Not to get into too many details but the folks who know both armors would never go into an urban battle area wearing Interceptor if Dragon Skin is readily available.

My take on the issue of Body Armour is this. Instead of the Pentagon solicting bids and the lowest dib being viewed as the winner. Maybe the Pentagon should consider making their own version of Body Armour,
Also, asking for some independant testing of Interceptor and Dagon Skin will only increase mistrust. So, like twice now mentioned our Pentagon should conduct its own side-by-side test. Then and only then will the true favorite be determined.
Our Men and Women in Uniform must be provided with the absolute "Best" not some cut-rate knock-off.

dragon skin is not made of ceramic plates..it is made of titanium and ceramic..which is the same material as our A-10 pilots back in the early 90s. A-10s are those ugly warthog jets, they had titanium bathtubs, kept all out pilots protected, which were the tank killers when they 1st raided Iraq....send them to all our young men and women in the field..it will save their lives, and familys back home deserve to know the truth...see all the films on youtube.com..and follow the money..it is about army contracts, which deserve an outside, 3rd party investigation...follow the money

President Bush. As Commander and Chief you have put our soldiers in harms way. If you want us to support you, then show that you give a damn about the soldiers. Order the re-testing immediately and make sure we are providing our soldiers the best armour available. If Dragon Skin is the best, Command that it be purchased. BE PRESIDENTIAL!

I'm a retired police officer. Back in the early nineties I did a lot of research into body armor for my PD.
The most disturbing thing I learned was that "tests" are easy to manipulate and the various manufacturers-via their salesmen, did so readily. Good armor could be made to fail while bad armor could be made to look really good.
True, independent tests are necessary, and Senator Webb is ABSOLUTELY correct in calling for them.

It's always about the money. Follow the money and the revolving door of people with an interest in the money. Are any contractor people donating to the campaign and then hired to do the buying for the govenmen because of their "expertise"? Are any ex-military buyers now working for the donating companies? They are all experts at stealing the big bucks while cloaked in the flag as patriots and we are left to listen to and bicker about nonsense.

The question of the heat is definitely a valid one. I agree, it does get up to 160 deg inside the up-armors in the summer, though I never did get a chance to see if you can fry an egg on the hood. The concern about the failure at the the 160 deg mark was due to a flaw in the adhesive during the lamination process, and apparently only occured with one vest tested. According to the manufacturer, that glitch has been fixed, and that is now checked for during the QA process.

Am I saying that dragonskin is the end all, be all? No, I don't know that. What I think should happen is fair, open, third party testing of the IBA and dragonskin side by side. That's it.

As I am reading these responses I feel compeeled to respond. First order of business, the testing temperature ranges. Some people just have no clue about the extreme heat of the desert. Inside a car parked in 90 degree heat in NC the temperature reaches almost 120. So how hot do you think it gets inside an armored vehicle parked in the Iraqi summer heat? Now take into consideration other factors, such as engine heat. The AC in these armored HMMWV very seldom works. If it does you can't use it anyway because of the additional strain on an engine that is already over taxed from the weight of the additional armor placed on them. The temp gauge routinely runs about 230 degrees but does get hotter at times. That heat blows right up the legs and into the face of any front seat passengers and it feels like you are going to get burned from it. My weapon was so hot that it was burning my hand through my gloves. They happen to be motorcycle riding gloves too, by the way. Also, anyone familiar with WBGT index, wet bulb globe temperature index, knows that 160 is possible. That scale takes into consideration the effects of direct sunlight and humidity, not just ambient air temperature. The next order of business is of course body armor. I have nearly 13 years in the Army, all in a combat MOS. I don't know much about politics, nor do I care to. It doesn't much matter as politics is all the flavor of the month anyway! However, I do know that when anybody gives the response that our current system, gun or body armor, is good enough, that is the wrong answer. "Good enough" should never enter the equation when human life is at stake. I am a realist. I know technology is constantly being improved and what you buy today will be outdated tomorrow. However, our current issue body armor plates have been around for a few years now. Maybe it is time for an upgrade, Drago Skin or whatever. Same for our rifles. While extremely accurate and reliable, it is the same technology that we have been using since the original M16 back in Vietnam. I think the military can do better. The problem is that the procurment officers sign long term contracts which keeps us from being able to get updated equipment until it is already outdated. So unfortunately, money is a huge part of the problem. But as a soldier, I can tell you that at operator level the leaders do everything possible to provide the protective equipment we need. It is at a level way above us that these poor decisions are made. I mean, when we are told that policy is we can't get a new armored turret because the old one had been modified with extra steel to provide additional ballistic coverage where it was lacking, then there is obviously a break in the chain between user and the money man.

Someone has been paid handsomely to turn a blind eye to the the jeorpardizing of US servicemen's lives. Bust them down to private and give them a 30 year hard labor holiday in Leavenworth. In the 80's when South Africa was at war with Ruissia and Cuba in Southern Angola, in spite of sanctions, Armscor (joint South African and Israeli defence projects) had a series of APC's which are bullet proof, mine proof and unlike the useless Humvees protected countless South African Defence Force men from danger. You Americans are being made a laughing stock in Iraq and losing men like skittles in a bowling alley because the sh*theads you supposedly have running the war from the Pentagon are too pigheaded to own up to the fact that not only Made in the USA is good, but you could also use battle tested equipment from other countries. The Soviets threw their best stuff at the South Africans in terms of Armor and lost period. The Rattel and similar APC's of the SADF are still the best of it's kind in any war. How nany APC's do you yanks have that can still run on 3 wheels if an anti tank mine blows one off? The R1 based on the Galil is superior to the M16 any day. The list goes on and on as the Soviets found out before De Klerk sold his countrymen out....

Why do the soldiers need body armor? They could move faster and be more mobile without it. Troops in the past have done very well without it.

I agree with the lining of the pockets, and I would like to see an independent study on both. The articles and video's I'm reading and watching is saying and showing the very opposite of the finding from the tests done by the army. Give me truth.

We're America, the best nation in the world, so to hell with cost. We can pay off debt but we can't bring back the dead. There are a lot of military folks responding to this article who obviously have real life experience, and probably know best, but as a regular civilian there's just no excuse for not doing everything we possibly can to make sure all the men and women come home alive. We need continue fighting for the folks that are in harms way. They deserve nothing less.

I think that a side by side tests of the two systems is a good idea. It does bother me that so many people think that the test temp. -60 to 160 is too extreme. I am a 22 year Army vet. just retired and have been to some of the more lovely spots on this planet. If you do not think that the a vest left (as soldiers will do) in a closed vehicle in the nice summer heat in Iraq will get that hot go try it yourself. As for the cold have you forgotten that we have to defend the US to include Alaska and it may not get to -60, but I can tell you I have been in the field at -30. The Army must take into account the fact that soldiers will spill everything from fuel too anything else you can think of on everything they wear and how that effects the equipment. As far as NBC (Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical) agents they have to be in the equation. The weight is important! With Interceptor armor you can add on shoulder, groin, etc. protection and it does weight more than 28 lbs, but most soldier don't wear all of the add-ons for every mission. The Dragonskin does not seem to have the option to adjust the protection and weight for the mission. There is nothing political in this for me, some of my best friends and family are my only concern. Lets test them find the weakness of both and come up with body armor that out preforms both (Now).

To ALL:

There's been a great deal of yammering about temperature extremes, and some people seem to be intent on ignoring the statements of those who have been in the sandbox and experienced extremely high temperatures.

But all this aside, do you think for a minute that anyone (be they military, contractor, or supplier) is going to go to the trouble of keeping all body armor in a "cool, dry place" while in storage? Do you propose heating cargo plane holds as they carry armor to the front? Do you think we should put air conditioning in our supply depots in the desert to ensure the armor doesn't get too toasty?

Or do you suppose that we should just call for a time out when we fight in places like the Iraqi desert in summer, or at the Chosin Reservoir in winter?

I haven't the slightest idea why it is that some people would press to test armor under less stringent requirements, and demand lower maintainability when it comes to something as serious as body armor.

Since one of the major selling points of Dragon Skin is the increased area of ceramic coverage of the body, readers may find our Body Armor for IED Information Research Center web site of interest
http://virtualpet.com/bodyarmor

It covers body armor from both a technical and a business standpoint, and provides a history of the last few years on its news page.

Mr. Eldridge, you bring up some valid points, which I will provide rebuttal. First, as far as I know, the insurgents aren't using timed fused for air burst. The indirect fire they are using are primarily the 120mm rockets and 60-80mm mortar rounds. And they aren't taking the time to set fuses. Many times, they don't even set the fuses, resulting in a rocket or mortar that lands, but doesn't explode (lucky for me, otherwise I wouldn't be here a couple times over.) The closest thing you'll get is an IED on an overpass. At that point, the ballistic protection is moot. Even if there was an airburst, both the interceptor and dragonskin don't provide ballistic protection on the shoulders, only shrapnel protection via kevlar fabric.

As for the sniper possibility, a sniper's not going to aim for the most protected part of the body. They aim for the exposed areas of the individual. The likelihood of a shot from the perfect angle is slim, at best. Either way, the dragonskin vest offers more ballistic protection. As for an attack from the left side, I'd still rather have the dragonskin. The IBA doesn't have side armor, at least any that'll allow you to move. They tried doing side plates for the marines, and they discarded them due to the inability to move. The dragonskin offers not only the protection, but flexibility as well. I would have loved that. The IBA was ok, provided you didn't have to turn around. It feels like a shell.

As for weight, the figures the Army gave are garbage. The weight of a medium size dragon skin vest is 33.15 pounds. The IBA is 33.10 with ESAPI plates. This is where the kicker is....the medium dragonskin provides 3.40 square feet of protection, the IBA....2.25! Which would you rather have? Having dealt with the IBA with all my ammo and whatnot on it, I'd rather have the vest that weighs about the same as the IBA, provides more protection, and will actually be flexible. Now, looking at this, WHY ARE THEY FEEDING THIS LINE?!

Has anyone done any research on these weight claims? 28 pounds for a large vest sounds like a low ball answer to me. My vest was at least that heavy with only two plates and no add-ons. Now we have four plates, shoulder guards, groin protectors etc and the Army maintains IBA is only 28 lbs? Right. Also, check out www.pinnaclearmor.com and build a vest. As you'll see there is a wide variety of different armor packages you can get. I'm sure if you purchased the heaviest Dragon Skin and compared it to some fudged IBA numbers, IBA would look a lot lighter. Additionally, I noticed someone commented that the people testing it are also the people wearing it. Did anyone see the BG Brown who procures this stuff doesn't have a combat patch? Hope the career of holding down that desk-front wasn't too demanding. Judging by his gut, it hasn't been too rough. Thanks, General.

Chris of CT... But you don't have to be lying down for a bullet to approach the best from an odd top down angle. What about exploding shrapenal from an artilary shell overhead? What about a sniper in a tower? It also looks like an attack from the left side could hit at the base of a disk and slip under the armor...

This certainly is an interesting waste of time, but one must wonder WHY only a few people actually are supporting our soldiers as they do their difficult work in the real world . . .

One might prefer to believe that the weight of the body armor is insignificant, but the best way to gain a practical perspective it (a) to get two backpacks, (b) to put a 20 lbs. barbell weight in each back pack, (c) to wear one backpack the normal way, (d) to wear the second backpack on the front (reversed from the normal way), and then (e) to play football ALL DAY in an unairconditioned warehouse in the middle of the desert on a very hot day. Or, run the Boston Marathon wearing the two backpacks . . .

One also should consider the angular stuff, since as noted in an earlier comment (although in a different way), there are significant differences among (a) a solid sheet of metal and (b) a set of metal Venetian blinds . . .

If the extra weight is not sufficient reason to avoid Dragon Skin, then the angular stuff certainly is sufficient reason to have doubts . . .

And then there is the matter of temperature, which tends to fluctuate wildly in desert and mountainous regions like Afghanistan and Iraq . . .

One might suggest that our military leaders think only about the safety of our soldiers, but if this were the case, then there would not be any hot-rodded vehicles in Iraq (the ones that were enhanced with what might be called "hillbilly armor") . . .

On the other hand, one certainly can suggest that our military functions based on what one might call a "system", where there are lots of rules, some of which appear to make little sense when examined separately . . .

Yet, common sense suggests that our military works with what it has, based on hard-learned experiences on the battlefield. If the current body armor is a bit weak on the sides, then one might expect that word goes out to change tactics in tiny ways that make it less likely that anyone will be shooting from the side . . .

Perhaps the doctors and surgeons in battlefield hospitals are the folks who know the most about the current body armor, and perhaps their view is that it does not cause problems in terms of first aid and so forth . . .

Good, bad, or indifferent, when one is working in a system, if somebody changes all the rules, then nobody knows what to do, and things get worse very quickly . . .

Overall, the Dragon Skin whining certainly has the appearance of being a weakly disguised way to criticize our military . . .

Given the choice, one might suggest that most of our soldiers would rather be able to carry 20 pounds MORE ammunition, if they were allowed to use it . . .

The best solution is to give everyone a week or two advance notice, followed by nuking Baghdad and Tikrit. . .

That strategy worked marvelously with the Japanese, and it probably will work just as marvelously with the Iraqis . . .

Thanks!

BUSH AND CHENEY PROBABLY OWN 90% OF THE STOCK IN DRAGON VEST INC. IF OUR GUYS ARE FIGHTING A WAR IN 60 BELOW OR 120-160 ABOVE TEMPERATURES THEY"LL DIE FROM EXPOSURE ANYWAY AND WE WONT TO WORRY ABOUT BODY ARMOR. HAVE ANY OF THE WAR IDIOTS STOPPED TO PONDER THAT THOUGHT? PROBABLY NOT.

If our armed forces in theater don't have the best protection avalible it's a real shame on us. We count on these real first rate Americans to fight for our freedoms. They ALL should be afforded the benefit to the BEST gear for the fight. Don't let this turn into a who's what investigation on capital hill. Do another set of independant tests and make sure our armed forces have the BEST period....

This issue is something that has been in effect since Ike warned about the military-industrial complex. There have examples of this phenomenon since the introduction of the initial introduction of the M-16. The controversy over Dragonskin is only the latest. Well, let's see, there's the Israeli anti-RPG system. We have to wait until 2011? For a system that we can get now?!?! Then there's the HK 419. A rifle that doesn't require endless cleaning and maintenance like the M4/M16, but still has the accuracy!?! For those who say "well, they're foreign designs," all you have to do is look at the M249 and the M240. Both based off of FN designs.

As for Chris Eldridge's arguments, Firstly, the current IBA is not really upgradeable. Army times did a story on the IBA a few weeks ago, and they're completely changing the design. Something that could easily be done with dragon skin. #2, I grant that the scale protection may have problems with shooting while lying in the prone, however, you can't really shoot from the prone with an IBA anyway. The majority of shooting is done from standing, standing supported (leaning against a humvee) or from kneeling nowadays. If I tried to shoot from the prone while I spent my lovely vacation in Baghdad, I would've gotten killed. As for distribution of impact, look at the BFS from the test results. THE INTERCEPTOR FAILED ITS OWN TEST! Dragonskin had substantially less BFS than the Interceptor, resulting in better distribution of impact. As for the whole weight and temperature difficulties, the dragonskin people have a point-by-point rebuttal of the "problems" the Army found. You can find it at http://www.sftt.org.

Armor Piercing Bullets?? Who here would not expect them to penetrate a lightly armored vest? What ammo did they use to test their favorite vest? I have no doubt that 48 pounds was a big factor in failing this vest, its just too heavy to be comfortable for all day wear.

10 Year Contracts Signed in 2000 shortly before the election Fact: DOD Office of Oversight was abolished
a few years prior by previous administration. Fact: Ex Generals received manufacturing contracts for interceptor Fact: army tester of Dragon Skin Used A level 3 vest and shot level 4 munitions into it Fact: 6 months later this tester is rewarded and now works
for interceptor manufacturer Fact: Deaths reported by Navy Surgeon General: Of 320 deaths of Marines Upwards of 80% would have lived with additional coverage.Fact: DS is approx. the same weight for the same coverage however additional weight comes from the needed additional coverage (approx 12 lbs more} Fact: If Mr Eldridge ever saw DS he would know that it would be easily decontaminated FACT: Javier Rohas r-marine.com was flown to Va by the Marines. He was told that after baking DS for 1 hr at 300 degrees. "There is some possible plate problems"
Mr Rojas replied, "You're telling me if my son is in 300 degree heat for 1 hour, he needs to worry about a bullet, are you kidding me" ( I wouldn't be that nice)
Fact: Our young marines joined the service knowing the risks, we as parents just want them home safe.
fact:MARINES AND SOLDIERS HAVE BEEN TOLD THEIR $400,000 DEATH BENEFIT WILL NOT BE PAID IF YOU WEAR DS
FACT: KEEP YOUR STINKING MONEY I WANT MY MARINE HOME SAFE SON (mine and yours), WEAR IT ANYWAY WE LOVE YOU WE JUST WANT YOU SAFE My information comes from much research we raised $90,000 in donations in 45 days from people (patriots) like (most of) you and we outfitted a large group of Marines

WE need to remember that our boys are joining up and the least we can do is help protect them in every way: combat the IEDs, better trucks and armor, and health care after they go through multiple IED attacks. Better officers....a better Commander in Chief. I sent food to my son's platoon weekly--they were being fed bread and rice. My son was labeled spoiled because I regularly sent him socks. We should all be ashamed and appalled that our boys are doing without over there while we are letting the Iraqi's bilk us out of billions.....a 2 month vacation for the parlament...not while our boys are protecting them and risking their lives. A certain celebrity called our boys terrorists today. My son joined the Army to do a good thing and help people be free....not even close to a terrorist. WE need to remember that the boys are doing a job most upper class people won't allow their kids to do....and for a few hundered dollars a week.