full body armour suit ready for trials in Iraq

Duty Honor Country

Active member
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
 
"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-shit 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 :twisted: ?
 
Its about time they have something like this (although this is still a primitive version of full body armor). I've been hoping for a while that they would develop this.

This would certainly come in handy in any future world war, especially in the advent of an EMP strike.
 
FutureDevilDog said:
It ways in at 40 lbs. Is that heavy?

PS I'm not being sarcastic or anything

I have had the unfortunate pleasure of wearing the old style of body armour in Kosovo. That crap weights in at around 40 lbs. Add that to your combat load and life was not too fun for a dismounded patrol. The weight alone does not make the suit not worthy for dismount patrols. The new suit is really bulky. THat means you are going to be really hot in it and movement will be restricted. The AC unit keeps the suit cold and the suit is restricted to turret gunners.
 
gladius said:
Its about time they have something like this (although this is still a primitive version of full body armor). I've been hoping for a while that they would develop this.

This would certainly come in handy in any future world war, especially in the advent of an EMP strike.

:eek:fftopic: Would an EMP strike effect a human?
 
No EMP will not affect a human (for the most part).

But it will affect electronic circuits.

Body armor doesn't have electronic circuits (unless you count the cooling unit). This will still enable Western troops to fight with a slight advantage even if their electronic weapons are somehow out of commision.

Future versions of full body armor should be lighter and may not even need a cooling unit. However its good to have a cooling and heating unit for such armor, but its use shouldn't be dependent on the unit.
 
Well, that's awesome and all, but it still won't protect them from IEDs when it destroys the entire vehicle.
 
hicks said:
Well, that's awesome and all, but it still won't protect them from IEDs when it destroys the entire vehicle.

...

And an M1A2 won't protect you from a direct hit from a nuclear bomb. What's your point?
 
hicks said:
Well, that's awesome and all, but it still won't protect them from IEDs when it destroys the entire vehicle.

Most IEDs just flip the vehicle over, not really hurting anyone inside. The turret gunners on the top get absolutely shredded though
 
Whispering Death said:
...

And an M1A2 won't protect you from a direct hit from a nuclear bomb. What's your point?

My point is that's their biggest threat right now.
 
Kozzy Mozzy said:
Most IEDs just flip the vehicle over, not really hurting anyone inside. The turret gunners on the top get absolutely shredded though

Most IEDs aren't as effective as planned, but there's a good percentage of soldiers who have been injured while inside the vehicle.

My best friend has been lucky, but hit by two IEDs and the second time it busted his ear drum and it started bleeding... minor yes. Could have been worse.

Two more buddies of mine...

One hit an IED and killed everybody in the vehicle but him. He fractured 3 ribs, busted his skull open and took mad shrapnel.

The other one, his driver lost his legs and it's been over a year and my buddy is still having surgery on his legs.
 
Basically what I'm saying is that the suit is supposed to offer protection when outside the vehicle. If the entire vehicle is destroyed than obviously the body armor isn't supposed to defend against that level of threat.
 
Back
Top