Plastic helmets fail tests

[unhappycamper]

A soldier looks out from an assigned patrol base on an empty hilltop near Kandahar, Afghanistan. Several designs for new, lightweight plastic helmets designed to protect soldiers at the front have been sub-par.


Plastic helmets fail tests
By Amy McCullough - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Jan 11, 2010 6:42:46 EST

Test versions of the Army’s new plastic helmet have failed to protect against bullets and blunt force attacks. Some prototypes couldn’t stop bullets, others couldn’t withstand blunt force, and some failed on both counts.

Officials would say only that all five of the test helmets, made by four companies, failed in either ballistic or nonballistic testing. The nonballistic tests examined the impact of blunt force trauma to the helmets from blast waves, rolled-over vehicles and fragmentation.

The failures have set the program back, postponing Army plans to field the new helmet this year.

Creating a lightweight helmet that will stop a rifle round is difficult, experts say.

“This has been an acknowledged risky schedule, but we think the potential benefits to come out of the enhanced combat helmet warranted the assumed risk, and we were pushing everybody to their limits on this one — industry, our engineers, and even our own team,” said Lt. Col. A.J. Pasagian, head of the Marine Corps’ infantry combat equipment program at Marine Corps Systems Command. “We acknowledged that risk up front. We didn’t make it, but we are going to go back to (the second round of developmental testing) in the next four to six months.”


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/01/army_kevlar011010w/