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  • USA short on body armor

    1/4 U.S. Troops Lack Body Armor
    Associated Press
    October 14, 2003


    WASHINGTON - Nearly one-quarter of the 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq still have not been issued a new type of ceramic body armor strong enough to stop bullets fired from assault rifles.

    Delays in funding, production and shipping mean it will be December before all troops in Iraq will have the vests, which were introduced four years ago, military officials say.

    Congress approved $310 million in April to buy 300,000 more of the bulletproof vests, with 30,000 destined to complete outfitting of the troops in Iraq. Of that money, however, only about $75 million has reached the Army office responsible for overseeing the vests' manufacture and distribution, said David Nelson, an official in that office.

    Angry members of Congress have denounced the Pentagon. They say up to 44,000 troops lack the best vests because of the sluggish supply chain, significantly more than the Pentagon figure. Relatives of some soldiers have resorted to buying body armor in the United States and shipping it to their troops, congressional critics say.

    "I got a letter from a young soldier in Baghdad saying that the men in his group were concerned that they had cheap armor that was incapable of stopping bullets. And they wondered why they could not have the best protection possible under the circumstances," said Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio.

    The House version of an $86.7 billion Iraq spending bill passed last week would include $251 million for body armor and for clearing unexploded munitions, although it's unclear if additional money would speed up the process at this point. President Bush's original request included no more money for body armor.

    The military's Interceptor vests, introduced in 1999, include removable ceramic plates in the front and back that can stop bullets such as the 7.62mm rounds fired by Kalashnikov rifles common in Iraq and Afghanistan. Older-model vests can protect against shrapnel and other low-speed projectiles but not high-velocity rifle rounds.

    Several soldiers serving in both countries have credited the Interceptor vests with saving their lives.

    Each vest and its plates weighs more than 16 pounds and cost more than $1,500.

    The shortfall in Iraq came because the military's need for body armor outstripped its ability to make and deliver the Interceptor plates, said Nelson, the Army's deputy product manager for outfitting soldiers.

    The Army already had boosted production to supply soldiers fighting in Afghanistan when planning for the Iraq war began in earnest last year, Nelson said.

    Production of the plates surged a year ago from about 3,000 per month to 6,000 to 10,000 per month, Nelson said. Current production is about 25,000 plates per month, and the Army is working to double that to 50,000 per month, he said.

    "It's not a question of money, it's a question of capacity to manufacture these devices," the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Richard Myers, told a Senate committee last month. "We're making them as quickly as we can."

    Of the American soldiers in Iraq who already have the body armor, some received it before arriving in Iraq and others after their deployment.

    Nelson said the Army originally hired three companies to make the plates: Armor Works LLC of Tempe, Ariz.; Ceradyne Inc. of Costa Mesa, Calif; and Simula Inc. of Phoenix.

    The Army recently added three more companies to make the inserts, Nelson said: Point Blank Body Armor Inc., a division of DHB Industries, of Carle Place, N.Y.; ProTech Armored Products, a subsidiary of Armor Holdings Inc., of Jacksonville, Fla.; and ForceOne LLC, of Spruce Pine, N.C.

    To help meet the demand, all six companies also are making heavier versions of the bulletproof plates, which can be manufactured quicker and easier, Nelson said.

    Army Sgt. Chris Smith, 24, shot in the chest during an ambush in Iraq in late August, is among those who has credited the vest with saving his life.

    "His armor blew up with the force ... shattered like it was supposed to," said his mother, Bev Smith of Bismarck, N.D. Her son returned fire and killed his attacker and suffered only a bruised chest, she told The Bismarck Tribune.

    Article courtesy Military.com

  • #2
    Each vest and its plates weighs more than 16 pounds and cost more than $1,500.
    Whats GI life insurance again? $100,000... seems to me all other issues aside it makes money sense to get and issue these vests. I know congress doesn't REALLY give a shit about our guys(stryker) but, maybe the money angle would get their attention.

    Actually probly not these bastards think taxpayer money comes from a monopoly game kit.
    Your look more lost than a bastard child on fathers day.

    Comment


    • #3
      No wonder we can't afford it!


      "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

      I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

      HAKUNA MATATA

      Comment


      • #4
        damn Congress, o how much i hate those scumbags who murder their interns and get away with it (Chandra Levy)

        Comment


        • #5
          Most of the Deaths so far were caused by roadside bombs and RPG's not Assault Rifles.

          Comment


          • #6
            Body armour is good for fragmentations also.

            Sir,

            The costs go way beyond just the body armour. You have to rewrite and re-qualify all your battle evals. Troops who are not used to an additional 25lbs on top of their standard kit cannot do same the physical assertions they did before.

            You've also made a point about marksmanship. It's a generational thing (CF calls it the dinosaurs versus the geeks). We were using rounds, 7.62NATO that you can't spray and pray with. This new generation is using the puny 5.56NATO by comparison. The difference between making the shot and taking the shot.

            There are things that this generation is doing that would boggle my mind - such as realtime situational awareness of where everybody is down to the platoon level. By the same token, they've lost alot. Few officers today are trained to read a topigraphical map. The computers take care of alot for them but it amaze them that I can look at a a map and see things that they don't see such as snow routes and water traps.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Officer of Engineers
              Body armour is good for fragmentations also.

              Sir,

              The costs go way beyond just the body armour. You have to rewrite and re-qualify all your battle evals. Troops who are not used to an additional 25lbs on top of their standard kit cannot do same the physical assertions they did before.
              The new Interceptor body armor, a bulletproof Kevlar vest with insertable ceramic-composite plates, tips the scales at 16 pounds -nearly 40 percent less than the flak vests worn in Desert Storm.
              http://www.camelbak.com/mil/news.cfm?news_id=52p
              If they take off the flak jacket they're currently using and put on one of these, that will be less weight.

              (edited)
              "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

              Comment


              • #8
                I thought this was interesting.

                HEADLINE High Tech Warriors
                SOURCE Boston Herald
                ARTICLE At first glance, the tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers now in the field or being deployed to the Persian Gulf are a spitting image of the troops that fought in Iraq in 1991. But a dozen years on from Desert Storm, there are subtle, yet crucial, differences in the things they carry, the food they eat and the shelters where they sleep.

                From minor tweaks to high-tech up- grades, the new materiel is part of the military's ongoing effort to improve the safety, mobility, comfort, morale and, of course, the lethality of its warriors. "If you put a picture of a soldier in Afghanistan next to a picture of a soldier in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, they'd look a lot alike," said David L. Nelson, deputy product manager, clothing and individual equipment, for the U.S. Army.


                "There are subtle things a soldier would probably see, like body armor," he added. "The things that first catch your eye -the uniform, boots and helmet -keep you from seeing any significant differences. But the differences are there."
                Military commanders are obsessed with equipment weight, and one objective of the Natick-based U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center is to shave as many pounds as is safely possible from the average groundpounder's combat load (now about 92 pounds, according to Nelson).

                The new Interceptor body armor, a bulletproof Kevlar vest with insertable ceramic-composite plates, tips the scales at 16 pounds -nearly 40 percent less than the flak vests worn in Desert Storm.

                In the wake of Desert Storm, Army brass decided they'd like a" lighter, more compact weapon than the standard-issue M-16A2, a rifle originally developed in the 1950s.

                The result is the M-4, made by Colt Manufacturing Co. of Hart- ford, Conn. The carbine fifes the same high-velocity 5.56 mm rounds as the M-16, but is 5'/2 inches shorter, has a collapsible buttstock and weighs just over 5'/2 pounds - 2 pounds less than its predecessor.

                Walkie-talkies are a thing of the past; soldiers now communicate on the battlefield with push-to-talk intercoms that have a headset attached to the Kevlar helmet.
                The U.S. military can continue to claim that it owns the night. Since the mid-'90s there have been "significant improvements" in night-vision equipment, said Army Lt. Col. Cynthia Bedell, project manager for multispectrum sensors at Fort Belvoir, Va.

                Image-intensification tubes magnify available light 10,000 times with better resolution, allowing soldiers to operate in starlight or early- daylight conditions using either PVS-7 goggles or a helmet mounted flip-down PVS-14 monocle.
                In July, the Army deployed a thermal-weapons sight, which mounts on either an M-4 or M-16" rifle.

                In 1997, the Army replaced its bulky battle-dress overgarment (BDO) with a new chemical/biological weapons suit, called Joint Ser- vice Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology (JSLIST).

                Army Brig. Gen. Stephen Reeves said the JSLIST, which comes in tri-color desert and four-color woodland camouflage, is 60 percent lighter than the BDO. The selective-membrane technology produces less heat stress for the wearer. After 45 days, uncontaminated suits can also be laundered (up to three times), unlike the BDO, which had to be tossed after 30 days.

                Every soldier has also been issued a new M-40 gas mask. It features a silicon liner for better comfort and fit, ballistic eye protection and an external canister that can be unscrewed without removing the mask - unlike the old M-17 mask, which had to be taken off to change filters.

                The rucksack has been redesigned at the behest of infantry schools. The new MOLLE (Modular Lightweight Loadcarrying Equipment) is a modular design with large and small pouches, a detachable assault pack and a vest with attachments for ammunition and general-purpose pouches.

                Made of water-resistant nylon, MOLLE can hold a hydration system - an easier way to drink liquids while on the move than a canteen. The CamelBak water bladder, a familiar accessory for hikers, isn't the only commercial, off-the-shelf item now carried into battle. Hard-plastic knee and elbow pads are sourced from Bijon, which produces similar protection for skate- boarders.

                "Soldiers have to flop to the ground or get into a prone firing position, and knee and elbow pads work great," said Nelson. The five-color "chocolate-chip cookie" camouflage design has been replaced by a new, tri-color desert pattern.

                Three years ago the Army rolled out improved cold-weather gear - basically a fleece jacket and bib coveralls that fit under a Goretex shell -to replace the heavier, bulkier "bear suit." Since 1997, the Army has also issued a modular sleeping bag system containing bivouac, light- weight patrol and intermediate cold-weather bags that can be tailored for temperatures down to minus-60 degrees.

                Desert Storm vets may not recognize the chow.

                Said Gerald A. Darsh, Natick- based project director for the armed forces' Combat Feeding Program: "I used to have to wear ballistic protection when I
                "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

                Comment


                • #9
                  Soldiers have to flop to the ground or get into a prone firing position, and knee and elbow pads work great,"
                  So does the buttstock of an M-16A2

                  In the wake of Desert Storm, Army brass decided they'd like a" lighter, more compact weapon than the standard-issue M-16A2, a rifle originally developed in the 1950s.
                  And when the M16 originaly came out it was compared to a BB gun because of the weight and heavy use of plastic... at least they didn't go to an even SMALLER round...

                  The result is the M-4, made by Colt Manufacturing Co. of Hart- ford, Conn. The carbine fifes the same high-velocity 5.56 mm rounds as the M-16, but is 5'/2 inches shorter, has a collapsible buttstock and weighs just over 5'/2 pounds - 2 pounds less than its predecessor.
                  I thought the CAR-4 was essentially the same thing and it came out in what, the late 60's?

                  The rucksack has been redesigned at the behest of infantry schools. The new MOLLE (Modular Lightweight Loadcarrying Equipment) is a modular design with large and small pouches, a detachable assault pack and a vest with attachments for ammunition and general-purpose pouches.
                  I own a molle vest and 2 LCE's (LBE). I use one of these when I play paintball. Last game Froggy and I played I told him he could use the MOLLE vest.... he decided to use the other LCE..... MOLLE sucks, its hot and more cumbersome IMO, but then again so is a Flak Jacket. Camel packs are good though.
                  Last edited by Stinger; 16 Oct 03,, 22:24.
                  Your look more lost than a bastard child on fathers day.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Is it easier to keep the gun on target with a 7.62 or 5.56? 7.62 cuz it's heavier and it's harder to lift the gun, or 5.56 cuz it's lighter and therefore easier to keep the gun in place?
                    Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

                    Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      BR, there is no difference in semi auto fire between the two, in regard to your question.

                      "I thought the CAR-4 was essentially the same thing and it came out in what, the late 60's?"

                      CAR-15 actually. It HAS been in service with the US Army since the 60's.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Colonel and Ironman,

                        We are quite archaic compared to you all. We are trying to catch up fast. Our treasury is not being able to keep pace with our wish list. However, while body armour is a priority here too. other things are more urgent.

                        Ironman, We use sheer steel body armour and a half helmet called a Bulletproof Patka and it weighs down! I never wore them since I would rather be dead than walk like a robot with zero movement!

                        I can reap a map, a compass but not a GPS well! Also the Tarot card? No the lst one, but thats the most important one. Napoleon said I want lucky General and not compternt ones or words to that effect!

                        :lol


                        "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

                        I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

                        HAKUNA MATATA

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Give me a map anyday. GPS is handy, but it is foolhardy in the extreme to forget the ways of old just because a new gee-whiz gadget has come along.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Besides, aside from putting a big-ass magnet somewhere in the North Pole, compasses are nearly foolproof...
                            Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

                            Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

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