thedrifter
04-09-07, 09:09 AM
Vested interest
It’s here: New Army vest is lighter, offers more protection
By Matthew Cox - Staff writer
Posted : April 16, 2007
The Army will start fielding a new protective vest this month that weighs less, covers more and fits better than the bulky body armor soldiers wrestle with today.
Reacting to complaints from the battlefield, Army equipment officials last summer set out to redesign the current Interceptor vest to create one easier to maneuver in while carrying heavy combat loads.
The effort also focused on perfecting something new: an “emergency quick release” feature so soldiers can get out of their armor quickly to escape battlefield hazards such as drowning.
After seven months of testing and tweaking, Program Executive Office Soldier began outfitting soldiers with the Improved Outer Tactical Vest on April 5, said Steve Pinter, PEO Soldier’s deputy project manager for soldier equipment.
While the new vest offers the same ballistic protection and uses the same front, back and side armor plates as the current model, equipment officials say, the latest design incorporates past piecemeal efforts to give soldiers more armor protection, such as the two side-plate carriers the Army added last year. The result is a more streamlined package weighing 28 pounds — three pounds lighter than the current vest.
The new design is still part of the Interceptor line, but has radically different functions and appearance.
Unlike the current, front-opening Interceptor vest, the new design is side-opening and features a cummerbund waist fastener so the weight of the vest rides on the lower torso rather than on the shoulders.
“Load distribution is the key,” said Lt. Col. Robert Myles, PEO Soldier’s product manager for soldier survivability. “The cummerbund really helps on the load distribution — that is new.”
The new vest will come in more sizes than the current model. It also features more adjustment points to ensure both male and female soldiers can fit the vest to their own body types.
New long sizes in medium, large and extra large will be available to ensure a better fit.
In addition, the front and back plates can be adjusted up or down four inches to better conform to the body, Myles said. Designers had input from male and female soldiers to account for all body types, he said.
“It’s not a custom fit, but � it’s a good, tight fit with a smaller, slimmer profile than the current OTV,” said Maj. Carl Fulmore, assistant product manager for Soldier Survivability.
The new vest is two inches longer in the back and also features a flip-down kidney protector pad. This is an improvement over the current design, which leaves part of the lower back unprotected, equipment officials say. The new vest also increases coverage beneath the armpits and eliminates the need for the add-on axillary protective pads. The deltoid protector attachments can still be worn if necessary.
The new design is also more camouflaged. At the request of soldiers in theater, designers replaced the “foliage green”-colored webbing strips with ones that feature the same pixilated pattern as the vest and the Army Combat Uniform.
Designers also added more webbing attachment points to give soldiers more options for securing equipment.
A mesh material lines the inside of the vest to help keep soldiers cooler and dryer.
Besides better fit and more protection, the vest also includes features that make it easier to open in life-threatening emergencies.
There’s a “medical access” point on the left shoulder that allows the soldier or a medic to unfasten the shoulder strap and expose the chest and abdomen area if necessary.
Soldiers also told equipment officials they needed a quick release feature for when they need to get out of the vest in a hurry.
When pulled, a small loop handle, located in the front of the vest just below the neck, separates the vest into two pieces that drop from the body.
“You pull this handle, and the body armor is coming to your feet,” Fulmore said. “If you are drowning, if you are on fire, if your buddy is in a burning vehicle, and you can’t get him out — you activate the quick release.”
Equipment officials stressed that the feature is strictly for extreme situations, since it takes about “two to three minutes” to reconnect the quick-release cables and reassemble the vest.
“This is not the means to take it off” after a patrol, Pinter said. “In a perfect world, you are going to go through an entire tour without having to execute the quick release.”
The new vest, with its increased load-bearing capabilities and quick-release features, is similar to the Marine Corps’ new Modular Tactical Vest, which was fielded earlier this year.
Capt. Jeff Landis, spokesman for Marine Corps Systems Command, said the Corps won’t be taking any cues from the new Army vest.
“We base our spiral development off the input from Marines and commanders in the field, not what the Army is fielding next,” he said.
Long time coming
The redesign is the latest in a string of efforts to improve the Interceptor vest since 2003, when the war in Iraq began. The constantly changing tactics of insurgents in Iraq forced the Army to add more protection to the original design, which consisted of the vest and two ballistic plates.
The increased use of homemade bombs in enemy attacks prompted the Army to introduce shoulder and side protection, known as the deltoid axillary protector, in 2004. The soft armor provides protection against shrapnel, but added about five pounds to the Interceptor.
The Army then began fielding enhanced front and rear ballistic plates for increased protection against rifle rounds, an improvement that added another three pounds. In early 2006, the Army began issuing side ballistic plates in special modular carriers. The extra seven pounds combined with the other additions almost doubled the average weight of the Interceptor from 16 pounds to more than 30.
Soldiers appreciated the extra protection, but soon began to complain that the series of add-ons made their body armor too heavy and bulky for the rapid movement required for fast-paced urban combat.
One soldier serving in a Stryker unit in Iraq said recently that the extra armor makes it difficult to exit Stryker vehicles when pursuing insurgents on foot.
“Putting on the side plates has cut down on our effectiveness. We are slower, so most of the time the enemy is out of our grasp due to problems getting out of the hatch,” the soldier wrote in an anonymous letter to Army Times. “All this extra body armor is doing is slowing down our reaction speed.”
To address soldiers’ complaints, Army equipment officials had soldiers test several body armor designs from different companies in August 2006 at Fort Benning, Ga.
The Army chose six vest designs from 17 separate vendor candidates and let soldiers evaluate them against the Interceptor vest.
Army equipment officials “ran them through ‘Groundhog Day’ for seven days; each day they wore a different vest. They did an obstacle course, qualified on the range � [climbed in and out] of Bradley and Stryker vehicles,” Pinter said.
Soldiers, many of whom were combat veterans, “overwhelmingly” preferred the current Interceptor design to the other vest models.
But the soldiers said the current vest needed streamlining to give soldiers more mobility. The Interceptor vest, in a size medium with plates and attachments, weighs about 31 pounds, Pinter said.
By incorporating all the past improvements into a new design, equipment officials ended up with a 4�-pound weight savings.
For the new vest, Pinter said, the designers looked at coverage as well as weight, and saw that the areas of the throat, lower back and under the arm needed attention. “They put back on about a pound-and-a-half to increase the areas of coverage shown to be vulnerable,” Pinter said.
Ellie
It’s here: New Army vest is lighter, offers more protection
By Matthew Cox - Staff writer
Posted : April 16, 2007
The Army will start fielding a new protective vest this month that weighs less, covers more and fits better than the bulky body armor soldiers wrestle with today.
Reacting to complaints from the battlefield, Army equipment officials last summer set out to redesign the current Interceptor vest to create one easier to maneuver in while carrying heavy combat loads.
The effort also focused on perfecting something new: an “emergency quick release” feature so soldiers can get out of their armor quickly to escape battlefield hazards such as drowning.
After seven months of testing and tweaking, Program Executive Office Soldier began outfitting soldiers with the Improved Outer Tactical Vest on April 5, said Steve Pinter, PEO Soldier’s deputy project manager for soldier equipment.
While the new vest offers the same ballistic protection and uses the same front, back and side armor plates as the current model, equipment officials say, the latest design incorporates past piecemeal efforts to give soldiers more armor protection, such as the two side-plate carriers the Army added last year. The result is a more streamlined package weighing 28 pounds — three pounds lighter than the current vest.
The new design is still part of the Interceptor line, but has radically different functions and appearance.
Unlike the current, front-opening Interceptor vest, the new design is side-opening and features a cummerbund waist fastener so the weight of the vest rides on the lower torso rather than on the shoulders.
“Load distribution is the key,” said Lt. Col. Robert Myles, PEO Soldier’s product manager for soldier survivability. “The cummerbund really helps on the load distribution — that is new.”
The new vest will come in more sizes than the current model. It also features more adjustment points to ensure both male and female soldiers can fit the vest to their own body types.
New long sizes in medium, large and extra large will be available to ensure a better fit.
In addition, the front and back plates can be adjusted up or down four inches to better conform to the body, Myles said. Designers had input from male and female soldiers to account for all body types, he said.
“It’s not a custom fit, but � it’s a good, tight fit with a smaller, slimmer profile than the current OTV,” said Maj. Carl Fulmore, assistant product manager for Soldier Survivability.
The new vest is two inches longer in the back and also features a flip-down kidney protector pad. This is an improvement over the current design, which leaves part of the lower back unprotected, equipment officials say. The new vest also increases coverage beneath the armpits and eliminates the need for the add-on axillary protective pads. The deltoid protector attachments can still be worn if necessary.
The new design is also more camouflaged. At the request of soldiers in theater, designers replaced the “foliage green”-colored webbing strips with ones that feature the same pixilated pattern as the vest and the Army Combat Uniform.
Designers also added more webbing attachment points to give soldiers more options for securing equipment.
A mesh material lines the inside of the vest to help keep soldiers cooler and dryer.
Besides better fit and more protection, the vest also includes features that make it easier to open in life-threatening emergencies.
There’s a “medical access” point on the left shoulder that allows the soldier or a medic to unfasten the shoulder strap and expose the chest and abdomen area if necessary.
Soldiers also told equipment officials they needed a quick release feature for when they need to get out of the vest in a hurry.
When pulled, a small loop handle, located in the front of the vest just below the neck, separates the vest into two pieces that drop from the body.
“You pull this handle, and the body armor is coming to your feet,” Fulmore said. “If you are drowning, if you are on fire, if your buddy is in a burning vehicle, and you can’t get him out — you activate the quick release.”
Equipment officials stressed that the feature is strictly for extreme situations, since it takes about “two to three minutes” to reconnect the quick-release cables and reassemble the vest.
“This is not the means to take it off” after a patrol, Pinter said. “In a perfect world, you are going to go through an entire tour without having to execute the quick release.”
The new vest, with its increased load-bearing capabilities and quick-release features, is similar to the Marine Corps’ new Modular Tactical Vest, which was fielded earlier this year.
Capt. Jeff Landis, spokesman for Marine Corps Systems Command, said the Corps won’t be taking any cues from the new Army vest.
“We base our spiral development off the input from Marines and commanders in the field, not what the Army is fielding next,” he said.
Long time coming
The redesign is the latest in a string of efforts to improve the Interceptor vest since 2003, when the war in Iraq began. The constantly changing tactics of insurgents in Iraq forced the Army to add more protection to the original design, which consisted of the vest and two ballistic plates.
The increased use of homemade bombs in enemy attacks prompted the Army to introduce shoulder and side protection, known as the deltoid axillary protector, in 2004. The soft armor provides protection against shrapnel, but added about five pounds to the Interceptor.
The Army then began fielding enhanced front and rear ballistic plates for increased protection against rifle rounds, an improvement that added another three pounds. In early 2006, the Army began issuing side ballistic plates in special modular carriers. The extra seven pounds combined with the other additions almost doubled the average weight of the Interceptor from 16 pounds to more than 30.
Soldiers appreciated the extra protection, but soon began to complain that the series of add-ons made their body armor too heavy and bulky for the rapid movement required for fast-paced urban combat.
One soldier serving in a Stryker unit in Iraq said recently that the extra armor makes it difficult to exit Stryker vehicles when pursuing insurgents on foot.
“Putting on the side plates has cut down on our effectiveness. We are slower, so most of the time the enemy is out of our grasp due to problems getting out of the hatch,” the soldier wrote in an anonymous letter to Army Times. “All this extra body armor is doing is slowing down our reaction speed.”
To address soldiers’ complaints, Army equipment officials had soldiers test several body armor designs from different companies in August 2006 at Fort Benning, Ga.
The Army chose six vest designs from 17 separate vendor candidates and let soldiers evaluate them against the Interceptor vest.
Army equipment officials “ran them through ‘Groundhog Day’ for seven days; each day they wore a different vest. They did an obstacle course, qualified on the range � [climbed in and out] of Bradley and Stryker vehicles,” Pinter said.
Soldiers, many of whom were combat veterans, “overwhelmingly” preferred the current Interceptor design to the other vest models.
But the soldiers said the current vest needed streamlining to give soldiers more mobility. The Interceptor vest, in a size medium with plates and attachments, weighs about 31 pounds, Pinter said.
By incorporating all the past improvements into a new design, equipment officials ended up with a 4�-pound weight savings.
For the new vest, Pinter said, the designers looked at coverage as well as weight, and saw that the areas of the throat, lower back and under the arm needed attention. “They put back on about a pound-and-a-half to increase the areas of coverage shown to be vulnerable,” Pinter said.
Ellie