Oh, that's probably not the picture you wanted.
Posted on 05/18/2007 2:50:24 PM PDT by Sleeping Beauty
The war between Pinnacle Armor and the Army went nuclear this week as NBC News claimed that Pinnacle's innovative "Dragon Skin" armor is far superior to the vest the Army currently issues to Soldiers.
The report shows test conducted by NBC that seem to prove the vest - as its proponents have claimed over the last several years - can take many more rifle shots than the Army's Enhanced Small Arms Protective Inserts.
But Army officials disclosed to Military.com that in a series of tests conducted by the service in May of last year, the Dragon Skin vest failed to stop bullets as well as the current Army armor. In fact, test results showed that bullets slipped through the vest as early as the second shot.
"The bottom line is that Dragon Skin by Pinnacle catastrophically failed to meet the requirement," said Brig. Gen. Mark Brown, the head of the Fort Belvoir, Va.-based Program Executive Office Soldier, in a May 17 interview.
Pinnacle's president Murray Neal told Military.com the tests were flawed and that Army testers were unsure how to adequately evaluate his technology - which uses a series of small ceramic disk "scales" to cover the entire torso.
He called Army claims that his vests failed "a bold-faced lie" and said the service is embarrassed to admit its current armor isn't the best out there.
The Army's ESAPI is a rigid ceramic plate about 12-inches high and six inches wide. Soldiers wear front and back plates and two smaller side plates, all of which are designed to stop armor piercing AK-47 rounds found in the war zone.
The controversy went public last March when the Army issued a so-called "Safety of Use Message" that banned all store-bought armor, and specifically stated that Dragon Skin did not meet the service's requirement for ballistic protection.
At the urging of Capitol Hill, the Army bought 30 Dragon Skin vests in May of 2006 and put them through a standard "first article" test to see if the armor could hold up to the same ballistic conditions its current-issued ESAPIs must endure during certification.
According to Karl Masters, one of the Army's top ballistics experts, the Dragon Skin failed to stop a 7.62 x 63mm APM2 round on the second shot of the test.
"We ran this vest through the exact same test protocol that every ESAPI supplier goes through," Masters said. "Can you meet the ESAPI requirement or not? That's the question."
Neal argued in a release after last year's tests that Masters and another Army ballistics expert were dumbfounded by the "flexible armor system" and weren't sure where to place the shots for the test.
"Deviation from the ESAPI test protocols and procedures tool place by the selection of shot placements of APM2 rounds around the ceramics in non-rifle defeating areas," Neal said in a written statement.
But Army officials said the shots were aimed at the same areas for ESPI testing and that the first penetration would typically have been the end of the "sudden death" test.
Engineers agreed to continue with the evaluation, however, subjecting separate Dragon Skin vests to submersion in oil, salt water, extreme cold and extreme heat.
Army data shows 13 complete penetrations or unacceptable back-face deformations - where the bullet doesn't go all the way through but causes enough of a dent that it would result in serious trauma - on four failed vests.
The tests were held in mid-May at H.P. White labs, a respected ballistics testing facility in Street, Md. H.P. White is the same test lab where the Army evaluates all its armor components, preferring not to use the Army-run Aberdeen Proving Ground ranges to fend off accusations of bias.
More troubling to Army testers was the near complete delamination of the disks from the Kevlar backing within the Dragon Skin on several of the environmental tests.
After being subjected to 160-degree heat for six hours, the Dragon Skin vest failed on the first shot. X-ray photos of the vest show the disks slipped off their backing, exposing portions of the chest area without any ceramic protection.
"Certain areas of the adhesive hardened and become brittle and when that happened, they all dropped down," Brown said.
Further tests in minus-60-degree cold, immersion in oil and diesel fuel showed similar delaminations and shot failures.
Neal said the Army manipulated the x-ray photos, but admitted one vest had an adhesive "anomaly."
Perhaps the biggest Army concern is Dragon Skin's weight. An extra large vest is nearly 20 pounds heavier than the Army's current armor, though Masters admitted it did have more rifle protective coverage than issued vests.
"The Army continues to look at these types of armor," Masters admitted. "If we can ever eliminate this weight penalty, we may have an opportunity to go to gapless coverage."
The Army declined to provide details of the test failures when the controversy erupted last year, claiming operational security concerns.
But the NBC News investigation prompted officials to rethink their strategy in an effort to keep Army families from purchasing Dragon Skin vests for their loved ones in the combat zone.
"Soldiers must have confidence in their equipment when they go down range," Brown said. "They've got to know that they're wearing the best and their families have got to know that they're wearing the best."
Good post The KG9 Kid.
I think the new helmets are a disgrace. They expose large areas of the head to fire. It rides too high.
I think the new helmets are a disgrace. They expose large areas of the head to fire. It rides too high.
Jihadis gave us the .45 ACP. Maybe they can get us back to 7.62x55,
barbra ann
Especially those that don’t leave the wire!
I don’t know about this case but Ordinance Deptartment brass sure tried to sabotage the M-16 back in the 1950’s.
TexKat — Those are all interesting links. I plan to explore them all. Thank so much for posting them.
SB
Great post, Kid.
What color do you prefer in your Dragon Skin:
A. Coyote Tan
B. Black
C. Olive Drab
D. Desert Tan
E. Woodland Camo
F. Army ACU
G. Marpat
H. Desert Camo
http://www.pinnaclearmor.com/body-armor/dragon-skin.php
Remember, E = mc2. You can run a very impressive test by varying the mass of the bullet or by slowing it down (less powder). Either way the energy can be greatly reduced and the armor “appears” to peform great. You need to see the V50s (velocity at which 50% of the rounds penetrate under controlled conditions) before you can even begin to make a decision about the effectiveness of the armor.
I doubt that the Army has any political agenda to not use Dragon Skin, and Dragon Skin did not even attempt to participate in the recent DHS $40M body armor procurement. (Most likely because DHS was after Level IIIA soft and not Level III hard armor.)
Also, Protective Products Intl (PPI) and and I believe First Choice Armor also make Interceptors or variants. The PPI vest for the Marines is impressive . . . Point Blank had the initial Interceptor contract and in the process alienated their state, local and federal law enforcement customers. I hear that the new management is trying to get them back.
Here's my latest 'Dark Earth' aquisition:
Yes, you could probably get away with suggesting the testers weren’t competent, but when you say they faked the x-ray data, you probably have already decided you can’t win a fair contest.
I wonder if the guy who designed this thing had ever even THOUGHT of passing the heat/cold tests. They aren’t trivial.
I saw the same show, on the surface it looked good, but what can you tell from a TV show. I think we don't know enough about the Army tests to know what the truth is. A jacket made of overlapping platelets may not work in some positions, running or maybe lying down. Who knows, but the current Army is not made of fools, they must have their reasons.
Oh, that's probably not the picture you wanted.
and 5 times as expensive. And in some tests, didn’t work as well.
“Perhaps the biggest Army concern is Dragon Skin’s weight. An extra large vest is nearly 20 pounds heavier than the Army’s current armor, though Masters admitted it did have more rifle protective coverage than issued vests.”
Government testing would have ended right there. I’m sure Light weight was a must in the contract specifications for all military armor. Soldiers and Marines need manuverablility not extra weight.
Bump!
I don’t like it...don’t like it at all. First it looks expensive and brittle. Second it’s a crossover between a scope and a point and click...choose iron sights if you’re in that situation, they are harder to break. As to the topic of the thread scale armor...sounds like a good idea but the 20 extra #’s is a deal killer. What’s standard kit now like 80#’s?
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