Posted on 10/04/2016 5:58:16 AM PDT by w1n1
Will the military grade ballistic plate stop these rounds? Watch as Jerry Miculek pits an AR-10 .30 cal against body armor with some high-volume rapid fire. Jerry is trying to duplicate what Richard Ryan of Full Mag did, and that is he fired a .30 cal machine gun at a piece of armor. Jerry will be using the same cal with an AR-10 with the standard NATO 7.62 ball 147 grain rounds.
There it is, the plates were able to absorb the hits against it, round after round. There is a reason modern light infantry and combat soldiers wear integrated soft-body armor and plates. It allows troops to absorb unbelievable strikes and survive. Fifty years ago, no soldier would have survived this many direct hits to the chest and vitals; today’s warrior can survive and even get back into the fight.
The downside in the last twenty years is the weight a combat soldier has had to carry; the body armor alone could weigh up to 20 pounds. Add this to weapons, magazines, grenades, med kit, water, small-pack and the average grunt could be humping 77 pounds or more. An energy sapping load, especially in the heat of Iraq or Afghanistan. Thank goodness technology advances and body armor is weighing less and less; which is a good thing if you are the ground-pounder. See it in action here.
mithriel?
In the meantime, your ribcage has been turned to jelly.
But he died with his vest on.
Not if the rounds hit the plate armor.
While on Hill 55 SW of DaNang, we had a Marine in our Company who took a sniper round in the back while wearing the old ballistic nylon & ceramic plate flak jacket. The hit was just above the plates and the nose of the bullet penetrated the ballistic nylon layers. He ended up with a bruise and a pimple sized puncture wound. I’m not sure if he even qualified for a Purple Heart!
BTW, that sniper may have been one that Carlos Hathcock took out.
What range was the sniper and what caliber?
“I’m not sure if he even qualified for a Purple Heart!”
Kerry got Purple Hearts for much less.
Yep.. plates are intact but your heads full of holes.
During the Panama action (I believe), a corpsman I knew was shot multiple times in the back with 7.62x39. He was wearing two civilian vests under his flak jacket and the bullets were stopped by the Kevlar. He managed to pull several Marines from a burning AMTRAC while he was getting shot.
He got no award, and was told that he was just doing his job. The young LT that managed to get his vehicle blown up got the Bronze Star. Go figure.
The corpsman was an HM1 Schnorr, at Camp Pendleton when I knew him. If anybody knows the guy, buy him a beer and ask him to tell the story.
Not even the concussion or pressure from the rounds hitting the plate? That’s some significant force.
My AR-10 turns my shoulder to jelly. Of course...my shoulder is already a victim of socket misalignment, bone-on-bone contact, and arthritis. Still a fun gun to shoot though.
The plate spreads the impact over the whole plate so the force at any one point is much less resulting in more of a hard shove than a punch. Many soldiers and Marines have been struck in the armor plate and have gotten back up and continued to fight.
Which is why I wonder why combat soldiers’ helmets aren’t made of armor plate. Too heavy?
IF the rounds hit the small plates. There is a lot of exposed torso which is only protected by soft armor. And there is unprotect upper torso without any protection--arms, shoulders, neck, face...
And there is no side shielding. So, a torso traversal from side to side is also quite probable.
Once hit, though, the impinged armor needs to be replaced as follow-on shots may very well penetrate.
One video, 20 years ago, had a 44 magnum fired against a vest. The shooter, who fired into his own vest, loaded up with phone books to absorb the impact. The impact can’t be ignored.
Probably the Sniper-rated Model K44 (Vietnamese variant of the Mosin-Nagant M44) 7.62X54R
It looked .30 cal/7.62 to me
If anyone had known the range to the VC sniper, they probably would have popped him first. If the range were mentioned, I've forgotten it over the ensuing 48 years. Probably 300 yards +/- 100, but maybe up to 600 or so. Who knows?
Bullets lose a lot of energy after 400 yards of flight.
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