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Old 05-20-2007, 18:22   #3
The Reaper
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Continued - Part III

So these independent, limited tests by NBC raise questions about the Army’s claims?

It would appear that Pinnacle already has some serious credibility issues, including claims posted on their web site. For example, despite Pinnacle's claim, US Army Special Forces Command, which equips all US Special Forces, has never heard of Pinnacle, much less purchased armor from them.

Why does NBC not speak with the purported father of flexible armor, Mr. Allan D. Bain, whose web site http://www.evolutionarmor.com/Flex.htm states:

“The fact is most of Pinnacle Armor's systems were invented by Allan D. Bain formally of Armor Technology Corp. Pinnacle Armor started manufacturing after we educated Mr. Neal how to make armor by contract executed in October of 2000 that was fair and honestly fulfilled. Pinnacle Armor and Mr. Neal never manufactured any body armor prior to this date. So if you hear about Pinnacle Armor or the "Dragon Skin" armor being manufactured since 1995 your talking about armor that Pinnacle Armor never made or developed. In fact Murray Neal was a sales representative for Armor Technology from 1997 - October of 2000 a company owned entirely by Allan D. Bain, the true inventor of Dragon Skin."

"There are quite a few reasons, and if you have read the Pinnacle Armor propaganda you will hear about tales of fraud, sabotage, and protection of the good old boy network as it relates to The "Interceptor Vest". I can tell you as someone who works with the military on this kind of endeavor there are a lot of reasons why this armor hasn't been universally adopted and the reasons above are basically false. The truth is Pinnacle Armor received clearance to forward samples to the Army and was paid 170,000 dollars, and that was after they were paid almost a 1,000,000.00 dollars to develop the armor from where we left off after we sold patent rights to Pinnacle Armor in October of 2000."

"The major flaw was not observing the Article One testing environmental conditioning protocol, which calls for the armor to withstand 165 degrees F for 6 hours. After five years of development and having the protocol in hand you would figure that the adhesive used to affix the tiles to the high strength fabric would be of the high temperature variety, it wasn't, and because of that these vests failed. OOPS!"

Essentially, the inventor of Dragon Skin freely admits that the current manufacturers of the armor are aware that it cannot handle temperature extremes without falling apart, and pretty much ripped the government off last time. Did NBC look into that?

Critics told NBC they’d like to see the Army re-test and re-evaluate Dragon Skin, so why not retest the DS vest now? Because it is too heavy, and not reliably bullet resistant. Warfighters want lighter and flexible, not heavier and flexible. What if Pinnacle has changed the adhesive? Will Pinnacle be recalling Dragon Skin armor with substandard adhesive manufactured before the Army discovered this shortfall? Well, I would hope so, after a free FAT test at taxpayer expense. All other vendors pay for the FAT if they fail, Army pays if they pass. Would Murray Neal like to donate another 30 vests for destructive testing? Even so, the Army may retest, at a cost of many more tax dollars since the Pinnacle vests are several thousand dollars each. At the end of it, will there be an expose by NBC on how the Army wastes our tax dollars retesting failed body armor? Why is NBC promoting this failed technology? What is their agenda?

For any vendor that wants to compete for Army body armor work, the system is evaluated against the ESAPI standard/requirements as stated in the performance specification-not evaluated against the IBA itself. If you meet the standard, you are eligible for an award if pricing is in the competitive range during Full and Open competitions. To my knowledge, Pinnacle has never responded to a Full and Open competition. Why doesn’t Pinnacle Armor compete for Army business like every other body armor vendor? Why should they get special treatment? It appears to me that Pinnacle is attempting to restrict competition. I wonder how other manufacturers of body armor that have passed the ESAPI FAT protocol feel about this?

What about it, Mr. Neal? Are you willing to ante up this time for a round of government testing, or do you just want to sell the Army another load of defective armor?

And for NBC, would this have been an even juicier story if the Army bought and issued the Dragon Skin, after knowing that it was inadequate and defective, and dozens of soldiers died? Again, this armor failed the Army tests, not slightly, not on a technicality, but miserably and utterly. The designer of the Dragon Skin armor himself admits its inadequacy. Yet some would like it fielded more widely. Look at the Army test results. They speak for themselves. As an American soldier, I am glad that the Army tested it and discovered the real truth, rather than listening to armchair quarterbacks, snake oil salesmen, and charlatans. This refusal to yield to the SFTT, Dr. Roberts, and NBC has saved soldiers' lives. And that is the real bottom line here.
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