<p>The article notes that the Army banned Dragon Skin two months before the tests the Army says Dragon Skin failed. Despite the ban, security personnel in Iraq for VIP and high profile generals have used Dragon Skin and the CIA issued it to their elite operatives after it passed their tests. [Although it’s not in the article, the Secret Service uses it too].</p>
<p>What kills me is that Bush put out a position paper today promising to kill the 2008 Defense Authorization Bill (not the emergency supplemental) because the Democrats bumped the pay raise for enlisted troops up to 3.5% from 3% and added $40 a month to the survivor benefit for the spouse and children of a soldier killed in action.</p>
<p>And these b<em>st</em>ards have the unmitigated gall to get on TV every day and say the Democrats don’t “support the trooops”. Where’s my blood pressure medicine.</p>
<p>That additional pay raise works out to 6 bucks per paycheck…and we are making these guys do 3 tours in Iraq for 15 months instead of 12 and the “Commander Guy” plans to do so indefinitely.</p>
<p>The report failed to mention that Gen. Petraeus and most of the top dogs in Iraq use private Blackwater mercenaries for their security details.</p>
<p>The security for John McCain shopping spree photo op was all Blackwater.</p>
<p>We apparently have over 100,000 private mercenaries on the ground in Iraq in addition to the 160,000 or so conventional military. The Blackwater guys cost a ton more.</p>
<p>I guess the manufacturers of dragon skin did not contribute enough to somebody’s party. Where’s Duke Cunningham when you need him? Oh, that’s right in prison.</p>
<p>Good point. The issue of the unsecured munitions dumps in Iraq (which is where the firepower for the IEDs is coming from, according to the GAO) is another one that I wish the MSM would pay more attention to.</p>
<p>I don’t think the government has released any statistics on exactly how many KIAs were from gunshot wounds. On this table from the Brookings Institute, they would fall under “other hostile fire” which has killed over 1000 of our troops.</p>
<p>So it could be that better body armor would save only several hundred lives (assuming the casualties continue at the historic average and don’t continue to increase per the current trend). </p>
<p>I think it would still be worth making the change, even if it saves only a few hundred lives. Obviously, others might feel different, given the cost of replacement after so much has been invested in Interceptor. But I do think that we the people deserve transparency as to why the decision was made. Especially if soldiers are forbidden to use Dragon Skin even on their own dime.</p>
<p>No, because it’s the hot, flying shrapnel that typically kills people - not the heat of the explosion. That’s why you see people packing nails and other metals into homemade bombs, because it makes them substantially more lethal when detonated. And I’d sure like to have body armor if there was a bunch of hot shrapnel rocketing towards me.</p>
<p>“Most of those being KIA in Iraq are being blown and burned to bits by IUD’s. No body armor stops that.”</p>
<p>So are uniforms necessary? Or are they there to hide the jiggly bit? ;)</p>
<p>The introduction of body armour reduces KIA’s but increases WIA’s. Maybe next to the blast it doesn’t matter, but 50 yards away might be the difference between a bodybag and some stiches. no? </p>
<p>There’s a kill radius and wounding radius. BA helps reduce the Killzone.</p>
<p>Possibly but most are direct hits on the US vehicles. Also no army has ever had the best most current technology of everything out there. I’m sure there are also better guns and everything else but we fought the first year of WWII mostly with WWI leftovers.</p>
<p>In other words, you go to war with the Army you have, not with the Army you wish you had. Seems like our guys have heard this before.</p>
<p>I still think as a matter of basic human decency, if one armor is really better than the other, and they’re willing to pay for it themselves, they should be allowed to wear it. </p>
<p>Guys went barefoot in the snow at Valley Forge (literally) but I don’t recall General Washington passing an edict forbidding them to wear boots if they were fortunate enough to be able to buy them.</p>
<p>NBC has the results and the videotape up on their website. Dragon Skin did better, particularly against multiple rounds.</p>
<p>Test was also witnessed by the former head of weapons testing for the Pentagon. He came away saying he’d want his son (if he had one) in Dragon Skin.</p>