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Personally, I hated using body armor "of an unknown provenance". If it takes a hit or an unusual impact, replace it. That's cheap insurance. Do life cycle replacements in any event.
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Peregrino,
Army policy is to replace a plate that has been hit or damaged. If the plate is hit, turn it in and get a new one. Serviceability inspection procedures for the inserts are in the IBA user manual and in the clothing and individual equipment TM 10-8400-203-23:
"Inspection. (Army) Inspect the overall condition of the SAPI. (Marine Corps) Inspect the overall condition of the SAPI prior to each field evolution and once per day during field use. Check for rips or tears, surface cracks in the plate itself, or if the plate flexes and crunching sounds can be heard, or loose pieces can be heard inside plate when it is shaken."
And if you are in the box and are wearing black plates, you're wrong. Get the green ones.
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I was always more worried about abuse, (something very likely with "training" equipment - because of mindset issues) e.g. people throwing the vest (with plates installed) off the back of vehicles or down from the lofts in the team rooms, than I was cosmetics and fair wear & tear. (How often have we seen people throw helmets?) Nothing like carelessness to compromise the effectiveness of a ceramic plate. Don't know if that ever was an issue (Karl?), but I do know we couldn't inspect the plates for compromise if they had been abused.
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Abuse is an issue. "Take care of your gear and it will take care of you" has never been more true. We could always issue steel plates for those who like to throw their kit around. What's a few extra pounds....This works well in most Eastern Bloc Armies, BTW, as I learned in Belgrade a couple years ago when I was checking out how the rest of the world builds body armor. Cheaper too.
What we are doing instead is continuing to issue the high dollar lightweight plates and using a mobile shelter with a digital x-ray inspection system to periodically inspect serviceability via non-destructive testing of the plates. We brought it to the FBNC post CIF in January and ran it through an operational assessment, testing a sample of 2,000 plates in the CIF. System is GTG and we are doing a demo at Fort Drum this summer when 10th Mountain elements rotate home. Our objectives are to provide a quick serviceability inspection method for the warfighter and calculate a combat consumption planning factor for the ESAPI inserts. We are working with the boys in the box to do an in-theater evaluation ASAP. SOCOM and Picatinny Arsenal helped get us up to speed on this, both organizations have some NDE experts that have considerable experience in this area. Thanks brothers-
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Can't believe that idiot would spend $2,000 of his own money on armor, shoot it, and still expect to use it afterwards. WTF was he thinking? Can any of you Marines/Marine sympathizers explain this for the rest of us? Certainly seems to reinforce a negative "jarhead" stereotype.
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He's been watching way too much TV lately-probably Discovery Channel.
Hope his CO can keep this guy away from the hand grenade range.....