Posted on 06/06/2007 11:32:55 PM PDT by Sleeping Beauty
WASHINGTON | A manufacturer of body armor is under criminal investigation for possibly making false claims, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.
Lawmakers are pressing for an independent test to determine whether the company’s vests are better than the ones U.S. troops in Iraq are wearing.
Air Force investigators said they had been investigating Pinnacle Armor of Fresno, Calif., for a year, looking into allegations the company lied about having its vests certified as safe. Pinnacle made the claim nine months before it received the federal certification, officials said.
Lawmakers from both parties accused Pinnacle’s president, Murray Neal, of hyping his product, exploiting the fears of soldiers’ families, misleading Congress and impugning the Army’s integrity.
Neal said his company’s Dragon Skin body armor was superior to the Interceptor brand the Pentagon was buying now. The Army and Marine Corps need 178,000 body armor systems for service members in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some soldiers and Marines have been paying upward of $5,000 to equip themselves with Dragon Skin.
Unlike the solid Interceptor vests, Dragon Skin uses overlapping silver dollar-sized discs. The flexible system is popular with police SWAT teams, Secret Service agents, and others.
Neal contended there was “a pattern of anti-Dragon Skin misinformation coming from the armed forces.” He said a side-by-side test of the two systems, conducted by an independent evaluator, should decide which was more effective.
“I think we can do that in short order,” agreed Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, the senior Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee.
Two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee want the Government Accountability Office to oversee body armor tests.
The Pentagon has tested equipment against certain standards, but not side by side.
Those that claim “it’s the money” fail to see six companies make IBE for the Military and only one makes DS.
Who stands to lose? If DS is proved better nobody. The military buys it, more companies produce it, soldiers get better body armor and everybody wins. If DS is proved substandard then somebody might die wearing it and everybody else will want their money back.
We can see the sides the posters are taking in this thread.
Some people have a hard time believing that the PMs running the Army tests on body armor believe one failure may cost a soldier his life.
BINGO!
And if your squad is a man down because that extra 20 lbs. you were carrying in 100 degree heat and 90% humidity in Anbar province gave you heat stroke, you may end up getting your buddies killed.
An extra 20 lbs of weight is a huge, huge deal. If people don't understand that, they don't have any concept of infantry combat.
Six different companies produce Interceptor body armor for the Army. Only one makes Dragon Skin.
So your Bingo runs a little hollow.
Blows my mind how naive people are about “Futureweapons.”
It’s a gee-whiz show where EVERYTHING is “great.” It’s been on, what, three seasons now? And there hasn’t been a SINGLE mechanical failure, miss, weapons jam, etc. shown on the show yet, has there? I know for a fact a number of the systems shown on the show (EFV, etc.) are programs in serious trouble because of reliability problems.
The deal is Mack is given access to all this neat stuff, as part of a bargain - what is going to be shown will essentially be a commercial for the weapon system. The manufacturer is setting up all the tests and the test conditions. Mack is not conducting rigorous comparative testing under controlled conditions.
I have little doubt that any time there’s been a failure or a weapons jam that footage is simply left out and the thing is reshot.
I get a local fishing magazine with product “reviews.” For the last 6 years, EVERY product has gotten a great review. Couldn’t have anything to do with the editor getting free products constantly to review, could it? Nahh.
I prefer scientific testing in laboratory to a television show. But, that’s just me ;)
Soldiers are ditching components of armor because they’re slowing them down.
If I could cross the street in a reasonable amount of time, I wouldn’t need that extra 20 pounds of armor to protect me while I’m exposed.
That’s conclusion of soldiers and marines.
They want lighter armor, not heavier armor.
Yep.
Car and Driver.
Road and Track.
Guns and Ammo.
With the extremely rare exception, they’re just commercials slickly packaged to appear as “reviews”.
So your Bingo runs a little hollow.
Yes, six companies are licensed to manufacture but only one has the patent! Follow the money!!!
In addition, why would you preclude six companies from lining the pockets of the senators & representatives from their states to protect their contracts?
http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/files/dragon_skin_release_000121may07.pdf
Have you guys seen it before?
The question isn’t really who is lining pockets of representatives.
The question is whether you believe that when the military conducted it’s tests, it purposely falsified the tests on the DS armor to make it fail, and purposely CHOSE armor that gave less protection to the troops.
I have trouble believing ANY BODY would purposely put the troops in greater risk just for some money.
But assuming SOMEBODY is willing to do that, I think it is MUCH more likely that the SOMEBODY is the president of a company that could well make BILLIONS if they aren’t caught cheating, NOT a dozen people who are IN the military and are responsible for testing who might at best each get a small bribe that has to be hidden to keep them from going to jail.
As to those congressmen, some of them who supported this are now acting pretty pissed. Remember that a lot of democrats jumped on this as a way to attack the administration for again putting troops in more danger — and if they are mad now, it’s because they are beginning to realise that they were lied to.
bump
To be a realistic test, the armor would need to be pressed firmly against the grenade with about 200 pounds of weight—"supported", like a "supported gunshot wound" is, in forensic ballistics.
Yes.
I trust The Army on this one.
Body armor isn’t like the Sgt. York, the Crusader or the Comanche. Body armor is a high-volume item that doesn’t really soak up significant R&D resources and doesn’t really have the lobbying capacity of the McBoeings of the world.
The DS guys should have made their case to the DOD, instead of running crying to the media. I have no sympathy for them.
It ain’t all its cracked up to be:
http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/2007670055.asp
Dragon Skin Deconstructed
by Harold C. Hutchison
June 6, 2007
Discussion Board on this DLS topic
The recent controversy over Dragon Skin body armor has raised far more questions than answers. In one sense, it shows that the Army is serious about getting its troops the best armor available. In another sense, it shows how the media can royally get things wrong – and in getting it wrong can get troops killed. How? Because they can create the impression that something is effective, when it really isn’t.
The Dragon Skin armor was intended to provide better all-around protection against incoming fire. One problem with most protective vests is that there are places where the protective ceramic plates for the Interceptor armor currently in service don’t extend. This has caused the deaths of policemen in the U.S. and military personnel overseas. Dragon Skin was intended to provide better protection through the use of many smaller ceramic, tiles that overlapped, providing a flexible armor.
One American TV network broadcast material that seemed to indicate that Dragon Skin performed better than the current Interceptor. However, the Army has now released the results of other tests, done by an independent lab in 2006, which showed that Dragon Skin armor failed in a number of areas, including those concerning high temperatures, often after one or two shots. This is not a good thing in combat. Furthermore, the ceramic tiles have proven to be fragile – far more so than the Interceptor’s ceramic plates.
The other problem for Dragon Skin is weight: It is about 20 pounds heavier than the 28 pound Interceptor Armor. This is not a minor detail for the poor grunts – it’s a major problem. The troops also have to carry a loaded M16 or M4 rifle, plus a number of spare clips for that weapon (usually six, but sometimes more). If their M16 or M4 has the M203 grenade launcher, they are carrying the grenades for that. They also tend to carry a loaded M9 pistol, and a couple of spare clips for that as well. Not to mention a first-aid kit, Camelbak or canteens full of water, knife, hand grenades (usually three or four), MRE, cans of silly string (to find trip wires), radio, and other gear (to include notebooks, pens, and a helmet). This could mean a soldier gets tired sooner when wearing Dragon Skin, and more prone to heat related injuries in hot climates. If a soldier wearing Dragon Skin is wounded, the Dragon Skin means that there is 20 pounds more for a medic to drag to cover.
The Army has prohibited the use of Dragon Skin by soldiers – largely due to these problems. The problem the Army now faces is the fact that Dragon Skin has a lot of Congressional support. The manufacturer of Dragon Skin has claimed that the Army is lying – in essence claiming the Army rigged the tests. In fact, the Army did the tests last year at the insistence of Congress – who wanted the armor to be given a chance. Now that the armor has failed, the manufacturer is going to the court of public opinion to overturn the verdict of the Army, based on its tests. Now, the Army is caught in a battle to not only save the lives of its troops, but the reputation of those who test equipment for the troops.
I hadn’t seen the .pdf, thanks.
Though there are apparently valid criticims, the Pentagon should be working very closely with any contractor/manufacturer with innovativions, in order to develop body armor better than we now have!
I'm sure they are dear lady.
Believe me, nobody in the military wants to write any letters to the next of kin of some dead GI.
But I've got to say the DS people f'd up big time. You don't go whining to the press when your product fails an Ordnance Dept. test. You go back and fix it so it does pass.
This clown didn't, and now his johnson is in a wringer. And he has no one to blame but himself.
L
Agreed.
One think that the public falls for time and time again is selected tests. They see one test that a particular product can manage to do well, and from that assume that that test is a representative sample of everything that a product must face.
Marketers have been doing this stuff for years, regardless of the product.
As for the Mythbusters, while they do make for some entertaining television, hardly are these guys scientific in their methods or anything else. They’ve been caught many times declaring conclusions that were incorrect based on their limited testing of this or that. They are STUNT COORDINATORS, not QA personell or scientists.
Entertaining television, but one thing I do know is the Government procurement run products through the gammit, If there is a product that can outperform military issue, I want to see the fully tested results of every requirement.. because a lot of dubious people make a lot of crackpot claims that don’t remotely hold up under close inspection.
In court it will come to put up or shutup.... and I suspect highly this company won’t be able to put up.
Kinda stopped paying attention at that point.
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