DoDBuzz: Don’t Buy Dragon Skin: PEO Soldier

[unhappycamper]

Don’t Buy Dragon Skin: PEO Soldier
By Colin Clark Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 5:08 pm
Posted in Land

The mother of a Marine called Army Brig. Gen. Peter Fuller Monday morning to ask why the Army wouldn’t provide her son with Dragon Skin body armor.

She “knew” it was better than the equipment provided by the Army and Marines so she bought it for her son out of her own pocket.

Fuller was straight with her: “Guess what. Dragonskin doesn’t work.”

This and other calls led him to tell me he had one message for the troops and their parents: Don’t Buy Dragon Skin. PEO Soldier has tested Dragon Skin and it just doesn’t stop bullets, he said. The problem is simple. “Somewhere out there is the perception that we are holding something back, that we have something hidden out back. No. We are providing them with the very best,” Fuller said.

Body armor, what Fuller calls the third rail of Army equipment for its political sensitivity, isn’t subject to the usual Pentagon processes since every parent watches what their son or daughter wears and has an opinion about how effective the armor is.


Rest of article at: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/03/17/dont-buy-dragon-skin-peo-soldier/?wh=wh

[MADem]

1. Well, there was a "problem" with that issued gear

It was too heavy, too hot, and people took the plates out.
Dragonskin stands by their product.

I dunno.

For those who may not remember, there has been ample discussion about whether the current Interceptor armor is as good as the Army claims. The DoD Inspector General issued a report in late January questioning some of the testing performed on the armor. Although the Army and the Operational Test and Evaluation folks disagree with the IG’s findings, the service recalled 16,000 sets of body armor.

[14thColony]

2. Did it also vary by types of plates?

I was issued the baby blue level 5 plates, whereas most Army folks got the thinner black level 4 plates.

[MADem]

3. I don't remember. I do remember that there was a suggestion that the

plate testers "gundecked" the results and if they didn't get what they wanted the first time, they tried, tried again. This was, oh, three years ago, at least, I think. It was around the time that they put out that NO DRAGONSKIN rule and parents who had scrimped and saved to buy the stuff for their kids were absolutely bullshit.

[14thColony]

4. Doesn't surprise me

Harkening back to the Sgt York air defense gun system, where they defined a single fragment from a shell burst passing within 1 meter of the target as a 'kill.' And when that didn't work, IIRC they just rigged the drones with explosives and blew them up when the Sgt York began firing. Look! A kill!

Of course, even if only half as good as advertised, the body armor I wore was still infinitely better than the (no) body armor worn by solider in the Civil War, WWI, WWII, and Korea, and was still a damned sight better than Vietnam-era flak vests. I never really believed the claim that my plates would stop a three-round burst of 7.62mm AP from 10 meters, but I was pretty sure it would stop a lot of things short of that.