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."
They’re claiming they “busted” the myth that wood splinters were the main cause of casualties on wooden fighting ships was a joke.
The one where they claimed that falling bullets won’t kill was stupid since there have been published cases where a falling bullet has killed. I’m surprised they even aired that one.
Yeah that was totally stupid. Bullets shot in the air are not shot at an absolute 180 degree angle to the ground and at any angle they retain horizontal velocity.
See one for yourself.
The reason they don’t want to have any other armor besides what the Army gives out is because the contracts that were written prohibits the Army from using other types of body armor. The authorized body armor companies do not like Soldiers using another company. Bottom line and the Army really has their hands tied. It will make the Army look bad and perhaps they should not sign those all or nothing type contacts.
Five times as expensive, didn’t always perform as well, and is 20 lbs heavier....
Blame the Army, blame Karl Rove, blame Bush...
Blame GLOBAL WARMING!!
Hey Everyone,
I have had multiple experiences wearing the current IBA vest overseas in Iraq. Here are the biggest differences I can see.
1: When carrying your IBA with plates inside, you are scared to drop the vest. This is because you may crack the plates and you will never know. If you drop the vest you dont know if it is weakened now.
2: From what I can see from the Dragon Skin, it offers a extremely larger area of protection you get right now with the IBA. Look at the IBA vests, wherever the plate is, you have protection, other than that the rest of the vest will not stop anything.
You can see why I am sided with the Dragonskin and all the demonstrations on video. I dont care of someone is trying to use this as a political card. I am republican, but it does not mean I will not listen to this issue because democrats are speaking about it.
Being to Iraq a few times myself with the current IBA has brought me very close to buying Dragon Skin, I am waiting to see how far this goes with Congress.
If anyone knows where I can throw my experiences to where they will be heard HIGHER UP please let me know. Unless you want to just talk about my experiences with the current IBA Email me:
Here is an interesting take on the testing
http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/files/dragon_skin_release_000121may07.pdf
Enjoy
The testing protocols were/are available to all manufacturers who wish to sell body armor to the military.
I have no dog in the fight but found the X-rays after the heat cycling to be very interesting. They also show the “scales” overlap that causes part (I guess) of the weight increase.
While an interesting concept I think I’ll hold onto my $5,000 for right now. Solve the adhesives problem and then? - We’ll see. Still a lot of weight.
- I suspect that you are right. In the program that I saw about this armor, it emphasized that the cost per vest was prohibitively expensive and production was very slow. It would cost the military billions more to order this system but in the meantime, politicians like Hitlery can trumpet that Bush is “not doing enough” to protect the troops.
I can imagine:
“Here’s your gear, GI.”
“I am supposed to strap these three rockets to my back? This is NOT what I expected when I signed to be an Air Cav Recon Scout!”
“Welcome to the 103rd WB - Wile E. Coyotes.”
Well, if the Gunny thinks it’s good armor...
Except, at 20 feet, why was there no concern about a bullet recochetting back at them?
To give them some credit, they did a later episode to explain just that fact.
For the same coverage area, dragon skin is lighter than Interceptor. Since Dragon Skin is flexible and offers far more torso and wraparound side and back coverage it is heavier. You can reduce the coverage area to achieve less weight than Interceptor for the same coverage.
This is another example of the Army’s dishonesty in the matter. See the Pinnacle Armor site for the specific weights and coverage area in the May Army test.
Myth Busters placed a grenade under the armor and there was no penetration.
By the way, I have negotiated numerous Government contracts and I want to tell you that this sort of adversity never comes out well for the contractor. Never.
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