Shielded Eyes

Written by Peter A. Buxbaum

The U.S. military continually strives to acquire products that protect warfighters’ bodies from injury or mitigate the severity of damage if they are hit. The same goes for the protection of their eyes.

Military organizations that procure eyewear have partnered with industry providers to generate lists of approved products that provide protection from ballistic damage to specific standards. More than that, they are constantly working with industry to improve their products and to enhance the standards of protection.

“Once seemingly unachievable improvements in eye protection are now becoming a reality through improved materials and production methods,” said Captain Wes Ticer, a spokesperson for the United States Special Operations Command. “A 25 percent to 50 percent improvement in ballistic protection may also be achievable in the near term as new advanced materials are developed. Strong partnerships have allowed the government/industry team to continually develop and test materials and systems that outperform existing solutions.”

The Army’s Military Combat Eye Protection (MCEP) program offers protection to soldiers’ eyes from ballistic fragmentation in a variety of styles and sizes. By allowing soldiers choices in approved eyewear, the MCEP aims to improve soldier acceptance of the gear and to reduce the likelihood of eye injuries, explained Sarah Morgan-Clyborne, the assistant product manager for protective eyewear at MCEP.

MCEP, which comes under the umbrella of Program Executive Office Soldier, puts commercial products through rigorous laboratory testing for protection from ballistic fragmentation such as rocks, glass and shrapnel, as well as through user testing in a field environment. The ballistic fragmentation requirements that MCEP tests against are based on Military Performance Specification 31013: 640 feet per second for spectacles and 550 feet per second for goggles. Spectacles are tested for their ability to resist .15-caliber steel fragments while goggles must protect against .22-caliber steel fragments.

Items that pass the tests and receive user approval are included on an authorized protective eyewear list (APEL). In addition to providing ballistic fragmentation protection, all products on the APEL have been qualified to the American National Standards Institute Z87.1 Standard for Occupational and Educational Personal Eye and Face Protection Devices.

Eyewear and goggles from vendors such as ESS, Oakley, Revision, Uvex, Wiley-X and Arena have all made the list. Eyewear lenses are interchangeable and are offered in clear and neutral gray shades, all of which provide the eye with UV protection. For soldiers who require corrective lenses, five of the spectacles (ESS ICE 2, ESS ICE NARO, Revision Sawfly, Uvex Genesis, Uvex XC) and two goggles (ESS Profile NVG and Revision Desert Locust) have approved prescription lens carriers.

“The spectacle and goggle systems are supply items that may be purchased as complete kits or as individual parts,” said Morgan-Clyborne. “All items have assigned national stock numbers and may be purchased through normal supply channels. All approved optical inserts for prescription lenses are available through the optical fabrication lab and through post clinics.”

USSOCOM currently fields and sustains the Special Operations Eyewear Package (SOEP) kit, which comprises the Oakley SI M-Frame 2.0 Spectacle and the Oakley SI Ballistic Goggle. “The kit provides the end user protection from ultraviolet light, ballistic impact, dust, dirt, fragmentation and lasers while maintaining the optical performance necessary to operate,” Ticer explained.

The kit is composed of a clear lens, a smoked lens, a low-light lens, a laser protection lens and a polycarbonate integrated insert. The polycarbonate insert provides prescription users impact and ballistic protection without glass-like impact shatter.

The USSOCOM SOEP kit represents the state of the art in ballistic eye protection, according to Ticer. “Advanced research and development is constantly being conducted to improve the tactical performance and protection of the operator,” he said. “When industry and government identify potential technological improvements that may directly affect performance, USSOCOM is committed to incorporating them.”

MCEP is also on the lookout for advances in protective materials, said Morgan-Clyborne. “We have an existing requirement for protections against most battlefield contaminants, and we are looking for improvements in performance of the materials,” she said.

Morgan-Clyborne finds that MCEP vendors are not only willing to cooperate, but are proactive in the research and development of advanced materials. “Because we have a list of several authorized vendors, they are constantly competing against each other for market share,” she explained, “so they are always looking for ways to improve their products and win favor with soldiers. We’re not telling them to make changes. They come to us with improvements.”

Right now MCEP is working with vendors to improve lens scratch protection and exposure to battlefield contaminants such as bleach and dirt. This is accomplished by applying a hard coating over the base polycarbonate material. “Some products meet some performance parameters but not all,” said Morgan-Clyborne. “We are trying to tweak the coatings so that it is applied consistently across the entire lens to resist contaminants all the time.”

MCEP’s program for coating materials improvement involves evaluations of products forwarded by the vendors and providing them with feedback. “It is a continuous loop,” said Morgan-Clyborne. “The vendors continue to improve their materials, and we continue to test performance against parameters and to provide feedback.”

MCEP evaluations routinely include the input of an independent test laboratory, an army laboratory and evaluation by soldiers in the field.

An area in which one vendor is working to improve lens materials involves the tinting of polycarbonate ballistic prescription lenses, a difficult process because of their hard surfaces. OMS Optochemicals of Pointe Claire, Quebec, markets chemicals and a patented process to treat and tint optic lens surfaces.

Prescription lenses are tinted after the lens is fabricated by coating the surfaces and not by tinting the lens material itself. The tinting is done separately in order to ensure equal density of the tinting material across the lens, according to Chris Ryser, OMS Optochemicals’ president.

OMS Optochemicals has a patented lens tinting system, which uses microwaves to embed the tinting instead of heat. “This process goes one hundred times faster than the heat process,” noted Ryser. OMS Optochemicals’ special lens dyes fully absorb UV rays and fuzzy blue light to “provide super high contrast, even when looking against sunlight,” he added.

The U.S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps, as well as the Canadian military, all incorporate OMS Optochemicals products and processes into their optical offerings. USSOCOM is currently evaluating performance of photochromic lenses that change the tint of the lens with varying light conditions. Ticer sees this as “a potential method of providing the end user a direct battlefield advantage … It leads to improved target detection,” he explained, “and the potential for a one-lens solution that will allow operators to seamlessly transition through varying light conditions.”

Photochromic lenses would be advantageous to warfighters because they would not have to switch lenses in different lighting conditions, Morgan-Clyborne noted. MCEP is considering letting a contract to a vendor that could improve the performance of these transitioning lenses, as well as enhance scratch resistance and integrate hearing protection in a single device.

“There are three proposals that are being looked at, and an award is pending on this contract,” she said.

Innovations in ballistic eye protection go beyond improvements in the lenses themselves. Wyley-X, a veteran-owned company based in Livermore, Calif., which has a number of its products on MCEP’s approved list, has a product currently being evaluated by MCEP that allows curved prescription lens replacements to be inserted into frames from half a dozen eyewear manufacturers. An innovation from another company, Montreal’s Eye Tactical Inc., integrates the eyepiece with the standard-issue Kevlar helmet.

“Traditional eyewear sits flat on the face and leaves the soldier exposed to lateral impact,” said Steve Gerlovich, Wiley-X’s vice president for government sales. “The advantage of curved lenses is that they provide protection from lateral impact. With wraparound eyeglass styles, bending the inserts changes the characteristics of prescriptions. As a result, prescription eyeglass wearers were getting headaches and becoming disoriented.”

The Army published a requirement for this kind of product in October 2006. “We think this is big news and the newest advancement in ballistic eyewear,” said Gerlovich. “We are the first to come to market with a product that meets the specs the military is looking for.”

Creating these prescription inserts involved a number of challenges. One was to fashion the lens in the shape and at the angle that the military specified. Another was to create an adapter that allows the lens to be inserted into multiple platforms.

“The Army doesn’t want to stock parts for each manufacturer,” said Gerlovich. “There are half a dozen manufacturers that make optical products for the military. They don’t want to have to keep inserts for all manufacturers to units that are forward deployed.”

Wiley-X dealt with this issue by incorporating an adapter on the nose bridge of the lens that allows Wiley-X lens inserts to be snapped into multiple frames, including those of its competitors. MCEP is currently reviewing Wiley-X’s product.

Eye Tactical’s innovation also involves modularization—in this case adapting an eyepiece as a component of a warfighter’s helmet. Company President Shawn McGovern says his company specializes in eye and facial protection for combat and training and was the first to develop a system for securely attaching eye protection to a helmet.

The first model was introduced in 2005 for the helmet the Marine Corps uses in its small arms training program, a model also widely used by the Army National Guard. In 2006, the company developed a similar product for the Army’s Advanced Combat Helmet.

“The real innovation in our product is the face mask, which incorporates the eyepiece,” said McGovern. “Our facial protection is unique as it is the only product that easily attaches to Kevlar helmets with a patent-pending helmet adaptor system.” In addition, a soft armor pad weighing less than three quarters of a pound can be snapped on to the mask framework. This provides Level IIIA ballistic protection, which can resist a 9 mm bullet.

Eye Tactical has a quick-change lens system that allows for rapid lens cleaning or swapping for changing light conditions. The company is about to introduce a new system that allows swapping of lenses in under ten seconds, according to McGovern. All Eye Tactical lenses are treated with anti-fog and anti-scratch coatings, and the masks are compatible with most prescription eyewear, he added.

“What we have built is a modular platform that can accommodate numerous solutions,” said McGovern. “The military doesn’t have to buy new gear to accommodate communications systems or night vision goggles.”

USSOCOM, however, continues to face issues of system integration and interoperability, according to Ticer. “Additional focus at the design and testing levels will address issues from the simultaneous use of eyewear and head-mounted communications systems,” he said. “This will result in more effective interfaces to counter the interoperability challenges.

“Operators continue to voice the need for eyewear systems that reduce fogging and are more scratch resistant,” Ticer added. “USSOCOM is looking closely at recent developments and technological approaches that provide an effective solution to these issues.”

USSOCOM is also pursuing improved laser protection, as is MCEP. Morgan- Clyborne expects a first iteration of an advanced laser-resistant product to be available in the near future. ♦

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