Dragon Skin Body Armor- Wow.

**Dondrei** · 05-03-2006, 13:15

I stick by my mockery of the name.

**skihard** · 06-03-2006, 13:46

Hey just a couple thoughts from someone that had 3 different versions of body armor while in the service.

Ceramic armor also called “chicken plating” was very heavy and used primarily by those that did not have to do much moving around. I had it as part of my basic load out as a Crew chief on a helicopter. The stuff stayed in the helicopter and was only put on when flying into a hostile area. The back plate of it was put under our side facing crew seats instead of on our body to hopefully stop any stray bullets from coming through the floor and giving us an extra *** hole.
Flack vest were a much lighter “flexible“ body armor that was made with layers of Kevlar cloth sandwiched in crossing grain patterns so that the 10 layers had 5 going “east-west” and 5 going “north south” it will stop small arms (9mm) over 10+ feet away and shrapnel from small explosions from 15+ feet away. Down side is that any small explosion at 15 feet is still likely to kill you or critically wound you from the concussion alone so the armor is really pointless in that event.
Lastly is a layered semi rigid armor made up of a combination of little Kevlar plates and Kevlar cloth. The Kevlar plates are overlapped so the there isn’t an open joint between them, 3 layers worth of plates all held together by the Kevlar cloth. This is heavier than the flack vest, much lighter than the chicken plating, and for the most part gives a full range of movement. It is suppose to stop multiple shots from a rifle at 50+ meters and small arms (9mm) at 5+ feet away. I’ve personally never tested it and have no desire to.

Given the choice I’d take the third one without question, those that were part of 160th SOG had this as their standard armor. Those that were in 10th mountain and 101st as examples, had both the chicken plating and the flack vests. This is for the aviation people only I’m unsure what the infantry had.

Dross- just so you know the Army states that the cost of training and outfitting a solider is approximately $180,000. If the new armor is $4600 it is much more cost effective to purchase the armor and keep a trained, experienced soldier than it is to train a new one. My guess for this armor not being fielded yet is that they have not yet finished testing it but that it will be seen in the future if it is as good as they say it is. It took 8 years of development for them to get the layered Kevlar plating vests then it took manufacturing time to get enough for deployment, and as far as I know they still are trying to get it to every soldier in the field.

**CyberHawk** · 07-03-2006, 00:08

Wow...thats nice.

gogo Dragon Skin.

**Qbi** · 07-03-2006, 00:18