There’s a behind the scenes battle going on between Pinnacle Armor, the Air Force, the National Institutes for Justice and the Army.
You’ll remember that a year ago the Air Force debarred Pinnacle after it found that the company had pumped up the ballistic capabilities of its SOV 2000 armor claiming it was Level III compliant when it wasn’t. This ban of Pinnacle products came on the heels of the Army’s very public outing of Dragon Skin test results conducted by Army ballistics experts and witnessed by Pinnacle president Murray Neal himself.
But after the dust cleared, the tenacious Neal waged his own battle against the debarment, filing suit and compiling evidence that he claims shows Army testers forging test result documents and intentionally painting Dragon Skin in a bad light to the Air Force.
I spoke with Neal about this at length, and while I’m skeptical that the Army is resorting to lying and forging documents, there are some things that definitely look fishy about this case.
Neal provided me with an example of a document that purportedly shows forged test results and failures of the armor that didn’t happen during tests conducted for the Air Force by H.P. White Labs. A lot of Pinnacle proponents point to a recent article by the hysterical bloggers at Soldiers for the Truth as explanation for the suspected forgeries and other skull duggery and I’ll let DT readers make their own judgment on that.
But Neal claims that when the actual shooters at HP White were cross examined during depositions, they claimed that over two days of testing they did NOT see the failures tabulated on the result summary table. I asked Neal to forward me some copies of the deposition transcripts to prove that. What he sent me didn’t seem to correlate with what he was claiming (they are too large to upload so email me if you want to see them)…prompting still more questions about what is actually going on here.
Seems to me Neal at least has some cause here for fighting the debarment. Rumor has it the Air Force/NIJ is willing to settle and reverse the ban. I’ve had difficulty with Pinnacle’s claims and chafed it the company’s absolutist claims and hyperbolic publicity stunts, but there’s a limited number of armor makers in the world and there’s no sense in keeping anyone out of the fold unless their product is totally bogus — which Dragon Skin is not.
– Christian
Go get
More whining from Pinnacle. Stopping power, multi hit, fragmentation, ballistic threats, durability, weight, fit/comfort/balance, mass production. Just because you have the best in one category does not justify your product. Dragon Skin, fails in more of these than it would win, even if it passed Gov’s durability or penetration tests. IOTV and Ceradyne have the market locked up, and one must have something much better in many categories for the DoD to change. Better doesn’t cut it.
BTW-Pinnacle is on another marketing blitz with their so called Level 5 XSAPI vests.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKnfHhRl7U0
Who knows how much that thing weighs, even if it works as advertised, which I doubt. I am quite sure Ceradyne will win the XSAPI contracts.
Seems to me that the Army does not like Pinnacle because of it’s publicity stunts and calling them out on not giving the best armor they could. We all know here there is a factor of money as well as how good a product is when it comes to replacing something but Pinnacle went public and made the army look bad. Weather or not they are playing games here (Either side) is hard to tell, but I am pretty sure that at least half the problems Pinnacle has is because they made the DOD look bad.
I think that it is likely Pinnacle ruffled some feathers and pushed until the boot came down. It’s how and why the Air Force debarred Pinnacle that is suspect. Regardless of the capabilities of the product, if the officials involved fabricated or deluded results for their own purposes or opinions then there must be some justice for Dean here. Even is it just means reversing the debarment giving soldiers the option to wear a preferred brand of certified equipment.
Such a mess.…
All I know is when it comes to military contracts it is all about the money.
The fact that we are still talking about this, years later, shows that there are companies who are acting very “Boeing” like and laying out the green paper carpet.
This happens all the time.
But this situation seems a bit different.
The money involved here is not tilting the military to chose one manufacturer over another, but to actually try and discredit a technology.
After all of the reviews, test, and articles I STILL do not know how Dragon Skin really performs or who to believe.
Considering the importance of the question, it is amazing that it still has not clearly been answered…
The DOD doesn’t discredit technology; if anything, they would gladly buy 30,000 vests for 30 million as they would 30,000 vests for 10 million.
The Pinnacle and Dragon Skin armors appear to be promising technology, but they are not ready for deployment. Armor must not only stop bullets, it must survive the packaging. Dragon Skin doesn’t.
And it is damn stupid to insult your customers which Dragon Skin DID. How happy are the DOD project managers? They are either incompetent or corrupt, if you believe Dragon Skin.
Brad is right. That is ultimately the problem. I find it absolutely impossible to have any sympathy for Murray Neal or Pinnacle. They have taken an incredibly confrontational approach to push their snake oil, and the DOD is understandably unwilling to work with these guys.
Here’s the thing, we know the Dragon Skin has problems. We know it came apart in the heat. We know it is also heavy as hell. It may or may not provide an increase in protection, but any increase is accompanied by an increase in weight.
Neal tried to publically pressure the Army into buying his crap. Now he wants us to believe the test results were forged. Lawyers call people like him “professional litigants”.
as a DoD scientist who has worked several programs, no Test Engineer would ever falsify reports those guys are the pinnacle of ‘objective’ in their research, if they say Pinnacle failed, then it failed. Neal is a dick, as someone else said, pulling a very “boeing-like” stunt to try to ram his shit down the DoD’s throat.
To sit here and say the Government never lied is “Insane” and that the best equipment has been fielded is BS. There are hundreds if not thousands of cases where our troops have gone into harms way with faulty or substandard gear. 60 minutes has done numerous stories over the years of millions and billions of dollars wasted on crap the military said it needed and it couldn’t get to work! Off the top of my head, the “Sgt York” comes to mind !!!
Any test can be “Rigged” to make a product pass or fail depending on what the tester wants the outcome to be.
In my humble opinion it came down to a the “Good Old Boy” system… Pinnacle is not in the “In Crowd” and suffered !!!
Can anyone now seriously doubt the need for independent testing to clear this up?
I believe a good officer should be prepared to lie, cheat and steal at all times. Neal, unfortunately you are up against a lot of “good” officers.
I hope you do beat the hell out of them because you make the preeminent body-armor in the world.
But do try to forgive said U.S. officers for being “good” as I have defined it — they are only doing so because they are ordered to do so.
The fear is that we’ll end up fighting insurgents or terrorists using appropriated Dragon Skin who will suddenly be virtually impervious to most coalition munitions — even multiple 50 cal. rounds to the body.
Everybody knows that our Generals, Contractors and SOCOM guys wear the DragonSkin while current misinformation suggests that this armor is subpar.
But in promoting this dynamic, the U.S. gets the best of both worlds:
1. Top protection for our command personnel and guys in the field who have little in the way of backup to call.
2. And enemy disinterest in obtaining Dragon Skin for their own use.
I know its a kick in the nuts for a company — Pinnacle — that is just trying to provide the best protection for our people in harms way.
But Neal, the psychological hardship you are enduring in this matter is a great national service. Others recognize this and your company will benefit magnficently in the years to come.
Hey Bob you should stop eating those mushrooms…
If by mushrooms you suggest I used something to cause myself to hallucinate while I was writing the aforementioned, then I’d call that some interesting speculation. Maybe, instead, what I wrote resembles how you, yourself, would start to think about the Pinnacle situation after using hallucinogenic mushrooms. In that case, I’d say keep on using — the ‘shrooms are giving you a valuable perspective.
bob you’re right, but you shall not post that. If insurgents read that and get their hands on dragon skin no one will be safe anylonger. Imagine insurgents or terrorists using appropriated Dragon Skin who will suddenly be virtually impervious to most coalition munitions — even multiple 50 cal. rounds to the body at an airport!!!
So better cooperate with good officers.