Last Shield

USSOCOM is not immune to the struggle to improve body armor for its warfighters. Special operators have been struggling to produce body armor that is also lighter and more comfortable while maintaining the same or improved levels of ballistic protection.

Ballistic armor packages are still a very young technology among U.S. military users, according to a USSOCOM spokesperson. The spokesperson, whose name has been withheld via USSOCOM policy, told Special Operations Technology that the command has been focusing on improving quality assurance and life cycle management for its body armor acquisitions. USSOCOM has been trying to determine how local environments impact the effectiveness of body armor while performing biannual testing on individual armor packages to ensure that special operations forces are deploying with acceptable armor.

USSOCOM procures its body armor openly through industry contracts, the spokesperson emphasized. The command specifies how tough the armor must be, and companies compete to provide armor that matches those specifications. USSOCOM itself does not rely upon any single contractor to fulfill this requirement.

However, much like the regular Army and Marine Corps, special operators would really like to see improvements in body armor.

“Although industry has been working diligently, there have been no leap-ahead technologies in the area of armor since the beginning of the global war on terrorism,” the USSOCOM spokesperson stated. “The weight of armor has dropped dramatically since its initial use in the early 1990s, but no major improvement over current weight and bulk will occur until a leap-ahead technology presents itself.

“A base armor package consisting of a set of two plates, soft armor inserts, and a releasable vest carrier currently weighs approximately 18 pounds,” the spokesperson continued. “A leap-ahead technology that could reduce this base capability weight by any considerable percentage would be the highest on a wish list. Our focus remains on tailoring—to increase area of coverage or protection level, or decrease these based on mission intelligence—of the armor package and the quality assurance of its performance when called upon.”

In the absence of “leap ahead” technologies, body armor contractors must balance the conflicting demands of providing a high level of protection with as much mobility as possible, the spokesperson observed. High levels of ballistic protection usually involve adding more weight to body armor, which in turn restricts the mobility of its operators.

And so those two ideals—protection and mobility—co-exist with tension generated by two schools of thought. Increasing ballistic protection coverage and performance results in keeping warfighters safe, according to one school of thought. But boosting mobility would permit operators to move faster and provide a more difficult target to enemy forces, according to the opposing school of thought.

“The balance is found when a user’s mobility, trading the correct amount coverage for the prioritized threats, is maximized,” the spokesperson commented.

Anything capable of evolving these circumstances to the next level would involve the knowledge and experiences of the end user. The USSOCOM spokesperson credited the command’s senior noncommissioned officers with holding especially high knowledge of the user requirements in this regard.

Currently, USSOCOM provides its operators with a tailored body armor system that permits adjustments on the ground by leaders in the field. The current system has evolved through the input of end users.

“This concept is unique to the SOF community and proves to be the greatest advantage we currently hold,” the spokesperson declared.

SHOCK PROTECTION

Point Blank Body Armor Inc., a division of DHB Industries based in Pompano Beach, Fla., introduced its Thor Shield electroshock countermeasure at the SHOT Show recently. Both Point Blank Body Armor and a sister company (Tennessee-based Protective Apparel Corporation of America [PACA]) offer the Thor Shield lining for their other body armor offerings, Dale Taylor, Point Blank vice president of research and development, told SOTECH.

Overall, Point Blank has been the largest single supplier of soft body armor to the U.S. Army with more than 1.3 million orders at the last tally. Point Blank was a manufacturer of the Army’s Interceptor body armor and later the service’s OTV armor, which consisted of a front-opening vest design. The Army has changed the design for the IOTV to a side-opening quick-release vest, Taylor explained.

“There were some requirements for the quick release,” Taylor remarked. “They wanted to make a more ergonomic design than the original design. They wanted to make it more comfortable and lighter weight and a better fit. Then a requirement came out for it to also be releasable by a single pull cable quick release in order for a soldier to get out of it quickly if he is in an overturned vehicle or in a tight space where the armor might prevent an exit.”

Now Point Blank offers three levels of tactical body armor with its Vision, Hi-Lite and C-Series as high, medium and low levels of protection. Thor Shield—a conductive material specially developed to negate tasers, stun guns and other shock weapons—is available as an upgrade to those classes or armor. It comes standard on the highest grade armor, Vision Level IIIA.

PACA Body Armor, which manufactures concealable body armor, also offers Thor Shield as an option in its premium Blue Steel, mid-level Peformax, and entry-level Nova body armor product lines.

“On the law enforcement and correctional side, tasers have been really growing over the last few years,” Taylor noted. “According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, 20 percent of the officers slain in the line of duty are killed with their own weapons.

“That’s with handguns and such,” he continued. “The thought is that the same percentage could be attacked with their own taser device, potentially allowing a suspect or a subject to take control of the officer’s handgun and do even more damage.”

As such, military police who carry tasers would likely benefit from use of the Thor Shield lining, Taylor added.

Thor Shield has been under development for about three years and has gone through three generations of development to reach the point where it is thin enough and flexible enough for widespread use. Once incorporated into body armor, an officer would never know Thor Shield is present without inspecting the armor for a concealed label that indicates the lining is there.

Point Blank began exclusively manufacturing the material in April and taking orders for it. The first deliveries of Thor Shield are scheduled for May. Thor Shield will remain available only to law enforcement and military agencies as a controlled product, Taylor emphasized, preventing purchases from bad guys.

“Existing customers that have bought armor from Point Blank and PACA could opt to purchase outer shells to upgrade their existing armor as long as it’s still within its warranty period. It’s available to new customers and existing customers,” Taylor said.

Later this year, Point Blank also will introduce a line of gloves that use Thor Shield. This summer, the company will introduce a tactical officer’s glove with the lining, enabling operators to seize taser or shock weapons without fear of electric shock. By October, the company anticipates offering a line of patrol gloves that would offer a high level of dexterity.

FOCUS ON WARFIGHTERS

Some companies envision more radical reconfigurations of body armor. First Choice Armor and Equipment Inc., headquartered in Braintree, Mass., is concentrating on putting the focus on ballistic protection back on the warfighter, the armor’s end user, rather than concentrating on the armor itself. Working initially with the Marine Corps, Gary Lesley of First Choice, envisions a reengineering of how body armor is manufactured.

“We have a brand called Vortex. It is more than a brand; it is an ethos,” Lesley proclaimed. “What will separate products that come under this Vortex brand is a commitment to our basic concept of protecting the Corps inside-out.”

Basically, First Choice plans to build a new line of body armor from the ground up, all along focusing on the operational requirements and comfort of the user. The idea took root at an industry day three years ago when the Marine Corps were examining the idea of replacing the Interceptor vest with what would become the MTV vest.

“Listening to the challenges they were having with that particular piece of gear, what struck me at that time was even though the Marine Corps has a commitment to its warriors, the focus kept coming back to the vest,” Lesley commented. “Until someone takes the focus off the vest and puts it back onto the Marine and drives a new product development around that discipline, they will end up with another vest and in two or three years it will be Groundhog Day with Bill Murray again. They will be looking at a problem with the vest and wondering how did they get there.”

Several months ago, the commandant of the Marine Corps found himself in a position very similar to that, where he halted orders of the MTV vest to examine how the service got to the point of ordering so many vests that did not fit their needs as well as it should have.

Lesley has not had the commandant to provide his point of view on why that was so to the commandant, but he did brief the commanding general of U.S. Marine Corps forces at Special Operations Command during a visit to Camp Lejeune in April.

“We were asked to come back down and brief the commanding general on our Vortex products,” Lesley said.

From the new philosophy comes specific products that will be a part of the Vortex brand. Vortex would maintain an open architecture that would enable the insertion of new technology as it is developed, Lesley described. Although a key piece of Vortex equipment will be a vest, the company will discard the idea of a bulky enclosed system that comes as one piece.

But the product line will keep a focus on simplicity. Many systems available today are too complicated, Lesley said. Complicated gear generates stress, particularly in already stressful battle scenarios.

“Part of the Vortex ethos is simplicity and elegance with common-sense and intuitive design,” he revealed. “The current MTV vest was requiring three hours of training for a vest. Most of the Marines didn’t get the three hours of training. Only three or four out of ten Marines got that training. So you had a lot of Marines who didn’t have the confidence or desire to use all of the aspects of that complicated piece of gear. That shouldn’t be.”

So First Choice envisions a total system of body armor that begins with under garments and ends with the outer shell, dealing with issues such as heat management and moisture control, while keeping simplicity and comfort intact.

Product development will happen quickly. At press time, First Choice was working on advanced sample of Vortex products for military briefings.

“This is a high ops tempo. There is still a war on and battles raging and there is some dissatisfaction with the heavier vests like the MTV and the IOTV in the Army. It is a real-time issue where they are looking for solutions,” Lesley emphasized. “We are talking about starting product creation over the next 90 days. They will very likely get into theater later this summer.”

The Vortex products will feature quick release mechanisms, which have become critical during battles in Iraq in recent times. Vortex armor would also feature quick reassembly so that warfighters can suit up again fast, Lesley added. ♦