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Funny this should come up. I was watching Future Weapons on Discovery a week ago or so and they tested Dragon Skin. Now granted its TV but DS looked like a very good system. If it really is as good as it looked on TV, I am forced to agree with Tasker.

Tasker...perhaps we can assist you if you would just tell us...what have you read? Where did you read it?

I might be obtuse alright, but based on the reports I have read it doesn't look like a big conspiracy to deny troops good body armor. Granted more tests might be helpful in determining this and I support the testing. I am just not ready to call the two opposing opinions a matter of war profiteering....least not yet.

I think one of the key factors in the failed testing was the temperature. Maybe that's the big difference? I dunno? Can anyone else advise?

Till then Tasker please try to stay calm, ok? It will all work out.

Tasker can’t afford to stay calm on this issue. This is how libs pretend that they "genuinely" care about the troops.

Yeah you can say that were running torture chambers, or that were only in the military because we couldn’t hack it in college and all is forgiven.

Where was tasker when Clinton was destroying our intel gathering capabilities, or when Clinton took us from 13 active divisions to 8. Or when Clinton cut the navy by over 30% of its surface fleet?

What do you think happens when you cut the military budget Tasker? It means there is less money for things like body armor amongst other things. And since history always begins 5 min. ago for liberals you never seem to understand that military equipment, training and technology needs to be updated and sustained.

What do you think that money went to tasker?

I don’t know if this body armor is better than interceptor or not, but I do find Taskers sudden fury a little disingenuous. I do wonder if this company had been owned by a die hard lib, if he would even bring it up? He certainly doesn’t seem to mind when other libs undermine us.

Last night I watched Mail Call. Turns out that the Gunny took a look at Dragon Skin. He emptied an AK-47 at 20 ft into a vest and it stopped the bullets. He also fired a 9mm MP-5 it also stopped them. It is my guess that the "problems" in testing have something to do with factors other than just stopping bullets. I have no idea what those factors are. I hope they can work out the bugs.

I saw gunny (Lee Ermy from Mail Call) fire an AK47 7.62X55mm (not a real hot round) and a 9mm (less punch than an old .38 special) and the vest stopped the rounds. There's nothing real secret that I could see with the ceramic disk technology employed here.

The use ballistic ceramic discs laid out to overlap each other, and thats the dragon skin, but I have to wonder why they used a round disc? Square makes more sense as square covers far more evenly. (Anyone know?)

The rest of the vest is also old school. It's just loose weave ballistic fabric which is a type of nylon called Kevlar. As the bullet spins through the air to impact, it hits the Kevlar and it grabs the bullet on contact as it spins up the strong fibers into a sort of ball as it disperses the bullet energy without penitration.

By the way, I used a ceramic "trauma" plate on my vest 20 years! The plate was positioned over your heart so a big impact that didn't pierce the vest would not stop your heart by concussion. My vest would stop a .44 mag round, but most rifle bullets would go through it. Today's vests are much more bullet resistant.

I'm with Tasker on this and I find it hard to stay calm given the fact that soldiers in Iraq are dying needlessly as a result of inferior body armor when a superior alternative is available. It's even harder to stay calm when the reason that the troops don't have the superior armor is due to, at best, gross negligence, and at worst, an effort by army officials to maintain the status quo and gain financially by doing so.

Dragon Skin has been available for years and there's some blood on Norwood's hands for the part he's played in keeping the best armor off of our troops.

Here are some pretty impartial sources for info on Dragon Skin:

http://www.defensereview.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=864

http://www.sftt.org/bodyarmor.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Skin_body_armor

As you'll see in the above links, Dragon Skin has been rigorously tested and has proven effective in extreme hot and cold temperatures. It's used by the Secret Service and law enforcement around the country. Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan were using their own money to purchase it but were ordered by top brass to stop using it or lose eligibility for their $400,000 SGLI death benefit.

Clinton cut military spending (I was in the military at the time and was no fan of his) during peacetime. We've already spent hundreds of billions on this war and we can't buy the best armor for our most valuable military asset? It's absurd.

Nick said:

What do you think happens when you cut the military budget Tasker? It means there is less money for things like body armor amongst other things. And since history always begins 5 min. ago for liberals you never seem to understand that military equipment, training and technology needs to be updated and sustained.

My comment is off subject but needs to be added to Nick's comments:

The preamble to the Constitution (requires) the federal government to “provide for the common defense”...it says nothing specifically about the rest of the authority or spending that has cluttered up the system. Defense of the nation should be the number one priority of the federal government at all times. The founders saw the government as having “limited” powers”

To the authors of The Federalist Papers, whatever their differences, the lesson was clear: survival as a respected nation required the transfer of important, though limited, powers to the central government. They believed that this could be done without destroying the identity or autonomy of the separate states.

Madison proposed that, instead of the absolute sovereignty of each state under the Articles of Confederation, the states would retain a "residual sovereignty" in all those areas that did not require national concern.

The military defense of the nation is one of only a very few limited responsibilities of the federal government…the rest was up to the individual states. We’ve obviously moved far away from that original thought through the “living document” theory.

in order to save their currently cheaper body armor program.

Was this item subject to low bid? If it was there is nothing the army can do about rewarding contracts...BY LAW...they are required to take the lowest bid of all submissions meeting the spec. If the new armor was submitted on a new contract then they might still lose if the price was higher as long as the lower bid met the spec.

Given this I have no idea why the military would care that some guys were purchasing their own unless they feared it would cause disunity?

Im sorry guys, I dont disagree that soldiers should have the best possible armor availible, but your assertion that we are losing soldiers because our current armor is inadequate doesnt hold water. Interceptor body armor works, there is better stuff out there for sure, because there is ALWAYS something better out there, but we cant refit the entire militaryimmediately every time something bigger and better gets out there.

As far as commanders preventing soldeirs from buying their own stuff, well you can chalk that up to press coverage, and the obvious outcry that would take place because some soldier was wearing unapproved body armor that resulted in his or her death. Then we would have to sit through all kinds of senate hearings on why the military hasnt stadnardized this equipment. Tasker would no doubt be in here typing up a fire storm about soldiers being subjected to bad body armor by the greedy military industrial complex, etc. etc.

To continue my point about soldiers dying; this stuff may very well be the best thing since sliced bread, but if you think its going to stop a 500 lbs bomb that goes off next to your humvee from killing you, your wrong. And IED's are the number one killer of troops.

We also need to remeber here that this notion of giving every one body armor is new because we have funds availible and because of the obvious threat. When you cut funding, things like body armor for support troops generally doesnt take precedence over other equipment and training. Peace time cuts lead to that sort of thing.

Until some of you guys realize that there are reasons other than greed or gross negligence that can explain these decisions, were never going to get the cool headed discussion we need on this subject. Its easy to point at billions" f dollars and say" Why dont these guys have the top of the line stuff" the short answer is that it is easy to get caught up in "billions" talk, but that money is being spent on a myriad of things ranging from fuel, to food, to civil affairs projects, to ammunition etc. Its not like it all goes into a savings account guys.

Interceptor has worked and it has also failed to work. The Marine Corps recalled 5,277 Interceptor vests in May of 2005 because they failed to stop a 9mm round, and then pulled another 10,342 from operation in November of 2005 because they failed other ballistic tests. A Marine Corps forensic study of the Interceptor vest found that "as many as 42% of the Marine casualties who died from isolated torso injuries could have been prevented with improved protection in the areas surrounding the plated areas of the vest.”

If soldiers were killed wearing the Dragon Skin instead of the military standard issue (Interceptor) armor then it would be hard to hold the military accountable for a choice that that the soldiers made. Also, it would be irrational to award the death benefit to someone who was wearing no armor and not to someone who was wearing non-standard issue armor (even IF it were inferior to the standard issue) knowing that any armor is most likely better than none at all.

I’m not sure what your “disunity” argument is, Tina? Can you clarify? Are you talking about maintaining military uniformity?

It’s true that if you’re near an exploding IED your body armor won’t save you. But depending on your proximity to the detonation, armor might prevent a lethal injury.

I think most troops and the American public would argue that body armor should be high on the military’s spending priority regardless of whether it's peacetime or not.

If Tina’s low bid argument is valid then why aren’t our soldiers still being equipped with M1s? Why aren’t our fighter pilots still flying P-51s? The military is always looking for better and better is expensive.

It's not just a bunch bleeding hearts that are pissed at Norwood and his cohort at PEO-SOLDIER. I first learned of this whole thing at sftt.org.

http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Unlisted%202007.db&command=viewone&id=14

Zac, Thanks for asking...

I’m not sure what your “disunity” argument is, Tina? Can you clarify? Are you talking about maintaining military uniformity?

I said, "I have no idea why the military would care that some guys were purchasing their own unless they feared it would cause disunity?"

It was actually a "guess" or a question on my part, but what I meant was, as Webster's describes, "the state of being disunified in spirit : lack of concord, harmony, or a cooperative spirit : ALIENATION, DISSENSION"...( among the ranks). Would that make sense, Zac?

Also my low bid idea only had to do with the nature of most contracts in low bid contracting to government agencies. Not all contracting is low bid...probably more often in times of war it is bypassed for the sake of expediency. But when a bid does go out the government must accept the low bid that meets the spec. If the bid was awarded for several thousand units with an option to renew it might be renewed again and again to keep from creating delays in shipment. Bids take time and cost the agency money. It's a practical matter to renew as long as the equipment is deemed to be performing as expected or better than expected.

My opinion is that we should be giving the military the very best equipment available even if we have to recruit children and grandmothers to make it happen. (children collected cans and junk metal in WWII)

This spirit of cooperation is missing both in gov't and in the public. A consistant focus on the goal to win is also missing. We are boggled down in red tape and petty bickering...and it sickens me.

I probably should have remained silent on this issue since my experience in weaponry is zot...but, in defense of most manufactuters out there...I imagine they mean to bring the best to the market and have a real desire to help our troops. Taskers notions of profiteering are very dark and romantic a la Hollywoooood...but the reality is that when you are under great stress to fill a contract on a timeline you are usually under such pressure to get it done with your bottom line still in tact that you don't have time to think about the profit you are making...and occassionally you just break even or lose if things go bad, ie, 1. The price of aluminium just doubled and your stuck with the low bid amount in receivables...and 2. The parts you need won't be available after all, not for another six weeks...ooops sorry...you are now late for delivery and you owe XXXX bucks in fines and penalties for failure to meet the specified delivery. C'est la guerre!

Does that clear things up?