Interesting concept in bodyarmor...

[Bezoar]

2 questions:

was it ever tested against the 308 fmj or ap round?

does it require a minimum projectile velocity to operate correctly?

I remember an article on a textile body armor that would get as hard as steel when hit with a bullet, only thing was the projectile had to have a minimum velocity, and for some reason shrapnel and knives went right through it on the first try.

 

[ilbob]

Right now, a set of dragon skin (the current state-of-the-art) runs about five grand a pop; far too costly for any army to feasibly equip each grunt with.

I don't think that is true at all. Even if you had a million man army you wanted to protect that is only $5 billion. I read once it costs over $100,000 to put a soldier thru basic and advanced training. Whats another $5000?

 

[Nightcrawler]

It's not just the per-unit cost. There's maintenance, replacments, things like that. Armor wears out with age as the materials break down (this is true, I believe, of both ceramics and kevlar).

Now do *I* think they should field it anyway? Hell yes, a much better expense than everyone getting new uniforms and new hats every few years. But the bean-counters that run most military bureacracies don't think that way.

Look, up until recently when people started raising a stink about it, the military was too cheap to issue the modern interceptor vests to everyone. Second-line units (which found themselves on the first line in Iraq) were hard-up for awhile. I got out of the Nat'l Guard in 2004 and I'd never seen an Interceptor.

And even if they did re-equip, the dragon skin armor isn't a be-all end-all. If every US soldier had it, every weapons producer in the world would be busy finding ways to defeat it, and we'd end up right back where we are.

Mostly, though, I think it's a cost issue. Since most injuries and fatalities, even today, are caused by explosives and fragmentation, I think you'd have a hard time convincing a military establishment to throw down the cash for expensive new vests that provide somewhat better small-arms protection, but only (arguably) marginally better fragmentation protection.

I'm sure your average grunt on the ground would feel very differently on the subject, though.

 

[White Horseradish]

everything is available to civilians. question is can a civilian afford it

Um, no. Try and buy Dragonskin - you'll be SOL. Pinnacle, as a condition of their government contracts, does not sell to civilians.

 

[renegade1alpha]

I hope they come up with some good stuff that is not as heavy as the stuff I wore in Iraq! With my body armor and all my equipment and weapon I was carrying somewhere around 50-55 pounds. That may not sound like alot but wear that while running around in temperatures of 130+ and it sucks! The military in attempt to protect the troops sacrifice mobility which is just as bad, if not worse sometimes, than not wearing armor at all. As a result alot of troops coming home suffer from lower back and neck problems (like yours truly) which costs the goverment and the servicemen lots of time and money to remedy.

Hopefully one day they can come up with somthing you can wear like a t-shirt that does it all!