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Old 05-22-2007, 12:45   #31
txzen
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Thanks

I guess the question people would like answered is if another body armor is chosen does Mr Masters stay on as the head of the army's body armor project or would a different person, a flexible armor specialist if that is the case, take over? I do believe people are overly harsh on this topic. Most people are not in a job where life and death are a job related issue, so I don't think they fully comprehend how employment and money aren't everyone's op priority. We are just conditioned to be on the watch for impropriety with the Cunningham convictions and Ney convictions and the Abrahmoff convictions and the jefferson indictment and the Delay Indictment. It might make more people see impropriety where is there is none, and I think this issue can be cleared up and the confidence in aquisitions increased.

Now with the x-ray, I have little idea what i am looking at really. I don't know where the edge on a scaled armor is. I suppose the edge is where there is only 1 disc? Also if adhesive was not placed and a row of discs slipped that would mean that there was an "edge" in the middle of the vest. There being no longer the overlapping but single discs "hung out to dry." I get that this is a failure if they can't make vests that work don't even mention their name, but I also would be feel badly if a great technology was shunned because of not a concept error but becaues of a implementation error. My father often tells a story about the dimaxian car created by buckminster fuller was shot down because of a death of a driver related to a crash. 30 mpg in 1933 u turned within it's length and was aerodynamic. I don't know how many chances new technology should get but I want to say as many as it takes to get it right, without making the test easier of course.

I am still trying to get the coverage and weight issues sorted out. I do want to know where you got 700 inches plus though. 10x12 plates have about 115 square inches of coverage 4 of them would be 460 and I thought that was more than two e-sapi and two s-sapi since sides plate are smaller. I wonder if 700 is the coverage of the total vest and around 400 is the coverage of the rifle defeating armor?
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Old 05-22-2007, 13:08   #32
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I am no expert, but I am going to try to respond to your question, as I understand it.

As I have posted in my comments, with Interceptor Body Armor (IBA), rifle protection is the sum of the areas of the front and rear plates and the two side plates.

The 720 and 743 sq. in. refers to the total armored areas. The rifle armor portion of the vest will necessarily be smaller.

TR
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Old 05-22-2007, 13:24   #33
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Better armor still

The new material that the army will be fielding soon for it's body armor shows a weight loss of about 15%, an increase in strength that's greater than that, and with a very large improvement in the arena of multiple hits. I held the stuff in my hands during a courtesy call. It's not just theory. (Yep, some numbers I'm not posting)

I've met the Phd's and the guys from the test centers. For them, body armor is more akin to a religion than a job. And, I'm not a big enough fish in their pond for them to try to impress me. I was impressed because even the "pure civilians" there are all-Army. For them body armor is closer to a religion than a job.

For the folks down the hall from me, just to the east, vehicle armor is a religion.

The probability that any of those folks would avoid a better-performing design or material is about the same as the probability that Michelle Pfeiffer will pounce upon this old bod as I pass her on the street.

Re: the latter...................

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Old 05-22-2007, 13:27   #34
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Okay I see a bit more clearly now.

I have the LIII version (yes, I know running LIII in Iraq is questionable) It is new production as of Feb 07

I have also tried to show where the armor has just the Level IIIA soft panel. By the edge the disks cannot cover -- the vest does point out that the area outside the disk coverage is only IIIA.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...DSArmor001.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...DSArmor002.jpg

If those are the areas in which Mr Neal is talking about -- then in all honesty the ESAPI would not be there.
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Old 05-22-2007, 14:32   #35
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Interesting post by "Alan Bain"

I of course don't know if it is the real Alan Bain but the information seems intelligent and knowledgable anyway. http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003506.html
Dear Patriot,

That was a very nice explaination of force and impact. Here are a few additional points to consider:

1) All the tiles sit at an angle when flat or when wrapped around the body as they are overlapped by adjoining tiles. It's called an imbricated pattern or better known as scalar armor. These tiles open a bit as they flex around the body by the tiles pivoting off each other to make the curve.

2) The tiles are true discuses, where the center is the thickest part, and they have a uniform downward slope of radius co-extensive with a radius or a segment. This is an Independant claim. All other claims are basic public domain concepts dependant upon the first claim. That is they have all entered the market well before the Dragon Skin patents.

3) The weakest point here is the point between successor tiles offset from the center, whereby you angle the test barrel receiver so that you get a perpendicular shot on the thinnest spot not supported by an overlapping disk. This is the definition of your perpendicular impact discussion.

4) Currently the armor is not tested this way in respect to the NIJ protocol or in the German lab that recently conducted side by side testing for the NBC Dateline news show. It is tested flat.

5) For scalar armor to be tested correctly it MUST be set around a fixed target around a test fixture designed to mimick the true wearing of the vest, and then impacted as set forth above so that the weakest point is attacked in a true 90 degree angle and also attacked at an angle to try and take advantage of the slight opening of the tiles as they make the bend around the body.

6) From what I gather the army did this, and the German laboratory didn't, as well as any other testing entity that has reported results on Dragon Skin.

While interceptor plates certainly possess less repeat capability as shown at the German laboratory in what appeared to be true independant testing; remember the uniform thick plannular plates represented by the Interceptor system doesn't change it's poition at all while wearing, but the scalar armor does, and that's why the NIJ has devised a different test for scalar armor. The military has simply taken it two step further; true wearing placement while testing, and extreme environmental conditioning testing. I remember very clearly giving armor to the military to train with, the boys play rough! The armor comes back looking like crap in a short period of time unless it's built tough.

The environmental testing is designed to accelerate the aging process. In service life testing and maintenance has become quite common with military body armor world wide.

Regards,

Al

Posted by: Allan Bain at May 22, 2007 02:45 PM
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Old 05-22-2007, 14:38   #36
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Looks legit to me.

I do not find fault with any of those points, and mentioned that the flat test protocol favored the DS armor.

TR
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Old 05-22-2007, 15:29   #37
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Pretty complicated stuff

I sort of gathered that he was saying that to find the most vulnerable spot you go to the top or bottom row where there is no overlappering and you you go to the edge of the disc where it is the thinnest. There is also the "opening created by curving around," I just asked mr bain if there really was like mr neal has stated an edge test that required the shots be within .75 and 1.25 inches from the edge and neal says that zheng shot .5 inches from the edge making the shots outside of the test rules. This stuff is complicated. The tests that are on pinnacles website most of them are tests with the DS on a human shaped "curvy" dummy including the 7.62x51 test on an sov1000. Now the test on the non overlapping discs if that is what "successor disc means" and on the opening due to curves needs to be shown. It still doesn't seem so bad though that to hit the most vulnerable places on the amor you have to aim away from the center of mass and aim at the sides to hit the opening at the curve. And it is interesting to note that if you were facing the profile of the armor you would then have to shoot at the side of the profile to hit an opening, I think.
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Old 05-22-2007, 15:32   #38
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Mr Bain's reply

Dear Txen,

At the time I sold my rights out to Pinnacle Armo we had not progressed to the point where we would be making a serious bid for Artlicle One testing. The systems worked, the next generations was already planned, and the only conditioning tests that we had to pass at the time was a water immersion test. That was fairly straight forward. We used light weight Nylon fabric with the same amount of urethane coating as a boyancy comepensator and then ultrasonically welded the system inside this water proof cover.

We had sold some to SOCOM as well and again the issue of heat was never presented.

As far as placing the tiles into an individual envelop of fabric rather than using glue and fabric, it is possible, but a sewing nightmare, and of course placing all the tile in place is another time thief to high production manufacturing. I guess that might be a viable way to go, but I would think that the adhesive method will be tried again until it doesn't or does prove out. It's faster, cheaper, and easier.

We are experimenting with an adhesive for niche applications that seems to have this problem solved, we'll see.

As for the discs, why did they only fall in one area, I can't confirm this as a fact, one possible explaination is one section was light on adhesive and the fabric sandwich separated and allowed some tiles to fall and stack up on area where the glue didn't fail, but this is conjecture because I don't know exactly how the tiles looked after the heat exposure. I don't trust what Pinnacle states as an explaination because I spent the majority part of the 1990's using adhesive coated fabrics to affix everything from squares to hexagons in various matricies, and one thing was certain, if the glue wasn't right we knew it, it wasn't some difficult thing to see. We knew it. If what Pinnacle Armor is saying is true, which I doubt anyway, take responsibility for not having your staff up to specs in training. I mean look, if I were Mr. Neal, the 30 units that I sent to the military for evaluation would have been personally inspected and double checked. This was his first and supposedly best foot forward.

I say "Manup", take responsibility instead of crying foul all the time, if your stuff is good you will get another chance, especially if you aren't accusing the Army and it's evaluators of being crooked all the time. It's about diplomacy as well, Mr. Neal reminds me of the boy who cried wolf too many times.

If you look at another of my posting you will also see the difference between the testing at the German laboratory and the NIJ Vs. What the Military considers important in testing scalar armor. It was a post in response to Mr. Patriot.

Best Regards

Posted by: Allan Bain at May 22, 2007 04:07 PM
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Old 05-22-2007, 15:43   #39
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TR: Thanks for writing that up Sir. It was very informative.

Keep up the good work.

Gary
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Old 05-22-2007, 15:57   #40
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Hey guys, long time no see! TR, Doc, Bill, and JH, hope you guys are doing well...

Does anyone here know what DS's stab/puncture (ie: syringe) stopping effectiveness is?

Just curious,

Scotty
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Old 05-22-2007, 16:26   #41
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I just got this comment on an older post at OPFOR.

Quote:
There was an show about future weapons that showed a grenade being detonated under the armor. After watching that I think I'd like that kind of protection.


Some kinds of ignorance are just incurable.
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Old 05-22-2007, 16:29   #42
txzen
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Things we don't know

We don't seem to know how many of the vests had disc slippage. The army recieved 30 vests how many did they test? Did they all have disc slippage? Did all the discs on all the vests slip? And then seeing as how the army is just looking for armor that is better than what they have then why not mark the protective area that the sapi plates of the interceptor protect onto the DS and just fire at that. The video the army showed it appears like high shots that the chest plate of the interceptor doesn't even extend up to. I think it is apt to note that IBA doesn't protect everywhere on the vest for level IV threats. The DS should get to designate where it is protecting against level IV threats also and not be expected to protect against rifle threats even at the edges where there are no overlapping discs. The IBA is expected to defeat rifle threats outside of the rigid plate, it seems only fair, and if the coverage of overlapping discs is less than the coverage of rigid plates then that is a factor is who is best but saying defeats occurred because of anomalies in manufacturing or because shots were fired at areas of on a vest that the current system doesn't protect against either it is just raising more unneeded questions.
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Old 05-22-2007, 16:33   #43
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BMT
“Force protection is the No. 1 priority of the U.S. Army.
Nit-picking a bit, but shouldn't winning the damned war be the "No. 1 priority of the U.S. Army"? Force protection is simply a component of that. And one that is often over-prioritized.

For similar reasons, I make it a point to tell Marines during range safety briefs that safety is NOT the first priority. Effective training is the first priority, and we will do it safely.
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Old 05-22-2007, 17:09   #44
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Scotty
Does anyone here know what DS's stab/puncture (ie: syringe) stopping effectiveness is?

Just curious,

Scotty
And will it go with Scotty's cute new outfit he just picked out?
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Old 05-22-2007, 17:10   #45
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rubberneck
The following is from the Pinnacle website:



What exactly does this test prove? Shouldn't the armor be tested exactly as it is likely to be used? If for instance the armor was tested at 170 degrees while laying flat (and gravity can't act to degrade the structural integrity of the armor) and then allowed to cool enough for the adhesive to re-set what does it prove? Seems to me that the more appropriate test is if the armor is heated upright and then shot immediately before cooling off. Even a unsophisticated civilian like me is smart enough to realize that these vests will be exposed to extreme temperature conditions without any "cooling off" period before it has to perform. Who cares if it works after being left at room temperature for an hour and a half to cool, if it won't work while still hot or cold.

I must be stuck on stupid.
Your not stupid. But they are counting on people who are stupid. One of the reasons for these people being called out on the carpet. I think TS summed up this cool off period. When a Cop or soldier is getting ready to do a hit. He is suppose to pull his vest out of his hot trunk or sit in the shade. After 90 minutes they can continue with the mission
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