Bullet Proof Evidence

[Team Infidel]

Fresno Bee
May 24, 2007
Pg. C1
Sens. Jim Webb and Hillary Clinton have asked for an inquiry on the quality of Dragon Skin body armor.
By Sanford Nax, The Fresno Bee
Bill Ward was impressed after firing 13 rounds of high-powered ammunition into Dragon Skin body armor.
"This is amazing," said Ward, the range master for the Madera County Sheriff's Office, on Wednesday after none of the rounds penetrated the vest. "It's incredible."
Fresno-based Pinnacle Armor says its Dragon Skin is better than the protective vests worn by Army troops in the Middle East. Army officials say otherwise, which led to Wednesday's demonstration before local media and congressional representatives at The Range in Fresno.
The demonstration was the latest skirmish in the battle between the Army and Pinnacle -- a conflict that gained a higher profile last week when NBC broadcast a report questioning why soldiers are not equipped with Dragon Skin.
At the demonstration, Ward fired rounds from an M-14, M-16 and AK 47, including armor-piercing ammunition. Afterward, Murray Neal, chief executive of Pinnacle Armor, showed where two high-powered bullets tore the fabric of the vest, but didn't go through.
That is evidence, he said, that the Army should protect soldiers with his equipment, which is sold to many law enforcement agencies and other branches of the military. According to NBC, some Army generals wear Dragon Skin, but the agency won't allow soldiers to wear it.
The Army responded to the NBC report by holding a news conference Monday in which Brig. Gen. Mark Brown, executive officer of the Army's armor testing program, showed results of shooting tests he said Pinnacle failed.
The tests were conducted almost a year ago. Brown said that in 13 of 48 shots, rounds penetrated on the first or second shot. The results were not released earlier because of security concerns, he said during the news conference.
Pinnacle's armor is made of 2-inch ceramic discs laid out in an interlocking pattern like scales on a fish. The company says they are more difficult to crack than the existing single large ceramic plate in traditional vests.
"We have six producers of body armor, and all of those pass outstanding with zero penetrations, and Pinnacle had 13 penetrations out of 48," Army spokesman Dave Foster said Wednesday.
Neal said 88 rounds were fired into eight vests, and that eight of the 13 disputed rounds hit webbing that did not contain discs. The other rounds, he said, were shot in ways that violated testing protocol.
"Why are they counting shots that were fired into non-rifle defeating areas?" Neal asked. "They deviated from protocol procedures."
Neal said certification last year by the National Institute of Justice, which is the research-and-evaluation arm of the Department of Justice, was third-party validation of Dragon Skin.
After the NBC broadcast, interest from legislators picked up. Sens. Jim Webb, D-Va., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked for an investigation by the Government Accountability Office.
"With United States troops risking their lives every day in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, we owe it to them to make sure they have the best equipment possible," Clinton said.
Likewise, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., sent a letter to General George Casey, Army chief of staff.
And representatives of Dianne Feinstein, George Radanovich, Jim Costa and Devin Nunes, all legislators from California, watched Pinnacle's demonstration at The Range.
Neal has been asked to appear before the House Armed Services Committee in early June.
Also attending were three fathers of soldiers in the military, who described themselves as "mad dads." One of them, Javier LaRosa, came from Tennessee to witness the demonstration. Neal paid for the trip so LaRosa could videotape the demonstration and spread his cause.
LaRosa and his supporters are holding fundraisers to raise money to buy Dragon Skin vests for his son, who is a Marine about to be deployed to Iraq, and his son's platoon.
"Dragon Skin is the safest when it comes to ballistics protection," he said.

 

[5.56X45mm]

The ****er weighs 47 pounds. That's just the vest alone. Plus ammo, gear, ruck, water, etc.... You're talking about 200lbs of gear.

The vest will not stop a round coming in at an angle.

Lastly, generals also live in AC with fine food and PMC secuirty and custom made pistols issued to them. General don't fight in the field, they work a table. So 47lbs of vest in'st that damn big of a problem for them.

 

[Grimmy]

Dragon skin has the same liabilities as the old scale mail did. Strikes coming in from any direction other than striaght from the front have potential to slide between the scales and penetrate.

This is why scale mail was scrapped in favor of the harder to manufacture and maintain chain mail. And even chain was eventually supplanted or added to by plate.

That's, functionally, where we are at now. Plate over chain mail. Going backwards to scale mail would be just that, a devolution to a lesser form of armor.

 

[bulldogg]

Rock - paper - scissors.

Me thinks some Senator has stock options or perchance his district would benefit from Dragonskin gaining some DoD contract.

 

[Grimmy]

Actually, if you read up on the rules and methods of hostile propaganda, it's pretty obvious what they're doing.

Anything to give the troops reason to doubt their leadership's ability or fidelity.

First you attack the cause or reason for a war.
Then you attack the trust and faith in the leadership.
Then you attack the conduct of the men fighting the war.

Separate from the cause, then from the leaders then from the population.