On Patrol

Today’s warrior is sporting a new suit of armor, and while its sheen may not attract Lady Guinevere, the technology in its guard is no less brilliant.

That’s not to say the old Vietnam-era “flak jacket” didn’t do its job.

A soldier inserts a Small Arms Protective Insert (SAPI) into his Outer Tactical Vest (OTV). Photo courtesy of BAE Systems.The vest served troops well for more than 20 years, but by the early 1990s it was hardly worth the weight of the sweat it soaked up. It was a dinosaur.

In the past 20 years, however, “the vest has gone from being an extra piece of gear to something as vital as a canteen or an ammunition pouch,” said Pat Stallings. Stallings is the executive vice president of Department of Defense business operations for Point Blank Solutions, which has specialized in body armor for nearly 40 years.

“It’s unbelievable the percentage of soldiers we have saved if you look at previous conflicts, in terms of wounded soldiers and killed in action soldiers,” Stallings added. “It’s just amazing what impact body armor has had, and I think that’s a permanent change.”

The change began during the first Persian Gulf War when troops were upgraded to the Personnel Armor System for Ground Troops, or PASGT vest. Many didn’t see the PASGT as a huge evolutionary leap from the previous model, however. While it provided better fit and fragmentation protection, it still couldn’t stop a rifle round.

Troops didn’t encounter much direct fire during the Gulf War compared to Vietnam, but that would change in 1993 on the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia. The inner-city combat required heavy armor protection.

The solution for troops in Somalia was the Interim Small Arms Protective Overvest (ISAPO), and it was the first wearable “hard” body armor capable of stopping rifle fire. A front plate and a back plate were carried over the shoulders on top of the PASGT vest. It was fittingly named “interim” because the Defense Department was already working on a more advanced, integrated solution.

The integrated solution, Integrated Body Armor (IBA)  was conceived by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and manufactured by Point Blank Solutions. The IBA system was a “soft armor” solution designed with the option to carry “hard armor” plates as inserts.

Today's soldier wears armor similar to that pictured here, with SAPI hard armor plates protecting the front, back and flanks while soft armor protects the surrounding torso and groin. Courtesy photo.“Commanders in the field loved the concept of these steel plates, but they were just too heavy,” said Marc King, president of Ceradyne Armor Systems. “A lighter material was needed and we had practically exclusive access to the toughest and lightest material on the planet after diamonds – boron carbide.”

While Ceradyne had the corner on the ceramic material market, BAE Systems was already a huge consumer of boron carbide for the manufacture of energy-absorbing ballistic-protective seating for Blackhawk and Apache helicopters. When the requirement came along for a lighter weight version for body wear, BAE Systems was quick to offer up the solution that has withstood the test of time.

“The biggest driver for the war fighter is weight,” said Val Horvatich, Director of Advanced Programs at BAE Systems, Inc. “This was also a major concern for the aviation sector where we were already doing business, so it was a natural progression into using ceramics for a [personal] body armor solution.”

The new plate became known as the Small Arms Protective Insert (SAPI). It was significantly lighter than steel titanium and capable of stopping a rifle round with a caliber of up to 7.62x51mm and a muzzle velocity of up to 2,750 feet per second.

“The SAPI plate isn’t just a hunk of steel,” said King. “It was built to first shatter the round with its hard ceramic front face and then catch the shattered fragments in the back portion, sort of like a catcher’s mitt.”

The back portion is made from Spectra, a material similar to, but about 40 percent stronger than, Kevlar.

Many alternative designs have been tested, but when it comes to issuing body armor to U.S. troops, the measure of confidence must be extremely high, said King.

So high, in fact, that the equipment simply cannot fail. Fortunately for SAPI manufacturers and the DOD, they have never failed.

In October 2010, defense officials from the Army and the office of the secretary of defense assured Representative Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) and other members of Congress of the plate’s effectiveness.

The Army claims today’s body armor system provides 100 percent protection against the most prevalent and most stressing small arm rounds in Iraq and Afghanistan, the threats the current body armor were designed to protect against.

“Our troops and their families should be reassured to know that to date, there hasn’t been a single fatality from a failure of currently issued body armor,” said Bartlett.

Army Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta, Medal of Honor recipient, can attest. He was struck in the lower chest by an AK-47 round as he advanced through a hail of gunfire to drag his comrade to safety after his squad was ambushed in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley.

“There’s no question that I owe my life to that plate,” said Giunta during an interview with ON PATROL last fall.

The SAPI works, but if history has taught us anything it’s that as soon as a new armor system is developed, a new weapon capable of defeating it will be manufactured.

To predict the needs of tomorrow’s battlefield, DARPA believes, like author Khalil Gibran, that, “Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.”

SAPI plates come in an assortment of sizes for different body armor systems and body sizes. Many companies, such as BAE Systems, are working to combine power and communication systems with the SAPI armor plate to bring more functionality to the warfighter along with the weighty protection. Courtesy photo. Over the years DARPA has tested everything from Holtzman style hardening liquid concepts that could have come straight from the book, Dune, to bionic suits for dodging bullets like Neo from The Matrix. If it can be imagined, it’s surely being tested within their laboratories.

The future solution for lightweight protection from rifle fire may eventually come from lasers, force fields, or mechanical ninja suits, but today BAE Systems and other armor manufacturers continue to focus on realistic ways to lighten the load for troops.

“The solution for stopping rifle rounds is in place. It’s just heavy,” said Horvatich, who is working to lighten the overall load for the war fighter by 60 percent by 2013.

Though they may be heavy, the confidence these plates provide for our troops is invaluable, and it’s all due to the hard work and development of the leaders in the battlefield technology industry. The civilian warriors at BAE Systems, Point Blank Solutions, and Ceradyne, Inc. are responsible, in part, for saving the lives of countless U.S. troops during combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Real knights like Giunta, now able to fight with less fear as they dream of returning home to their Guinevere, are thanking Hortavich, King, Stallings, and the employees they represent for making their armor shine more brilliantly.