Body Armour Effectiveness

[Cpl Steiner]

Does anyone know how effective US body armour is against various weapons? does it have little or no effect against things like AK47 rounds for instance? Sorry if this has been discussed already but my quick search only came up with arguments about armour protection versus reduced mobility.

I am wondering if in CM:SF the US side will tend to take very few KIA compared to WIA from rifle fire, with things like IEDs and RPGs causing the majority of deaths. Is this a fair assessment do you think?

[Kwazydog]

Steiner Steve or someone else can probably answer this better than I, but+ I did recently watch a documentary on Lima company in Iraq. Near the Syrian boarder they came up against insurgents using AP rounds from regular AK's, and apparently those things went straight through the vests of the guys that were hit with them (as least in the cases they discussed). One guy was even shot through a door I beleive, yet was still killed by the round.

Dan

[Michael Dorosh]

There is a new book out on the subject that I get a mention in - I can't find my complimentary copy right now but the author is "Iremonger" or somefink...

[Seanachai]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

There is a new book out on the subject that I get a mention in - I can't find my complimentary copy right now but the author is "Iremonger" or somefink...

And what is your mention? "Drunkest Canadian Halfwit Who Pours Out Words Like God Poured Out Water During the Deluge"?

Lord love a duck, at least Noah was given some warning...

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Seanachai:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

There is a new book out on the subject that I get a mention in - I can't find my complimentary copy right now but the author is "Iremonger" or somefink...

And what is your mention? "Drunkest Canadian Halfwit Who Pours Out Words Like God Poured Out Water During the Deluge"?

Lord love a duck, at least Noah was given some warning... </font>

[Seanachai]

Eh, which one? I've been drunk for months...

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Seanachai:

Eh, which one? I've been drunk for months...

I believe I said words to the effect that Moon has the habit of advertising games as if they were the Second Coming of Christ, and then debuting games that were in reality only Seanachai in a ratty bathrobe and a crown of thorns asking for change to use in the nearest pay toilet.

[Ellros]

Back in the pool with you two... Heh

[dan/california]

Well their is a tape floating around the web somewhere of a U.S. soldier taking an AK round dead center in the chest plate, granted the best case scenario for the vest probably. It knocks him down but he then GETS UP and takes cover behind the humvee he was standing beside. He needed a couple of days of light duty due to the bruising.

The funny part is that one of the Iraqis doing the shooting took the film. The U.S. unit in question was on the ball and they caught him and his camera. Sometimes the insurgent's propaganda machine has a bad day. It did not get nearly the mainstream media play it deserved.

I question if the Syrians have huge numbers of tungsten/du AK rounds. I could be wrong

The U.S. ratio of wounded to killed is the highest it has ever been as I understand it. A LOT of guys are making it home who would not have even in 1991. They may have peices missing but they are not KIA.

[Denwad]

the marine in the tape isn't hit with an AK ( 7.62x39 ) he was hit with an SVD ( 7.62x54r ) which makes the armor that much more impressive

the plates are Level IV armor which is rated to take one (1) 30-06 AP round before failing

[Bigduke6]

From a gaming POV, the question is whether the soldier hit can continue to function in combat. If he can't, he becomes a semi-casualty: maybe he can return after the battle, maybe the medics don't need to recover him, but he's no use to his unit for the remainder of the engagement, and so he is a casualty as far as the game is concerned.

Or maybe he just takes the hit and drives on.

I would also think the better-disciplined and/or indoctrinated US soldiers would be more likely to continue fighting after their body armor stopped a bullet: Rangers, career officers, Fundamental Christian National Guard.

Less-disciplined and or morally-committed soldiers - Leg infantry, Reserves called up from urban California, any one with less than two months left on their Syria deployment - would doubtless construe any personal armor hit as a ticket off the battlefield.

The game could account for this by plunking a soldier hit like this into a non-disabled casualty category, so maybe the Syrian gets a few VPs for him but not nearly as much as the corpse of a good and dead Christian infidel.

All of which brings me back to my arguement this game to be really cool needs media: if the kill takes place and the camera crew is looking the other way it's no big US VP hit, but if the camera crew has LOS, and sees a dead US soldier, then serious US VP hit. You could even tie VPs to the camera crew's survival, thereby giving either player the option of killing off the camera crew, which we all know most players will want to do.

I am informed these IMO terrific game wrinkles regarding embedded media fall into the category of civilians, and so won't be part of CMSF. *sigh*

[Cpl Steiner]

Thank you all for your replies. From what most of you have been saying, body armour really does hold up against things like AK rounds, most of the time, but that doesn't mean the guy hit can just walk through a hail of gunfire and keep on fighting. In CMx1 terms, it would translate into the same sort of casualty levels during the game but a vastly improved WIA to KIA ratio in the post battle debriefing screen.

Of course, now that we have 1:1 representation of soldiers, things might be a little different. An individual who's body armour stops an AK round will presumably have his combat stats severely affected for a while but might recover enough to do something useful, such as man a .50 on top of a Humvee.

I am very interested in seeing how non KIA casualties are handled in CM:SF. I watched a documentary recently about a US unit in Iraq, and in one scene a Humvee drove by an IED when it went off. The Humvee motored out of the potential ambush but then stopped and one guy with blood on him was given a very thorough checking over by the rest of the team. He was only lightly wounded but the whole team was out of action for a good five minutes whilst they ascertained his status.

Perhaps in CM:SF, units with WIA and no nearby visible threat might be very hard to give orders to for a while whilst they tend to their wounded.

[dan/california]

What I am about to say is really bad, I admit this in advance.

The real trick is to get the OTHER SIDE to kill/injure the camera crew. Thus drawing down on themselves the wrath of the world wide media self protection monopoly.

The Israelis just lost a round of this game in the last day or two in regard to those unfortunate U.N. types. Who really should have either had the sense to leave or dig a really deep whole and watch the show on closed circuit tv. They certainly were not doing anything useful.

Its not nice and surely is not fair but that is how the game is played.

[SgtMuhammed]

With the ballistic plates body armor is great but they don't cover everywhere and you don't have to get shot through the chest to be combat ineffective. That said, most body armor isn't designed to stop bullets but rather the various fragments that go flying around the battlefield.

Effectivness also depends on a wide variety of factors such as angle of impact, range, etc. I have seen a K-pot that stopped an AK round. Unfortunatly I have also seen one penetrated by an M16 round during a training accident. No armor is 100 proof and most of it is hot an heavy.

[Bigduke6]

The Israelis just lost a round of this game in the last day or two in regard to those unfortunate U.N. types. Who really should have either had the sense to leave or dig a really deep whole and watch the show on closed circuit tv. They certainly were not doing anything useful.

I have to disagree with you there, they were four soldiers sent there by the UN so the UN could monitor the situation, and hopefully with their presence help keep Hezbollah and the Israelis from fighting a war and killing a lot of people.

If they had dug a hole and hid, they would not have been doing their job. Observers that hide when the bullets start flying are useless.

Those four men failed in their mission, but they literally died trying. So I would think those four peacekeepers deserve some respect.

Just my opinion.

[dan/california]

I have every sympathy for the four guys who died, they were just following orders in a bad spot. But come on man, "peacekeeping" in what may be one of the more even standup shooting matches in years. I simply have no clue what their superiors thought they were going to accomplish, none.

Peacekeeping can work very well when both sides want peace, and the peace keepers can act as honest intermediaries on day to day issues to reassure both sides that the terms of an agreement are being kept. The only agreement Between the Israelis and Hezbollah is that both sides agree they want to erase the other one from the face of the earth. Getting killed for a better view of the party did not make much sense in my honest opinion. There comes a time when smart people pick a side or start avoiding the middle of the battlefield.

[Imperial Grunt]

The standard US body armor is designed to stopping 9mm ball submachinegun and pistol ammo and fragmentation. With the SAPI plates, it can stop 7.62 NATO ball ammo, however the plate fractures where hit. The SAPI plates cover the chest and back. New side plates have been issued, but most guys do not wear them since they make the vest too heavy. For drivers and gunners, the side plates make sense.

You can see the coverage of the SAPI plates in this pic:

You can see the coverage of the side plate in this pic:

There have been several accounts of soldiers and Marines being hit square in the chest and rebounding right back up into the fight. Just like the soldier in the video. He was shot by a 7.62mmX54 round fired from an SVD at relatively close range and he not only came up at the ready, but participated with his unit in their actions to eliminate the sniper team. He then provided medical attention to the wounded insurgents (he was a medic). The bruising, etc..does not usually impact until after the firefight/battle.

There have been several accounts of the enemy using AP ammo, especially with RPDs. The SAPI plates will not stop AP rounds. AP ammo usually does not cause the wounds that ball/soft tip ammo does, but that will not affect game results.

US 5.56mm ball military ammo has a steel penetrator inside the round, made to penetrate the sides of Soviet BMPs. That penetrator, while very small, goes through things that the rest of the lead bullet will not, such as kevlar helmets and light armor.

While US soldiers and Marines should be a little harder to kill and wound in game terms, unarmored Syrian soldier's mobility should be greater in both speed and endurance.

While I am a true believer in the SAPI plates, there is no doubt that they inhibit mobility.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Originally posted by Seanachai:

Eh, which one? I've been drunk for months...

Now now, we won't have false modesty here, you've been drunk far longer then that. Keep up the good work.

[John Kettler]

LtColWest,

My understanding is that the steel insert in M-16/M4 ammo is there to defeat body armor, not BMPs. I think you have 5.56 ball confused with .50 cal SLAP.

People,

There is an emerging scandal here in which, while soldiers in Iraq and elsewhere buy body armor from their own pockets, SAPI panels costing the government many thousands each were being liquidated for a few hundred bucks.

Generally, U.S. body armor has been geared primarily toward fragmentation protection, with everything else an add on. This was made very clear in a program I saw on the Discovery Channel in which the host got to visit and work at the helmet factory and even proof the helmet batch with a special frag gun firing a 100 grain frag. In some 3000 tests, there has never been a failed batch. Have also watched video of the technology and labor intensive process used to make the SAPI plates. A ton of work! I have seen some reports which indicate that the American GI is so well protected now that they think a direct torso hit with an RPG is survivable, albeit with lots of damage to the extremities. Presumably, this is a PGU HE round.

Regards,

John Kettler

[MikeyD]

It seems to me U.S. casualty rates in Iraq would've been up around the 'good-old-bad-old-days' if it hadn't been for body armor. One reason why the insurgents switched to IEDs was that they were unable to increase the U.S. casualty rate much using their conventional weapons. I'm starting to see the results on the streets around town here. Otherwise fit young men and women sporting shiney high-tech prosthetic limbs (if they were civilians their HMO would've never agreed to foot the bill). But the point is they made it back home alive - largely due, no doubt, to their vests and helmets.

I think BFC said the Syrians weren't being coded for vests, which is a big force multiplier for the Blue side right there! BFC's into giving us choices. It'd be interesting if we could specify vests with or without added SAPI plates (with a small offset for mobility?), or some vest degradation after the first or second hit.

[Jeff Duquette]

There are a number of ballistic protection standards for body armor. NIJ is typically employed by producers of body armor utilized by law enforcement folks in the USA. It is one of the easier standards to research as it is all public domain. Protection against 7.62mm NATO FMJ equates to Level-III armor under NIJ Standards. Protection from .30-caliber Armor Piercing equates to Level-IV armor protection. Level-III and Level-IV protection typically involves upgrading a Level-II or Level-IIIA aramid fiber or polyethylene fiber vest by inserting plates made from either: ceramics, high hardness steel, or polyethylene into various pouches on the vest.

Under NIJ standards Level-III protection has to withstand six hits per armor part from 7.62mm NATO FMJ at an impact velocity of 847m/s. Basically point blank range. No penetration or spalling is allowed from either the armor or bullet. In addition there is a maximum allowable back surface indentation (back surface signature) that can not be exceeded. This is the blunt trauma requirement for the vest. Under NIJ Standards, BSS can not exceed 44mm into a layer of ballistic clay placed directly behind the vest.

NIJ Level-IV protection is such that each armor part must withstand one hit by .30-caliber M2 Armor Piercing Bullet with an impact velocity of 878m/s. Again this equates to point blank for the M2 AP round. No allowable bullet fragmentation\spall or armor fragment or spall can pass through the armor. Same blunt trauma indentation requirements as Level-III armor.

Spall and fragmentation testing is done in a similar fashion to protection ballistic limit P(BL) – i.e. a thin foil is placed behind the armor. The foil can’t be perforated by fragments or spall.

MIL-SPEC body armor is of course subject to its own standards and specifications above and beyond NIJ. The most obvious difference being fragmentation protection testing. The armor is tested against FSP in addition to the standard realm of small arms projectiles. It would appear from various recent headline stories that manufacturers of body armor for Law Enforcement use have tried to jump into armor production for military use and have been somewhat stymied by Military testing standards.

[ July 27, 2006, 08:29 PM: Message edited by: Jeff Duquette ]

[John Kettler]

Jeff Duquette,

Great post!

Didn't the older ceramic panels use to stop everything but AK fire at 50 meters or less?

That's what I recall with my somewhat foggy memory.

Also, any idea on how good Spectra is against AK-47 and the like?

Regards,

John Kettler

[Jeff Duquette]

double post

[ July 28, 2006, 06:56 AM: Message edited by: Jeff Duquette ]

[Jeff Duquette]

Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John Kettler:

Jeff Duquette,

Great post!

Didn't the older ceramic panels use to stop everything but AK fire at 50 meters or less?

That's what I recall with my somewhat foggy memory.

Also, any idea on how good Spectra is against AK-47 and the like?

Regards,

John Kettler

</font>

[Imperial Grunt]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

LtColWest,

My understanding is that the steel insert in M-16/M4 ammo is there to defeat body armor, not BMPs. I think you have 5.56 ball confused with .50 cal SLAP.

.50cal SLAP is something different entirely.

You might be right though. I thought I had read somewhere that the green top 5.56mm NATO round was originally designed for use against the Soviets in the 80s, with the penetrator put in to allow M-16s and SAWs to be be more effective against the sides and rear of 1980's Soviet vehicles.

The US M855 5.56mm round's penetrator can penetrate up to 3 mm of steel. I do not know how it performs against the ceramic SAPI plates. I know for a fact that it will go through a US kevlar helmet, I witnessed that first-hand as well. (7.62x39 AK rounds usually do not penetrate kevlar helments).

I have pried the penetrators out of tree trunks and they are very small. It also does not have the ability to do the damage a lead ball round would on soft tissue, unless a vital organ was hit. No deforming, no internal fragmentation.

I am not a ballistics expert, just a grunt.