Saturday, 06 December 2003

Knights of the 82nd Airborne. Are we witnessing the suit of armor's triumphant return to the battlefield? This Washington Post article reports on the Army's life-saving Interceptor body armor:

During a foot patrol in Fallujah in late September, an Iraqi insurgent suddenly emerged from an alleyway and fired an AK-47 at Spec. John Fox from point-blank range. Fox was hit in the stomach as he returned fire, and the blast knocked him off his feet. The bullet hit the middle of three ammunition magazines hanging from the front of his Kevlar vest, igniting tracer rounds and setting off a smoke grenade. A thick gray plume poured from his vest where he lay.

His squad mates, having shot and killed the gunman, rushed to his side. "Am I bleeding? Am I bleeding?" they recalled Fox asking.

They checked and discovered he was unharmed. His body armor had protected him not only from the AK-47 round but also from his own exploding munitions.

"Fox must have been only 10, 15 meters from this guy," recalled Sgt. Roger Vasquez. "And this thing stopped the bullet."

The armor, a Kevlar vest reinforced by ceramic plates, weighs only 16.4 pounds—as compared to a 25-pound flak jacket from the Vietnam era, or a 15th-century suit of armor weighing as much as 120 pounds. The gunpowder era brought an end to the days of armored knights: The thickness of armor required to stop a musket ball was far too heavy to consider wearing, even for a man on horseback. It wasn't until World War I, and the widespread introduction of the steel helmet, that body armor began making a comeback—and, until recently, such armor was only useful as a weak defense against shrapnel and low-caliber guns.

But, if the casualty reports from Iraq are any sign, today's body armor appears to hold up very well, even against automatic weapons fire and roadside explosives. What we're seeing is an increase, in relative terms, in the number of servicemen who lose a limb in combat: The body armor protects the troops from wounds to the head, chest and abdomen, leaving the face, arms and legs still vulnerable.

Extending body armor to cover the arms and legs would reduce the number of amputees—but it would also reduce mobility and add weight, both of which could contribute to casualties. Medieval knights addressed these problems by riding into battle on a horse; is it possible that, in another decade or two, our troops may ride into battle mounted on Segways, wearing suits of armor made of Kevlar and ceramic plates?

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 5:11 am. comments.