If you were hoping that shear thickening fluids, carbon nanotubes and lightweight flexible armor was just around the corner, you’ll need to put those hopes on hold and keep reading your sci-fi books.
Despite the US and allied militaries’ best efforts to lighten one of the biggest culprits of a trooper’s heavy load, armor manufacturers are having a hard time making quantum leaps in increased protection and weight savings.
I spoke with reps from First Choice armor on the floor of SHOT Show in Vegas last week and they described how they’d cracked the nut of shaving some ounces while keeping bullet-stopping ballistic performance by tweaking materials and weaves and developing some hybrids.
First Choice’s new Level IIIA vest comes in just under the one pound per square foot gold standard for protection — at .93 pounds per ft2. They also showed me a pretty sweet 10“x12” Level III+ plate that weighs just 3.8 lbs using what they termed a “unidirectional-ceramic hybrid” — which basically means a boron carbide/spectra-dyneema sandwich.
Basically the rep told me the industry is still struggling with requirements for continuously more resistant armor with no weight penalty. The reality of today’s material science means companies like First Choice get requests from the military that say “I want armor that can stop this exotic round and weigh less than current vests…” a near impossible feat.
I asked the ballistics expert about the fetish with “flexible” armor solutions and he said his company spent some money and about a year looking into it, but they found no easy way around the weight problems and coverage gaps that scaled systems present.
“We gave up on the effort for now,” he said.
Perhaps that’s why only one company,Pinnacle, played in the Army’s F-SAPI search last year. No one else could make a solution that didn’t weigh a ton (or cost a fortune, as Alan Bain admitted to us).
Sor for now, it looks like the military is going to have to shave armor weight at the margins — that is until science can find ways to manufacture nanostructures in quantities and costs that enable a Level IV vest at t-shirt weights.
– Christian
{ 34 comments… read them below or add one }
…but weighing a ton isn't a problem when you have a HULC or other exoskeleton…
How about this Dragon Armor? This look promising
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYaSRIbPWkM
Have you been living in a cave for the last five or so years?
I met have…I got out of the Marines in 2004. Didn't know it was banned till now
Yea there were alot of problems with it.
Just a couple were that the wax used to seal the disk in place would melt in alot of heat and that the protection was compromised at vertain angles.
Dragon armor is banned in the military Im pretty sure. When U.S. Army tested it, they got bad results or something. http://defensetech.org/2009/10/27/it-was-dragon-s…
no that is not true. politics got in the way. the maker of the suramic plate armor that they are using is a X marine and so the gov. wants to support him even though there is a better product.
Science is a funny thing. What's not possible today might become possible tomorrow with nothing but a simple idea.
Thank you Dave perhaps you are right HMMMM? —Old saying and that BULLET .3006 M2 or .308 150 gr. pretty old as well….More things change the more they stay the same…meaning there is new idea in an old design–and "it works" ….!
I could sure use that Level IV t-shirt at the end of the article. There are small kids living in my house.
Try cotton spider web material for an armor. It is harder than steel when wet and dried to reach its maximum hardness. It can formed as body suit and can be designed as an armor. It is light and a strong material.
Yeah, it looks like the military is having a hard time justifying recruiting spiders. Uniform modifications have been a concern but mostly benefits packages for 3000 kids have really been holding things up.
In some part of asian country you'll never believe they already have cultured caterpillars cocoon to make a t-shirt. So whats stoping us now to culture spiders for spider webs for our soldiers armor to save their lives?
Besides Germany among others loves spiders for their exotic cuisines.
calling Troy Hurtubise… :P
I figure in 5 to 10 years well see a big leap in the ability to construct carbon nanotubes and such. Alot of progress has been made in materials that are good for armor and construction material in the last 10 years.
dragon armor isn't banned…. it's was specops are using…..
It would only be banned if we put "Bible Verses" on them :^)
Dude, I'm not sure I want to meet the spider that can spin a web big enough to encapsulate me…….
Damn, I hate them sp[iders!
I suppose anything made out of titanium would be outrageously expensive – it is very light and very strong for it's weight but these properties make it hell to machine, and therein lies the cost.
I heard that one guy who made the bear suit is still tryin' to make a lighter suit for military purposes. I know it's old news, but after hearing the capabilities of the suit he built, I think the new suit would be the quantum leap we're looking for.
I think we all need to remember that a lot of these far out ideas are just that… ideas. There's a big big difference between saying "hey, I think XYZ might work" and then making it actually work.
Some of this stuff will never come to pass. It's really no different than looking at a Popular Science magazine from the 50s that shows people flying around with jetpacks. That's not to say that it isn't interesting, but we need to keep it all in perspective.
One problem with what you say…we do have jetbacks now (I saw some on the news, and while they are quite expensive [$100K] and bulky, you can buy them).
http://www.martinjetpack.com/
here is something how about asking soldiers who have fought the enemy and i don't mean sat in a fob and "Fought" the enemy i mean the no BS Infantry and have them pick what they want. heres what it would be since I am infantry PLATE CARRIERS, and the helmet ODA wear not the mitch the plastic one I get the helmet is supposed to save your life if you trip and get a boo boo, but I doesn't stop any bullets except 22LR or smaller and the enemy shoots way bigger rounds so that my two cents
Why wear the stuff to begin with. Its fine if you ride around in a vehicle. Taking 30% heat casulties getting to the engagement is no different than loosing 30% to enemy fire. With entry operations, it makes sense. Humping to objectives in 100+ wet bulb is a result of Ranger mentality. There needs to be a risk assesment done every mission, and the option of leaving the body armor behind needs to be an option. Just because a mission similiar to the present one was done in full body armor, doesnt mean it was the right thing to do. Leaders routinely fail to consider that the one time it was done successfully was in 70 degree weather. Mobility and the ability to sustain operations once the hump is over is often overlooked in training. The fall back to having the armor on is not always the right answer. It would be nice to ge the stuff lighter, however then some procurement gut will come up with some other light weight widgit that will replace the weight. Light infantry needs to remember that its the "Light" that enables them to perform beyond what the every day soldier can. 250 pounds of light weight gee wiz stuff does not make for a mobile fighting force.
At this stage of the game frankly keeping the soldiers alive is a whole lot higher priority than anything that can allegedely be achieved in Afghanistan, i.e. nothing that utilizes infantry assault. And Iraq is over.
Interesting that the areticle completely ignores the Hardwire.
Weight is always going to be a problem. Always. Current body armor weighs, what, 30 – 35 lbs? And soldiers have proven able to carry it and function with it. If they come up with a new gee-whiz armor composite that offers better protection, you know how much it is going to weigh? I do. 30 – 35 lbs. Because soldiers have proven able to carry that and function with it. They'll carry the same amount of weight, they'll just get better protection with it. It's the same with other equipment. As stuff gets lighter, the soldier will carry more.
Eh?
The article contradicts itself at the end. The artcile should state: the technology for light and flexible armour DOES exist; but it "cost[s] a fortune".
Jon, my understanding is that the actual construction of carbon nanotubes and nanofibers that could be used for armor in general, are next to impossible to manufacture in the amounts needed to construct a ballistic vest. Literally the technology isn't there.
So, we have the materials, but we don't have the manufacturing technology.
The problem is carbon nanotubes, graphene and all those stuff cost a fortune ;)
We only need 5 per platoon to test its capability. And save lives in the future.
Why bother with expensive advanced materials when we have spongy steel?
http://gizmodo.com/5460643/spongy-steel-wont-soak…