Wear your own armor and die...

[judasmachine]

Linkage

First I'd like to say that I've never heard of the source here, but thought it was a worthwhile subject to bringup here. My thoughts are that this is totally assinine. If they had properly prepared for this war, no one would have to have this discussion.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Comments exist in the OT thread on this subject.

 

[judasmachine]

D'oh! I only looked in here before posting. I read it on Fark.com. Does this constitute a repost?

 

[EagleKeeper]

Not considered a repost when forum crossing

I just want others to know that there was an ongoing discussion on this topic over in OT.

Some relevant information/comments were made in case others wanted to view them.

 

[judasmachine]

Yeah I thought about the legal issues. Does the gov. use a private insurance company or do they finance those benefits themselves?

 

[techs]

There is still no evidence that this is true or not.
It comes from an unknown website.
The real issue is what murderous individual or individuals failed to get adequate body armor for our troops.

 

[Grunt03]

I have been serving in the Military for the past 21+ years and I just wanted to make one short comment.

What some fail to realize is that during this period most of this gear was not heard of and was not in the military supply system. Things like the armor plates for the vehicles. Prior to that the armorer protection was very heavy and was never used. I have personally been involved with the training and the testing of this new gear, before, during and currently. The military leadership did and continue to do everything w2ithin their power to aquire, purchase and make gear. If you truely want to know the answer it is the red tape
that slows the entire system down. The focus of the so called "War" in my opinion was never about protecting the military forces, it is about the many different civilian and civilian companies makeing easy money on the Government.

 

[jammur21]

The soldier reiterated Friday's reports that any soldier who refused to comply with the order and WAS SUBSEQUENTLY KILLED IN ACTION "could" be denied the $400,000 death benefit provided by their SGLI life insurance policy as well as FACE DISCIPLINARY ACTION.


umm what are they going to do, make your corpse peel potatoes?

 

[judasmachine]

Originally posted by: Grunt03
I have been serving in the Military for the past 21+ years and I just wanted to make one short comment.

What some fail to realize is that during this period most of this gear was not heard of and was not in the military supply system. Things like the armor plates for the vehicles. Prior to that the armorer protection was very heavy and was never used. I have personally been involved with the training and the testing of this new gear, before, during and currently. The military leadership did and continue to do everything w2ithin their power to aquire, purchase and make gear. If you truely want to know the answer it is the red tape
that slows the entire system down. The focus of the so called "War" in my opinion was never about protecting the military forces, it is about the many different civilian and civilian companies makeing easy money on the Government.

We all know what happens when the politicians do the military's thinking for it. War is better left to those who fight it, not spoiled rich college kids who evaded it.

 

[CaptainGoodnight]

I posted this in another thread from ATOT:

In my former unit we wore the interceptor IBA. Talking to some of my buddies they are not crazy about the idea of having to wear more.

It, with weapon and full battle load comes to around 60 lb. It can be almost unbearable during the summer months in Iraq. We've just been issued the upgraded SAPPI plates which are even heavier. We've lost two guys in our unit to EFP. Not much the interceptor plus can do about that. It has saved lives however and we wont argue that.

I hate it when people claim the reason that their pet solution XYZ is not done because it "costs too much". I don't think many people have a grip on exactly how much is spent training and equipping soldiers.

The balancing act of cost vs protection vs mobility vs lethality of projectiles been around since the seige of Troy.

There is good body armor in the civilian sector, but is that armor appropriate for military use? Usually the answer is no. Threats and ruggedness issues in the civilian sector are much different than that in the military. Just buying off the shelf items does not necessarily solve the problem.

Going back to body armor, lets say I take a round to the chest. The integrity of the plate is now in doubt, and I'm gonna want a new one even if the plate shows no fractures. With an Interceptor, there's probably a spare in the hummer. If I was wearing Dragon Skin, I'd probably have to order it online and wait 4-8 weeks for delivery. No thanks.

And then there's this specific armor itself. It has NOT been proven to be "better". It's presented as more flexible, but that's at a III rating. It has plates to make it IV, but once those plates are added, how flexible is it? It doesn't have the weakness over the ribs like the Interceptor OTV, but side plates are being added to the Interceptor to correct that. They cost less than $500 and add 2lbs. The Dragonskin weighs 8lbs more(6lb with the new plates). May not sound like much difference but that 2lbs is one of the reasons the side plates weren't already on the OTV. The Dragon Skin also costs close to $7500 when it's plated, the Interceptor costs less than $1500(and that's with the side plates).

I have yet to hear or see definitive proof that this stuff is any better than what's being issued, and consequently there's no reason anyone should be wearing it in a IV rating load out. The talk about generals wearing it, and most likely the guys in the article(who are obviously special forces since they are called "operators" and fall under SOCOM) appears to refer to III rating situations. This stuff might be better if all you're wearing is III. I'm suprised that SOCOM said anything though, they let these guys wear bicycle helmets into battle for years(better hearing, less weight).

Why do you people think the Interceptor is awful? There is no fighting force in the world that has anything that even remotely compares. No infantry can go head to head with us in a standup fight. Look at the between 100-1000 to 1 kill/death ratio of the Battle of Mogadishu, using the old armor. The new stuff is even better.

One article from some site no one has heard of praising the virtues of some other form of armor(in no less than 3 articles, and mention it in a forth) and suddenly our current stuff is total shiat. You people are sheep. What's killing our troops is not being fired from a gun.

 

[imported_Aelius]

CaptainGoodnight nailed it I think.

Knowing what I know now I think the only way to solve this is to simply design better armor. Easier said then done. As mentioned the red tape is just horrible.