Dragonskin

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I'm pretty sure DOD stopped working with/testing dragon skin armor a while ago and it didn't get approved for use. If I recall it tested well in ideal conditions, but had some spectacular failures when subjected to testing protocols that approximated real word use. Stuff like first and second shot penetration of both front and back panels on a significant percentage of vests...

Buy yourself regular steel or ceramic plates. You'll save money and be much better protected.
 
As a former member of a SOF unit and as a contractor now, I never have seen it in use anywhere.
 
Yes, and had some spectacular failures. Two gun, if you need rifle rated armor look at Lvl IV Ceramic plates. They will stop hits from 30-06 AP. If you don't need that lvl of protection there are some very good steel plates out there that will stop up to just about anything other than true AP, and they are a little lighter.
 
David Blane said:
I found information on "Dragon Scale", not "Dragon Skin" armor and why the military stopped using it...

http://archive.defense.gov/DODCMSShare/briefingslide/304/070521-D-6570C-001.pdf

(Oops, they do call it dragon skin, sorry!)
Click to expand...
looking at those x-rays it's strange they called it dragon skin , because those discs don't overlap in the way that scales are supposed to , it is more in the configuration of chain-mail and there comes the weakness , I think they probably did the original like scales on lizards and then came up against the weight problem so they had to bring down the number of discs and that meant they could not go with the original pattern, well that is what I assume , either way if it was as good as they originally claimed I guess we would all be wearing it
 
FWIW, while I do not own it, the story behind the company is a little unsettling! Pinnacle, the now defunct maker, is probably one of the most well known makers of armor, and almost all the spotlight was from controversy & failure. They do leave an interesting legacy, though, and have had a lot of influence on organizations in regards to policies governing the use of untested/unapproved armor.

When their product saw this mainstream exposure, some members in the media picked up the story and ran to left field with it...more or less saying proven products were "second class," even before the "armor of the future" had completed testing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THQwO7-JMvE

The company, now defunct, painted an image that they had a revolutionary product that was head over heels better than the rest. However, the findings of independent testing said something different, and Pinnacle's response was along the lines of making an accusation that the testing procedures themselves were biased. At one point, they sued a few government organizations. They may have even sold products that they advertised as having a said NIJ rating when the products themselves were NOT formally certified at that point in time.

Further issues arose when examining the longevity, with a pretty damning outcome:
https://web.archive.org/web/20071014013721/http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/newsroom/2007/NIJ07057.htm

To my understanding, the fundamental design of body armor was not changed by Pinnacle's model, and most of the highly respected makers still appear to use ceramic plates with boron coatings for stopping multiple high energy rifle rounds.

(Edit-Note...I know very little about armor. My experience here is more policy-related, and the intent is to show how the company's history may trouble some since this is a type of product that, God forbid it fails, things don't end well.)
 
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