is head protection impractical?

[ctrs]

BGs who are shooting to kill will aim for the head because head shots do the most damage. From what I've heard, only 10% of people who get shot in the head will survive. However, it seems that head protection isn't very common compared to body armor.

For example, in many news articles of police officers getting killed, their bullet-resistant vest did not help because the BGs shot them in the head. In most pictures I've seen, police who wear armor do not wear any helmets, etc., except in a SWAT deployment.

So here's my question: is head armor less practical? One source I've read says that head armor will make very little difference because the concussive force will still knock a victim out, or maybe even cause injury. Is there any truth to this? Or is there any other reason why people don't wear head protection, other than looking weird in public?

 

[Crusader103]

Helmets are simply not practical for law enforcement - excepting tac teams. The main reason being that you would be hard pressed to get a squad full of officers to agree to wear a ballistic helmet for the duration of their shift. While working patrol I did carry a ballistic helmet, Army surplus. I kept it in my trunk and did pull it out a handful of times when I was about to make a hasty entry into a bad situation, conducting a search in the woods for a known armed assailant, etc. However, I was not up for wearing it on a daily basis.

Not even our servicemen and women in Afghanistan wear their helmets on a regular basis. It is worn when on patrols or going outside the wire for other reasons. That is despite the constant threat of incoming indirect fire 24 hours per day.

We simply accept a level of risk for comfort. That may be an ill-advised answer, but it is the practical one. For this same reason many police officers refused to wear body armor until either their respective departments began mandating it or technology caught up to make the IBA more comfortable to wear. Though I could be wrong, I don't see either of those happening in the way of helmets anytime soon.

Being shot in the head, while it does happen and is therefore obviously plausible, is not common. When it does occur, the victim is normally at such a disadvantage that all but a force field would fall short of protecting them. They are already subdued, on the ground in a losing battle, or have otherwise already suffered catastrophic wounds - again, not always, but enough to say that a helmet is unlikely to have helped ensure their survival in all but a very small percentage of instances.

The head is a very difficult target to hit based on size and the fact that it moves at a faster rate than the rest of the body, excluding extremeties. The torso is a much larger and less mobile target and therefore easier to strike. It is for that reason, and not necessarily the lethality of a hit to the torso vs. the head, that makes the use of body armor more practical than ballistic helmets.

By the way, I do have a ballistic helmet and full Army issue body armor available near my home defense weapon. If I have time, I will of course put it on..... but my comments are stictly within the confines of law enforcement duties.

 

[ctrs]

Thanks for your input, Jscott; that makes a lot of sense.

 

[Tim the student]

One source I've read says that head armor will make very little difference because the concussive force will still knock a victim out, or maybe even cause injury.

It is a very small sample, but this is untrue in my experience. I've got a buddy that got shot in the helmet (the ear portion of the helmet - from head on into that part of the helmet, if that makes sense) with a 7.62 round. He was not knocked out, and I don't know if his neck was sore or anything like that. If he will let me, I'll post a pic from Facebook. He is the only one I recall actually taking a round in the helmet.

Of course, other variables may (will) produce different results.

I would not recommend wearing a helmet unless you are used to shooting and moving with one on. It is a fair bit different, and requires a good amount of getting used to. It isn't like wearing a ball cap.

 

[Shadow 7D]

It's not the easiest thing to wear, they work, sometime, even for direct shots (guy one of my PSG knew was shot in the head three time, the got all 3 in the 82nd ABN museum)

But just as many of those shot go through, it makes sense to wear one if you're going to a fire fight, but not much of one for every day life.
OH, and BTW, they HURT, an older suspension system, is the worse.

 

[JohnBiltz]

Military helmets were not really introduced to stop bullets since until pretty recently they did not stop bullets. They were introduced again to protect against artillery and mainly there against airburst artillery. Studies on the battlefield were showing huge numbers of head wounds from artillery and steel helmets helped a lot. Artillery is the big killers in conventional war and IEDs have become the big killer in unconventional war.

 

[oldvet53]

a helmet is worn mainly by military but then again Team Delta only wear hockey helmets and that is just to prevent them from bumping their head when exiting helicopters and just for blunt force trauma from hitting their heads on doorways ect. they won't help in high velocity rifle round hits.

 

[Shadow 7D]

^^^^^^^^^^^
exactly
the 'bullet proof' helmets are a thing of hollywood's imagination
if they really worked, don't you think EVERYBODY (military/swat) would be running around in kevlar face masks and helmets?

you could make something that could work, but, then it would be LARGE, HEAVY, AND VERY CLUMSY

so, until they find a newer better thing that can work... learn to duck

 

[USAF_Vet]

I hated wearing a helmet in Iraq. I felt it limited peripheral vision, really dampened hearing in an environment when hearing is already difficult, and it was just darned uncomfortable. I did see a guy in my unit get hit with an AK round, just a glancing blow to the head, the round tore a nice swath through the Kevlar, and he had a headache and a sore neck, but was otherwise fine. Three inches to the left and I might be telling a different story, but thankfully, I'm not.

 

[Loosedhorse]

I have body and head kevlar in my "roll-out kit" in the bedroom. To each his own.

 

[hso]

BGs who are shooting to kill will aim for the head because head shots do the most damage.

I think your starting premise is inaccurate. BGs are notoriously bad shots unless you're dealing with a professional assassin. Worrying about being shot in the head by one is much like worrying about being hit by lightning. Yes it happens, but not with enough frequency to warrant carrying a copper mesh umbrella with a grounding rod all the time.

If you're in combat your expectation is that a lot of bullets and fragments are flying around. You have a higher chance of getting hit and therefore hit in the head in that situation making head armor "practical".

 

[lemaymiami]

I'm in the camp that doesn't like head gear because it restricts my ability to see, hear, etc. (and it's uncomfortable, hot, just plain miserable - try wearing a riot helmet for a few hours in the summer...)

That said, there are occasions when a helmet is very good idea.... in active combat, in a real riot situation (when you and your guys are in full contact with nice folks who want to beat your head in..), etc.

As far as bullet proof... the original specs for the rifle that became the M-16 specified a round that would penetrate both sides of a GI helmet at 500 meters (old metal style helmets in the 60's...). What they came up with, the .223 or 5.56mm met that standard with no problems...

 

[leadcounsel]

Helmets are impractical, hot, and heavy and most folks wounldn't or couldn't wear them on a regular basis.

Our military kevlar helmets will stop handgun rounds, and are designed to protect heads while conducting military operations such as airborne operations, and to protect against shrapnel, concussions, and bumps and bruises in vehicles, etc. They won't reliably stop rifle rounds. We wear them due to the likelihood of something heading toward your noggin... maybe it's just high velocity rocks from a nearby explosion... but there's stuff flying all around. But for civilians, nah, the risk of a shot to the head is 'nil under most circumstances. Maybe if you had an intruder and a kevlar helmet was part of your overall 'barricade' plan in your safe room...

And in reality, you're more likely to suffer a head wound while driving a car. If you are seriously interested about your safety, you'd wear a helmet while riding in a car.

I think that at some point in the future, we'll have some sort of portable energy forcefield that has ballistic resistant properties - so it is probably something that is on the horizon.

 

[Pingy]

Friend of mine got a jagged piece of burning shrapnel lodged in his helmet when they got hit by an IED. He did get knocked unconscious but I don't think anyone could say with any certainty whether it was the object striking his helmet or the blast itself. Either way I can call him up and talk to him whenever I want because he was wearing a helmet, if he wasn't I'd be visiting him in a cemetery, that's for certain.

Great place to see exactly what a helmet does as far as bullets is at this link. http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot29.htm
This website is like myth busters with shooting things, pretty awesome. You should check out some of their other videos as well.

 

[The Lone Haranguer]

A helmet would have to actually be worn, all of the time, to do any good. I am all for carrying whenever and wherever legal, staying in Condition Yellow and all of that, but I draw the line at helmets, as well as body armor. Life isn't worth living if you have to live like that.

 

[W.E.G.]

Depends on the application.

This one was designed to defend against the Hi-Point.

 

[Zoogster]

Tim the student said:

I've got a buddy that got shot in the helmet (the ear portion of the helmet - from head on into that part of the helmet, if that makes sense) with a 7.62 round. He was not knocked out, and I don't know if his neck was sore or anything like that. If he will let me, I'll post a pic from Facebook. He is the only one I recall actually taking a round in the helmet.

Such stops are typically at long range, practical helmets typically provide poor defense against rifle rounds.

Hundreds of yards away typically bad guys taking pot shots at exposed individuals on convoys are when I know of such things happening. Or a glancing blow on someone poking their head out from behind cover at long range.
Even some pistol rounds will defeat your typical ballistic helmet, rifle rounds which have traveled far enough to only have the remaining power of a weak pistol are what tend to get stopped.






Helmets are impractical, heavy, change balance, and are hot. Your body cools itself significantly through the head, once you cover the head your core temperature rises quickly.
If you wear a hot heavy helmet often in hot weather you will be miserable and your hair will probably be falling out many years sooner than it otherwise would have.
With soldiers the chance of being shot at is so high that it makes sense to provide reasonable head protection that does not impair mobility much.
Otherwise it is best left to offensive operations, like a tactical paramilitary raid by LEO, where the duration of use is low and the risk is high.
Defensively it is far less useful.



That said it can be combined with both hearing protection, resistance to concussive force like indoor discharge and those from small explosives, and communications systems such as a radio system.
If you were going to wear hearing protection and a communications system anyways, then the added benefit of some ballistic protection beats wearing those devices separately.

 

[marksman13]

W.E.G., I would just shoot you in the ear hole and end the fight. That helmet is a joke, correct?

 

[Shadow 7D]

Depends on the application.

This one was designed to defend against the Hi-Point.

You realize that's a trash can right???

 

[Tim the student]

Such stops are typically at long range, practical helmets typically provide poor defense against rifle rounds.

Yes, but for context, this was in the palm groves in Iraq. They make for very close fighting. If you have been there, you know how dense they are.

 

[Shadow 7D]

Shoot,
Tim you remember the helmets in the 82nd Museum, right before the exit, those two (now 3) were from pretty close (I think I was told by a guy who was there, about 50-75 for the Caribbean one), but at an angle, NOT straight on.

Like everybody has been saying, the ARE NOT designed for rifle rounds, but to stop shrapnel and pistol rounds.

 

[kingcheese]

ballistic helmets are not even made to stop shrapnel and pistol rounds, just to deflect them

the way you survive takeing a head shot from a rifle caliber is if it glances of your helmet, or rips the helmet of your head

if it just stops the bullet, then it would tranfer a lot of that force to your neck, and when your talking hundreds of foot pounds of force, it gets bad quick

 

[Loosedhorse]

A helmet would have to actually be worn, all of the time

No. Even if worn sometime it would do some good. If you just wear your seatbelt while on the highway, well, that's not great...but it's better than never wearing one.

No one of course would wear a helmet just going to the store (well, unless you're biking there! ). But you might want to have a light kevlar one in the bedroom, just in case. Of course, body armor is probably more important for a bedroom kit, so I'd start with that first.

 

[Rexster]

I bought a helmet that offers IIIa protection, and keep it on the passenger seat when patrolling (PD) at night in a big city. I will don the helmet when arriving on certain types of calls, because if it is an ambush, planned or impromptu, the probability of a planned head shot would higher, I would think. Whether or not I leave the helmet on after arrival will be one of those "it depends" kind of things. I will also don the helmet if I am using my patrol car to block a freeway lane, and I remain inside the car. (Usually, I get out of the car when it is serving to block or divert traffic.)

As others have said, helmets are heavy, and hot. I will add bulky to that! I am already tall, and adding a helmet means I must allow extra clearance.

If an "active shooter" situation happens on my watch, I will be glad to have the helmet, especially as I carry a shotgun, and everyone naturally wants me to lead. Whether they want me to lead because they don't trust a shotgun behind them, or because I have been under fire and have fired a weapon on duty, it is what it is. Black Kevlar covering my shiny head can be a comfort at times.

When I become a private citizen in the next two to eight years, I reckon the helmet will be relegated to safe-room duty. Should a private citizen buy a ballistic helmet? I probably would not have done so, if a private citizen, but would not think it unwise for an Average Joe to do so.

 

[1KPerDay]

You realize that's a trash can right???

You realize that was a joke, right?