Researchers, manufacturers search for better body armor.

AuthorPappalardo, Joe

Demands for body armor improvements are driving the defense industry to create near- and far-term solutions to provide lightweight, reliable protection from a variety of ballistic threats.

Long-range developments, drawn from anticipated advances in nanotechnolgy, could see battle dress instantly morphing into a protective system that would ward off not only shrapnel and bullets, but also poison gas and biological weapons, researchers predict.

Although the current system, Interceptor, has been met with positive reviews from soldiers and doctors, the military is asking more from its body armor and seeking to lessen its weight, according to military researchers and industry professionals. This is placing demands on the research community and industry to come up with immediate fixes, while steadily raising the performance bar for future body armor systems.

Interceptor provides protection from small arms and fragments for the vital organs in the torso, utilizing small arms protective inserts (SAPI) plates that are designed to flatten bullets and distribute the shot's energy to the hard ceramic composite. Interceptor's outer tactical vest weighs 8.4 pounds and protects against fragmentation and 9 mm rounds. The protective plates, that are built to withstand multiple small arms hits, increase the weight to 16.4 pounds.

The problem, discovered with dismay on the ground in Iraq, is that the system leaves soldiers' limbs and sides exposed. In response, the Army recently purchased tens of thousands of shoulder and underarm attachments from Point Blank Body Armor, of Seale, Ala., the sole supplier of the Interceptor system. "Doctors were saying injures were like tan lines," said Dan Power, vice president of Point Blank. "It's the extremities that are being hit."

In late April, Point Blank won a contract to supply the Marines with the arm and side attachments, called APES (armor protection enhancement system). The two-piece, 5-pound system attaches to Interceptor vests and protects soldiers' biceps and underarms against 9 mm shots and shrapnel. In late May, the first of 33,000 sets arrived in Kuwait and Iraq.

A similar system for the army, called the dorsal auxiliary protection system (DAPS), was ordered in May. By October, roughly 50,000 DAPS systems will be in Iraq. Both systems required quick-turnaround modifications of off-the-shelf armor used by SWAT and other police units, company officials said.

The added protection is composed of two pieces that...

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