, 2006 10:36 AM

    Reply
  14. Total says:
    January 12, 2006 at 2:14 pm

    “When we think of more armor we need to remem­ber the Battle of Crecy on 26 August 1346 when 20,000 to 40,000 French attacked 12,000 English.
    The heav­ily armored French knights lost between 6,000 to 20,000 slaugh­ter as they lay in the mud inca­pacated by their heavy armor.
    The English lighly armored/​no armor lost 150–1,000 KIA.“
    The next time I am in Crecy being attacked by English long­bow­men, I will keep your com­ment in mind.

    Reply
  15. Greg says:
    January 12, 2006 at 2:58 pm

    Isnt this more of a ques­tion of hav­ing a tool at ones use rather than a debate between cost/​protection/​movement? I’ve had sev­eral friends and fam­ily meme­ber “over there” through­out my life, I’ve heard the sto­ries and as the gen­er­a­tions pro­gressed from my grand­fa­ther going to war with noth­ing but a cot­ton shirt on to my uncle serv­ing in desert storm and bosnia to two of my best friends fight­ing in Iraq there has been one fun­de­men­tal change in their sto­ries, the amount of friends they have lost. All of them site the body armor we now have avail­able as a rea­son so many have been spared. sure this means that head shots are becom­ing a more viable tar­get but it is also a much smaller tar­get area. The side plates are a bonus, IF the sol­dier has the choice to use the item or not. Patrols, and trans­port mis­sions, where mobil­ity is vital, a cer­tain degree of pro­tec­tion could be left at base, but in home searches and foot patrols, would not the option to have that extra pro­tec­tion be a bonus? Before the sol­dier had no choice because none was pro­vided. Isn’t that the whole point. I think the real prob­lem will be if the side plates are made a manda­tory regulation.

    Reply
  16. InfaMiss says:
    January 12, 2006 at 5:44 pm

    The Government doesn’t care enough about the soldiers/​Marines to pro­vide addi­tional fund­ing required to save lives.…They want to get the job done at the LEAST cost to them…if it mean risk­ing their lives “oh well..there’s more of them and they’ll just keep recruit­ing them“
    With the tech­nol­ogy we have today our Men and Women in the Military should be wear­ing fully armored suits that are next to impen­e­tra­ble.
    They exist…Our Soldier’s Lives just aren’t worth the COST in the Govn’t’s eyes.
    I mean com­mon man when are peo­ple going to wake up! I see peo­ple post­ing names of manufacturer’s on here.…you really think THE U.S. Govn’t needs advice on where to go for bet­ter armor?? LOL
    It’s the GOVERNMENT for Christ sake! They’re just cheap!
    For as much of the ‘Politically Correct’ B.S. that the Government releases per­tain­ing to ‘Condolences and Prayers for the Soldiers and Families’.…ALL mil­i­tary per­son­nel are expend­able and just there to fur­ther an agenda far beyond what they are told and TOTALLY unre­lated to FREEDOM OR DEMOCRACY. In a demo­c­ra­tic nation, the pres­i­dent is cho­sen by the peo­ple, not cheated in by fam­ily mem­bers in Florida or Ohio.
    Point is…it’s the Soldier’s that deserve the respect for lay­ing their lives on the line for what I believe are TRUE and HONORABLE inten­tions, unlike the inten­tions the Govn’t has by plac­ing them in Iraq or any other land for that mat­ter.
    The VERY LEAST the Govn’t could do is Protect their lives to the best of their abil­ity. But the Soldiers won’t even get that Respect.

    Reply
  17. robert burnett says:
    January 12, 2006 at 6:34 pm

    President Bush once said that Saddam Hussein did NOT cause 9/​11/​ So why are we talk­ing about armor when our troops shouldn’t even be in Iraq? Bush aslo said that he doesn’t think about Bin Laden to much. That issue doesn’t take much of his time, he said. Hopeless. Robert Burnett

    Reply
  18. Jeff Backus says:
    January 13, 2006 at 5:18 pm

    I love the full body armor suit comment…thats a thing of beauty. I already have to hump around 100lbs. of gear and a weapon and my own body weight…lets be bril­liant and add another 100lbs. to that. Sure, I wont die from a bul­let, but an rpg, ied, or hey lets be real, heat exhaus­tion will sure as hell get me then. Heres a thought, dont want to get shot at or shot, con­tinue whin­ing on Internet posts and…DONT JOIN THE CORPS OR THE ARMY!

    Reply
  19. kevin neale says:
    January 13, 2006 at 10:15 pm

    yea most of us dont care about the war. its our job to fight it whether we believe in it or not. its our pro­fes­sion. with the body armor your screwed if you do wear it and your screwed if you dont. the gov­ern­ment does what they do as best as they can. they ask us all the time what we need. i aint no offi­cer i aint no staff sgt. they ask we tell em. you all need to remem­ber there is no cure for a bul­let to the head. the enemy i fight isnt retarded in any­way shape or form he knows where to hit, because he stud­ies us and our equip­ment as much as we study him. theres always a con­se­quence to every action so stop com­plain­ing im tired of hear­ing it noth­ings ever per­fect
    cpl
    usmc

    Reply
  20. Craig Gleason says:
    January 14, 2006 at 7:59 am

    I work for a police depart­ment — and the ques­tion just isn’t how many cops could we save if we made the armor big­ger… it’s how many cops are saved by the armor that they have and wear. Too much armor that amounted to too much weight would become some­thing that peo­ple just didn’t want to wear.

    Reply
  21. Frank Thomas says:
    January 14, 2006 at 11:49 pm

    If you think that addi­tional body armor is the answer, take two 100 lb bags of con­crete, strap them to your chest and then put on a rain­coat and run a mile in 100+ degree heat. In com­bat, every­thing (I say again for you slow learn­ing lib­er­als and white flag Democrats), every­thing is a trade-​​off. For every thing you get you give up some­thing else. Increased safety ver­sus decreased mobil­ity, greater dis­com­fort and poten­tial life threat­en­ing heat stroke. Its know as the “Law of Retroprocity.“
    I know what I’m talk­ing about. I served as an infantry pla­toon com­man­der in Viet Nam and later a whole lot of time train­ing at Twenty Nine Palms.
    My grad­u­ate level courses in Public Administration tuaght me that there are no sim­ple solu­tions only alter­na­tives. The oper­a­tive def­i­n­i­tion for “solu­tion” is the answere to one prob­lem that in and of itself does not cre­ate any other prob­lems.
    Finally, I rather doubt that the peo­ple doing and tout­ing these stud­ies have ever deemed it nec­es­sary to put them­selves at risk to test their theories.

    Reply
  22. James says:
    January 15, 2006 at 12:18 am

    First of all the thought of more armor is nice, but hon­estly who in the hell wants to put more gear on just to have less mobil­ity and higher lev­els of fatigue? All of these lib­er­als think that we need help get­ting more effec­tive gear, and bet­ter up-​​armored vehi­cles. Why don’t they think of a bet­ter solu­tion than try­ing to keep us over there longer. This may be a war we were thrown into, but not a war we should be fight­ing. Embracing a demo­c­ra­tic soci­ety in a coun­try that believes in dic­ta­tor­ship is not only wast­ing our time and money, but it’s also cost­ing our troops there lives. Don’t get me wrong I have my fel­low marines backs any time of the day. All I can think about is com­ing home every­day I’m over there. If you haven’t been to Iraq or any mid­dle east­ern coun­try take a vaca­tion there with your fam­ily. See what we see every­day try­ing to defend your free­dom. Everybody needs to stop wor­ry­ing about them­selves and ded­i­cate some time and money to the troops that are sup­port­ing you right to be free. We don’t ask for much except some respect. When the mil­i­tary requests prob­lems to be fixed, fix them with no ques­tions asked. We’re the ones fight­ing the war not you politi­cians or civil­ians. You have no idea how to fix it because your not get­ting shot at every­day, as you live your com­fort­able lives day to day. Just shut your mouths and lis­ten to the experts when the make sug­ges­tions. We’re the ones that know this the best, because we are on the job 365 days a year 24 hours a day. Thanks for you time, and if you want to dis­cuss this email me at jameszipperer@​hotmail.​com

    Reply
  23. Eric says:
    January 17, 2006 at 4:30 pm

    Perhaps this has already been addressed but I’m not sure what we’re sup­posed to get from the 80% fatal­ity sta­tis­tic. No mat­ter what the level of body armor if we’re talk­ing about fatal­i­ties to the upper torso, if you die of such a wound isn’t there a high prob­a­bil­ity that what­ever level of armor you had it wasn’t enough and you could have sur­vived if you had more? Obviously the total num­ber of fatal­i­ties would dif­fer depend­ing on the level of body armor but it’s not clear to me that the 80% sta­tis­tic would change sig­nif­i­cantly even with an increase in body armor.
    Too the poster below re armor for the legs, being able to run in them with no loss of mobility…was this with the rest of the gear a stan­dard Marine car­ries? I wouldn’t know myself but it’s not that any par­tic­u­lar piece of armor is too heavy but 2 lbs. here, 15 lbs. there it all adds up when you also have to carry the stan­dard gear that Marines/​soldiers were expected to carry when they didn’t have any body armor at all.

    Reply
  24. CPL KENNER says:
    January 18, 2006 at 5:25 pm

    During my first deploy­ment I was issued only one sapi plate. And just my luck it was a medium. Now that would have been fine with me, but I was wear­ing a small flak jacket. And if you have ever had this prob­lem, you know that the only place you can put a MED plate in a small vest is the back. My OIC said, “at least you got one”

    Reply
  25. Bryen says:
    February 2, 2006 at 5:28 pm

    I have has issued both the new Point Blank vest and the old flack jacket and the Point Blank vest is vastly supe­riour. The fact that the DOD now issues a vest to troops that is tru­ely BULLET PROOF should not be over look. Right now our Marines and sol­diers and bet­ter pro­tected in com­bat then at any time in the his­tory of this coun­try. Ask this ques­tion, how many more would we have buried from this war with­out the Interceptor vest?
    This 80% sta­tis­tic that is being thrown around is noth­ing more then lib­eral media try­ing to start con­tro­versy over a non issue.
    Should we try to find a way to bet­ter pro­tect our troops in the future, absolutely. But lets not for­get that we should be thank­ful for the level of pro­tec­tion they have today.

    Reply
  26. George says:
    May 7, 2006 at 5:25 pm

    Covering a sol­dier in ceramic plates would not make him/​her invin­ci­ble. It would just increase the num­ber of rounds required to kill that sol­dier. (Remember, level 4 armor is designed to stop only one 30–06 steel-​​cored bul­let. Beyond that, it is use­less.) Covering some­one in ceramic plates would be even worse, since a lack of mobil­ity will make it eas­ier to deliver that sec­ond shot.) I’m sure the LeMas blended metal bul­lets will give even the newest armors (includ­ing the vehi­cle armors) a run for its money.

    Reply
  27. Abdullahi says:
    August 8, 2006 at 6:52 am

    yes,very interesting.thanks

    Reply
  28. gyrfalcon says:
    February 27, 2007 at 9:42 am

    “LeMas blended metal bul­lets…“
    Are a joke… Do some real research and you’ll find out what I mean.

    Reply
  29. SPC Holmes says:
    April 10, 2007 at 10:47 pm

    mass X veloc­ity = energy
    Let’s be real­is­tic: the way to pen­e­trate body armor is to put more energy across a smaller sur­face area. That means longer, nar­rower pointed bul­lets (read: rifle bul­lets and high veloc­ity sabots) at higher veloc­i­ties. If we’re going to start talk­ing about mate­ri­als, our goal should be a heav­ier pro­jec­tile with a harder point, because more weight car­ries energy bet­ter. Once we’ve reached the pin­na­cle of tech­nol­ogy there, it’s veloc­ity, Velocity, VELOCITY. That for­mula can defeat any armor ever made.
    As for the 80% fig­ure, that’s the media for you. If every sol­dier had 360 degrees of 3″ steel plate, they could call it 99% bet­ter. I do not believe that we should cut the media any slack because they have not been vet­ted in com­bat and they don’t know what the hell they’re talk­ing about. I demand that they should stat giv­ing com­bat vets who have com­mu­ni­ca­tions degrees a decent chance at explain­ing this com­pli­cated stuff to the masses, who don’t really care any­way.
    God, this crap frus­trates me.

    Reply
  30. Harold says:
    May 7, 2007 at 4:41 pm

    Anyone heard of Dragonskin? Well you should really look into it. I have been very excited as a marine to see this on the verge of pos­si­bly replac­ing the old armor system.

    Reply
  31. Harold says:
    May 7, 2007 at 4:42 pm

    Anyone heard of Dragonskin? Well you should really look into it. I have been very excited as a marine to see this on the verge of pos­si­bly replac­ing the old armor system.

    Reply
  32. Dick Rudlaff says:
    May 21, 2007 at 9:09 am

    I would like to speak with Pat McGilton USMC Retired. Dick Rudlaff drudlaff@​comcast.​net

    Reply
  33. freelance says:
    May 21, 2007 at 9:39 am

    gen­tle­men. per­haps some­one should get the man in charge to hop on over to delta com­mand and see if they want to share any input. their chameleon suits that refract light around oper­a­tives through satel­lite uplink would cer­tainly address the fatigue prob­lem. i’ll have to agree with cpl H that no amount of train­ing or exper­tise or years of expe­ri­ence can pre­pare you for an unex­pected attack in an unex­pected place. only esp or body armor can do that.…

    Reply
  34. Polymorphious says:
    June 11, 2007 at 3:43 pm

    Paint some teflon on the tips of the rifle shells and watch how eas­ily they cut through syn­thetic body armour. A lit­tle space age lube goes a long way.
    Most Teflon paint requires heat to fully bake out and cure. It will still dry on the sur­face (tip) of the Full Metal Jacket. Once dry it will feed into the gun. Once fired it will cure the teflon paint and rip right through those syn­thetic poly­mers and espe­cially Kevlar fab­rics.
    Dragon Armour meets the Dragon Speer Cartridge.
    How about a syn­thetic Carbon graphite and Kevlar com­pos­ite suit made rigid with high impact epoxy resins? Honey comb lay­ers would give a thicker armour plate with­out lots of weight. The honey combs will also absorb some of the impact force as well. The same tech­nigue is applied in the aero­space indus­try with aeroframes and wing pan­els.
    We have cre­ated plates that are extrememly light weight and bul­let proof to most small cal­iber rifles (5.56 to 7.62x51mm).
    The Dragon Armour also does not pro­tect the armpits. Any sol­dier enter­ing a room and find­ing him­self shot from the side may find that bul­let trav­el­ing through the armpit, or down the arm into the chest cavity.

    Reply
  35. K says:
    September 10, 2007 at 3:15 pm

    First, Teflon has no effect at all on armor, the old KTW rounds (read as

    Reply
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    December 20, 2007 at 1:57 am

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    rosie@​triad2​9​.​com
    rosieponder@​verizon.​net
    Not only do they try to rip you off, they send your email out and you get a ton of junk mail.

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