The Army Times just came out with an article on the Cupola Protective Ensemble yesterday. No other media outlets have anything on the CPE and the web has very little on it.

"The Joint IED Defeat Task Force, working with the Program Executive Office–Soldier and others, is fielding a Cupola Protective Ensemble, which consists of outer garments providing torso, limb, and face protection that will greatly improve protection for exposed gunners in their vehicles."
16 MAR 05
SOURCE

Back to the Army Times piece. The CPE looks like something you would see from a bomb disposal unit. It looks like a giant snow suit with a face shield, an extra large neck collar, extra protection in the chest area and best of all, an AC unit that keeps the suit at 65 deg. Weighing in at 40 lbs, it is only meant for turret gunners. The article says the suit was developed in response to the number of blast causalities in Iraq.

188 suits have already been shipped to Iraq for a 60 day trial to weed out any problems. If all goes well, the military hopes to issue 2,000 of the CPEs to soldiers and Marines by fall. The CPE has 2 toggles which allow the user to get out of the suit pretty fast. The article claims the CPE can be removed in 4 seconds.

I hope to find a pict online. Enjoy

SGT Doody

Sounds cool.

How strong is the body armor I wonder?

"The jacket has 8 blast plates -2 in each arm, one front, one back and 2 on each side. The pants have no plates, since the legs are usually aren't exposed in the turret as the upper half of the body.

The see-through face shield is double layered. The first layer is designed to absorb the blast energy and break up, leaving the second later for any additional threats.

The face shield is designed to work with the jacket's collar to protect against 'traumatic brain injury' that often follows the jaring force of an IED detonation. The two help absorb impact to the neck and head that coccurs when the wearer is propelled against another object during an explosion.

And the CPE's Kevlar and Nomex material is designed to farther protect troops against flying shrapnel and burns caused by liquid flame sometimes found in IEDs."

From the article

This has been WAAAAY too late in comming.

Not to use hollywood as my source here, but anyone who'se heard the phrase "get someone on that .50" from the memorable scene in Black Hawk Down knows our boys need protection.

I have always been and always will be a proponent of giving some of this life saving technology every single other unit of the millitary gets to our infantry, the unit that takes 25% of all casualties. For the love of christ, the police officers that hand out chicken-**** traffic tickets are better armored than our men asked to get shot at by 7.62 every day.

We spend $100 million a piece on every single F-22. The least we can do is give our boys an updated rifel and some armor.

A different blog site said that the suits cost around $9600 but that is unconfirmed source.

Don't worry redleg, I have not crossed over to the dark side. The site came up in my search for info on the CPE...btw how much will you pay me to stay on this forum ?

So would this armor be able to withstand a nade blast

oh god, i bet it will be heavy....

it's bout time!

I hope it saves our soldiers!

Originally Posted by Snauhi

oh god, i bet it will be heavy....

It ways in at 40 lbs. Is that heavy?

PS I'm not being sarcastic or anything