“Soft body armor is now available that *can* stop some rifle fire without plates, FYI”
Do you have a source of this info? I own Level III AR500 plates but I’d be interested if something was a lot more flexible and covered more. I know there are Polyethylene inserts that are lighter. They are still plates (3 lbs/each) and expensive.
That would be the Dragon Skin and subsequent developments. Dragon Skin was flexible and would stop lower powered rifle rounds. Unfortunately, it was inconsistent against 7.62 AK and reportedly useless against 7.62x54R. However, it is still in production under different management and I’ve heard a revised version is going into production soon.
And aside from that, truly soft level III armor is coming - they’ve been making lots of progress with non-Newtonian fluids lately.
http://www.businessinsider.com/air-force-cadet-bullet-stopping-goo-for-body-armor-2017-5
https://www.popsci.com/poland-develops-bulletproof-liquid-armor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_Armor