Comments on: Whose Test is the Best?

By: Amortis

Amortis — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:52:39 +0000

Here is an idea, lets take some company that has been over in the sandbox too long, rotate them stateside.
2. Have each company come in and show them how to wear the armor correctly. Have the troops put the various armors on a different set of dummies or cadavers.
3. Then give them a bunch of different weapons from explosives to small arms they would face on a way too frequent biases. Let them place the explosives where they would expect them to be based on their experience running into IEDs. Let them fire off the weapons as if they were getting shot at.
4. Have the squads take off the armor and decide what they would rather have on.
5. Submit that to the oversight group.
I have a feeling that even if they screw around and overkill the various armors it will still tell a good picture of how well they would do in real situations.

By: Charles

Charles — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:38:01 +0000

I thought the .45 also involved cadaver tests? Plenty of people donate their bodies to be cut apart by fledgling medical students, so why not for ballistic science?
It would be nice if there were a real war; one that the US might be in danger of losing so politicos might eventually stop being corrupt losers, and attrition would cleanse the officer corps of idiots.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:15:09 +0000

Let’s see what we can come up with:
COA 1: Hang up the vests and shoot at them. Examine the results, take photos, and make a recommendation… This is the most obvious approach and the one we pay the testers to do.
COA 2: Ask congressmen from the armor vest manufactoring districts to make recommendations then buy from the most influential member’s contributers… uhhh, this might be the soundest career move.
COA 3: Put the various vests on pig carcasses at the Chicago stockyards, put a pencil in the side, shoot at them with various weapons, and mark how far they are pushed… whoops, that was the method of selecting the 45 ACP; can’t do that again.
COA 4: Give the vests and $100 K to Mythbusters and buy the one that works… whoops, conflicts with COA 2 (d*mn!)
Really don’t have an answer, just lingering doubts with the Acquisition Process.
signed disgusted

By: Military Police

Military Police — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:58:59 +0000

The Army isn’t perfect but one can’t help consider some general getting favors for awarding contracts to civilian companies. Just look at the M4. How many tests does the M4 have to fail and how many people in the service have to complain about rifle malfunctions before someone gets off their @#$ and realizes it needs to be replaced? I’ll bet some general or dod person is getting rich at the expense of the great people who serve this country! I say have an outside organization perform all tests with military advisors and have that group of people decide who gets military contracts. While there isn’t a perfect process this would help.

By: Byron Skinner

Byron Skinner — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:55:13 +0000

Good Morning gsak,
No gask, I don’t trust the Army, It has been my own personal experience both in and out of uniform that military officers from Ensign/2nd. Lieutenant to Admirals and Generals will not for a moment hesitate to lie, if it serves their purpose. NCO’s are just as bad or even worse. “I will not lie, cheat, steal nor tolerate those that do.” died in the 19th. Century, if not before.
That said though gask I trust for profit private enterprise even less. On the question of body if I recall a couple of years ago an open test was held and the results of that test we inconclusive it did show serious design flaws in the then popular Dragon Skin vest.
One thing to remember about the military there is accountability built into the system. Procurement/Acquisition officers who can and have been held accountable. For a civilian company that produces and provides to the military all they must show is that the product meets the minimum contract specs, often times which the contractor himself wrote or helped write for the formal contract.
The military personal who lost their lives because of a defective product are just as dead but at least for their families with in the military system the is a chance for some type of closure.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner

By: Valcan

Valcan — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:19:28 +0000

“Gosh, I read that Saddam was a sadistic monster.
However a few year earlier he was a big time friend of the USA.“
Zandor yet again your showin your insanity.
BTW when we went into iraq in 2003 guess what we found.…New bunkers built by the germans!!! And weapons built by other european countries!!!!
You dont live in any of them either though right?
And realy get a clue i aint a yankee.
“What have the Talibs, which make up the majority of Afghans, ever done that threatened the USA?“
And yes yet again your wrong. The magority of the afghanies dont belong or even like the taliban.
Of course maybe its that i just dont drive up to little girls and throw acid in there faces for going to school.…Maybe i should do that then would you like me?
BTW wtf happened to banning people or at least removing the annoying ugh boots posts?

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:10:00 +0000

Again zandor failed history 101. The Crusades were massed by the pope to liberate Jerusalem, which was originally in Jewish control… So this is the same thing? I think your way off.
Are you upset that Solomon’s Temple is being rebuilt? Are you mad that the Jews have regained their ancient homeland just as the Torah and Bible have predicted? Leave your religious antics for something else, we can see where your point lies.
So you think the “afgans” are putting a stick in our eye? Buddy, look at our history, we have fought the Nazis of Europe, the North Vietnamese and lost 50,000 people. We have fought ourselves and lost half a million people. We fought the British, the best army in the world at that time. The list goes on and on, and what you have here compares to nothing. Whatever makes you feel better though.
Also we not only supported Hussan, we supported the Afghans in their struggle against the Soviets, and the Iranians in there struggle against Iraq, the Kuwaitis when they where over ran by Saddam…

By: Zandor

Zandor — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:48:57 +0000

Dear Ed;
No I didn’t forget that the USA has sometimes backed Muslims.
Why, from time to time shouldn’t we?
We after all back Israel 24 hours a day.
As a matter of fact it wasn’t just so very long ago that the USA was a backer of Saddam ( remember him? ) Hussein and Iraq.
That fact seems to be have been conveniently forgotten about by the super patriots, and the press that backs them up.
Gosh, I read that Saddam was a sadistic monster.
However a few year earlier he was a big time friend of the USA.
How do you spell hypocricy?
But it is easy to make the sheep in the USA forget about these inconvient things.
They are so much involved with football, and soap operas that they don’t have time to do much of anything else, other than support the blasting of innocent people, via remote controlled planes.
The USA’s government is rotten to the core, and at the same time, knowing that its days are few it is lashing out at, mass media promoted, enemies in Afghanistan.
What have the Talibs, which make up the majority of Afghans, ever done that threatened the USA?
Don’t confuse the Taliban with Al Queda. Most of the poorly informed half wits in the USA do that.
So in that way ( via mis information ) it is easier to ravage innocent countries for having done nothing other than having a different opinion about how things should work.
In the Middle Ages the idiot Christians conducted the crusades, and now the idiot Christians are doing it again.
President George Bush is quoted as saying that God speaks to him, and that God told him to attack Iraq.
If that doesn’t tell you something about the USA nothing ever will.
The USA is toast.
The USA is the most colossal bully on the planet, and thinks it has the muscle to get its way.
Fortunately the puny Afghans are sticking a fork in the eye of the arrogant Yankees.
The Afghans are practised professionals at the sticking forks in eyes therapy.
The Russians are the previous recipients of the Afghan fork treatment.
Afghanistan will prevail.
The USA will simply declare victory, and then in the dark of night leave Afghanistan.
In a hurry.

By: Ed

Ed — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:50:34 +0000

Can we at least give the military some credit here? The body armor we have now is better than the flak vests that we had been issued before. The old flak vests couldn’t even stop a round. They were basically there to prevent shrapnel wounds, thats about it. These can stop rounds coming from AKs which I guarantee has saved many families back here from having to bury a loved one.
The Army may not have the perfect solution, but they did provide A solution that while not the best protection available, does the job quite well.
As for protection levels, are we talking about protecting our soldiers from everything that can be thrown at them? That isn’t going to happen ever. The most capable protection is a tank and even those are vulnerable on the battlefield. Anything that can be seen can be killed. We need to accept that now and realize that the amount of casualties we have had in both Iraq and Afghanistan are minimal when compared to most of our past conflicts.
Our technology has improved for protecting our soldiers as has battlefield medicine in saving lives of those wounded when those protections are defeated or bypassed.
And Zandor did you also forget that we have fought on the side of muslims too? What was the religious affiliation of the majority of the Bosnians that weren’t serbs? Thats right Zandor, they were muslim! Zandor when you want to call us killers, get it right, we are Equal Opportunity killers.

By: freefallingbomb

freefallingbomb — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:52:04 +0000

“Zandor” can’t be an U.S. American: U.S. Americans NEVER choose the red pill !