Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Body Armor? No solutions for women.


Crossposted from Left Toon Lane & My Left Wing



click to enlarge

More than four years into this, the Pentagon still can’t get the body armor right. First they didn’t have enough to go around and now what has been issued, isn’t the best and of course women have no real options.

I was talking recently with a military contractor about the issue of body armor and his take on it was that what the troops had was rubbish, specifically for women. The current Army-issued Interceptor armor was made for men, the armor is essentially a flat plate and when worn over female breasts, the armor creates a gap at the top of the armor and it is pushed farther from the rib cage on the top leaving a large gap big enough to drive a grenade through. The problem with side entry wounds is even worse for women as the Interceptor model of armor leaves them more vulnerable.

The new Dragon Skin model of armor WRAPS the body and provides 360 degree protection - in some areas better protection than the Interceptor and in some areas worse. But if you are a woman, you are ordered to wear the faulty fitting Interceptor model.

1 comments:

-Sepp said...

The body armor you refer to does'nt protect anyone from a side hit. It's not just a woman problem. Body armor is nice to have no matter what style they're handing out. A lot better than the "nothing at all" I was never issued in order to possibly fight the Soviets and Warsaw pact.