Kossacks - I've been trying to figure out what is going on with our soldiers' body armor, but I haven't been able to get to the bottom of it. I've detected a faintly objectionable odor, but more expertise than mine is needed to really shed some light on the situation. Will you please help me? It could be a matter of life and death for our soldiers. At the end of this diary, I'll ask for your help in a couple of areas. - Thanks, OH
George Bush's personal Secret Service bodyguards don't wear the same body armor that our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan wear.
In fact, our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't even allowed to wear the same body armor worn by George Bush's personal Secret Service bodyguards.
(Also available at My Left Wing)
The Pentagon has decreed that the body armor worn by George Bush's personal Secret Service bodyguards isn't able to pass the Pentagon's tests, and therefore isn't the best body armor available - even though the Pentagon hasn't fully tested that body armor yet.
Which can mean only one thing: either President Bush's bodyguards don't have the best available body armor, or the Pentagon is lying.
In the meantime, soldiers are dying.
.
The issue of body armor exploded into the American consciousness early this year, when Soldiers for the Truth brought to light a study of fatalities in Iraq, and their relationship to the body armor the Marines were wearing.
Shortly after that, the Pentagon forbade U.S. soldiers from wearing anything other than the government-issued Interceptor body armor, which had been shown to be fragile and, in some cases, outright defective.
I diaried on this in January and April, so let's quickly recap to that point: the Interceptor Body Armor that is currently supplied to our soldiers in combat zones cannot withstand multiple bullet impacts without falling apart. In fact, it is so fragile that it can break when it comes into contact with a hard object "such as the ground."
Some of the principal investors and executives of two of the companies that supply the current, inferior body armor to the military are very large Republican campaign donors. One of these executives, David H. Brooks of DHB Industries, was just forced to sever all ties with the company that he founded and that bears his initials, the company itself was delisted by the American Stock Exchange, and he and the company both have agreed to pay nearly $80 million to settle lawsuits in the past three months (more on Brooks and DHB below).
The Dispute Over Dragon Skin
Pinnacle Armor of Fresno, California, produces Dragon Skin body armor. If you're willing to download some fairly large files (about 15Mb each), you can watch some incredible videos of Dragon Skin successfully stopping literally hundreds of rounds of small-arms fire in tests that were conducted in front of various third-party witnesses. The files are here, here and here. When I recently showed them to a close relative of mine who is a retired police SWAT sniper and ex-Marine, his comment was, "Very impressive."
According to the National Institute Of Justice Body Armor Standards (PDF file), Dragon Skin's ability to successfully stop the shots shown in the videos would have certified it as Level IV protection (capable of stopping up to a .30-caliber armor-piercing round), the highest level availalble.
In January, soldiers were told that if they wore non-regulation body armor (i.e., Dragon Skin), they would risk losing their life insurance benefits; some were flat-out ordered not to wear the Dragon Skin at all. The Pentagon clarified matters in March when it came out with an order not to wear Dragon Skin or any other non-regulation body armor system.
Pinnacle Armor has long been requesting that its Dragon Skin be tested by the Army. The Army finally agreed to a test, which took place in mid-May. The testing, though, was not held at one of the Army's own facilities, but at a private facility. And the testing was conducted, not by an impartial third party, but by the chief engineer of the Interceptor design team; in other words, the person whose system would be replaced by Dragon Skin if it were deemed to be superior to Interceptor.
So, umm, there remains some question as to whether these were "scientific" tests.
What's worse, the "testing" was never actually finished. It was stopped about 30% of the way through by the testers. But that's not what an anonymous "senior defense official" "leaked" to the media:
The Army's struggle to find a new, more flexible body armor was dealt a setback Friday when high-tech vests called Dragon Skin failed to pass military testing, a senior defense official said.
After three days of testing this week, the Army determined the body armor does not meet military specifications, said the official, who would not specify which tests the armor failed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the results have not yet been released.
That was May 19. Retired Marine Lt. Col. Roger Charles, writing for Soldiers for the Truth, put out a quick release a few days after the testing was halted:
No official source says "failure." So far, anonymous sources are the only ones cited. (Remember recent "official" claims that Dragon Skin failed ballistic and other tests conducted on behalf of USAF Office of Special Investigations. These claims were proven false when Defense Watch obtained a copy of the actual test report and noted that the test report said the exact opposite - Dragon Skin passed OSI standards!)
The Army still has not released results of the "testing." Pinnacle had no immediate comment at the time, but a few weeks later, on June 30, issued a release that said, in part:
The testing was stopped by the Army at 12:37 pm on the 19th, Karl Masters and James Zheng had just shot one of our Medium sized vest with 12 rounds of APM2 (level 4) with complete stops on all rounds with a back face trauma average of 22.5mm for this vest and 23mm for all the vests tested, which is a 50% reduction in trauma over the current system. Imagine how many more lives could have been saved if the Dragon Skin¨ body armor system was available to our troops today. When was the last time the Army dared to shot 12 rounds of M2AP (level 4) into any Interceptor IBA [individual body armor] with ESAPI [enhanced small-arms protective insert; i.e., rigid ceramic] plates? The reason Karl Masters, Col. John Norwood (being forced to retire early) and James Zheng gave for stopping the testing early on the 19th was as quoted by Karl Masters: "I'm completely baffled by this flexible technology and I'm not going to send another round down range until I can understand how a flexible system works"!
Now, there's a scientist!
But let's go back to a little bit earlier in June, about two weeks after the testing. On a forum called AR15.com, David Crane, the owner of DefenseReview.com and a persistent advocate for open and unbiased testing of Dragon Skin, posted a comment in response to another posting that dismissed his criticisms of the Army testing, and his support of Dragon Skin. Crane's response read, in part (all typos left in):
In plain English, it's DefenseReview's (DefRev) understanding at present that Mr. Masters and Mr. Zheng could not get Pinnacle Armor SOV/Dragon Skin to fail ballistically (unconfirmed/unverified), and could not figure out how Dragon Skin performs as it does (unconfirmed/unverified). Whether or not this is the reason Mr. Masters stopped the tests less than 1/3rd the way through, well, you'd have to ask him. BTW, don't you find it to be just a slight conflict of interest (mucho sarcasm) that Mr. Masters and Mr. Zheng, both involved with U.S. Army Natick Soldier Center/Soldier Systems Center, were conducting the latest MILITARY tests (before they stopped them, suddenly) at a CIVILIAN testing facility of their choosing, and not at a military test lab like ATC [Army Testing Center] or ARL [Army Research Lab]? Interceptor Body Armor is U.S. Army Natick's (Natick Soldier Center/Soldier Systems Center) and PEO Soldier's baby, and people involved with those organizations are the ones conducting those tests! Hmmm. Yeah, that's fair (sarcasm).
Time will tell which one of us is right, you (kavik) or us (DefenseReview). I believe it will be us (DefRev). I believe we will be proven right/vindicated. So, my advice to you is to be patient and sit tight, for now.
Let me say here and now that DefenseReview stands by it's support of Pinnacle Armor SOV/Dragon Skin as a superior solution for the protection of our troops, and will continue to do so until/unless INDEPENDENT tests (tests conducted by a totally independent/non-biased entity at an independent/non-biased facility) prove otherwise. I frankly do not trust Mr. Karl Masters or Mr. James Zheng to conduct a fair and honest test on Dragon Skin, since, based on all the information I've received to date, those two men are part of a U.S. Army infrastructure (including U.S. Army Natick Soldier Center/Soldier Systems Center and Program Executive Office Soldier, a.k.a. PEO Soldier) that would appear to be doing everything in its power to protect their beloved inferior Interceptor Body Armor program and crush the far superior SOV/Dragon Skin at the exense of our (U.S.) infantry warfighters. In my opinion, neither Mr. Masters or Mr. Zheng should have any control whatsoever over testing SOV/Dragon Skin body armor. This is just my opinion.
Just out of curiosity, did you ever bother to ask yourself why a "senior Defense Department official" leaked false information to Ms. Baldor that Dragon skin vests "failed to pass military testing" when Dragon Skin had not actually failed anything from a V0 or V50 ballistic perspective and not even 1/3rd of the total scheduled tests had been completed? Did you ever think to ask why a DoD official is making any comments whatsoever about testing results so quickly, before those tests are even close to being completed. Why is anyone at U.S. Army/DoD making any statements to any journalists when the U.S. Army and Pinnacle Armor had previously agreed--before the testing began--not to discuss any results of the tests until all testing had been completed? You think that's fair? Think the Army/DoD's playing fair, here? Nothing about these tests seems fair to me.
A few days later, on another forum, Professional Soldiers, "dedicated to the Special Forces Soldier and those interested in the SF way of life," the discussion continued. Masters, the chief engineer for the Interceptor program, and evidently a former Special Forces operative, responded to Crane:
Mr. Crane: After reviewing your web site, I see that you have already determined the military utility of Dragon Skin for the Army. Fortunately, that's my job-not yours. I also note that you feel free to demean those who have views different from yours. That's a non-habit forming technique in this forum.
The Army has a cautious and deliberate process to field personal protective equipment. It is impossible to "hype" your pet body armor onto the backs of Soldiers. Leaflet drops on capitol hill, smear campaigns, and glossy brochures with rosy performance claims are not going to get Dragon Skin through the ESAPI first article test protocol. In the absence of ballistic performance data that will support a Soldier safety release, Dragon Skin is a NO GO for fielding. [snip]
The sun is about to shine on the Army's rationale for issuing the body armor Safety of Use Message. Get your suncreen ready.
I'll be watching to see if you set the record straight, or if I will have to do it for you. Welcome aboard.
The above was posted on June 8; it is now July 20. The sun has not shone on the Army's rationale. (Hmm: Could that be because they put that rationale in a place where the sun never shines? Just askin'.) My sunscreen is still in the bottle. Here's David Crane's response:
[snip]With all due respect, Mr. Masters, I must say that I find it troubling that the "acting product manager for Interceptor Body Armor" is in charge of testing SOV/Dragon Skin body armor, considering that SOV-3000 Level IV Dragon Skin appears to be the #1 threat to the Interceptor Body Armor/ESAPI program. How do you avoid a conflict of interest, there? [snip]
Then, someone named "Jack Moroney" jumps in to defend Masters' honor, ad hominem:
I am not going to claim to have any expertise in this discussion, save one. While Karl Masters is not going to say this because of the type of person he is, I am just so you have a better insight into the person to whom you are talking. He is a consumate professional, I know this because he worked with me when we were in the same organization. He has also walked in the boots of the soldiers he has choosen to continue to serve as a program manager so he has a personal stake in continuing to look out for his men as a former Special Forces Officer. This, and I mean this as no criticism for those that have not served with us for one reason or another because this commitment is for a select few, is an obligation and calling that those that have not served with these outstanding men will never understand. His professionalism, and his concern for making sure that the troops get the best product available, would absolutely ensure that he has no conflict of interest.
Well, alrighty then! That would satisfy me!
Then the hammer, "Team Sergeant," weighs in; my guess is that he is a site moderator of some type. (A few posts upthread, he had spanked Crane with this admonition: "Mr Crane, Next time you post on this forum you will identify yourself to whom you are asking a question or you will be gone. Anything printed here is copyrighted, remember that. Also you are not immune to the rules of this board and I suggest you read them before you post again." Which illuminates this response to Crane's post above:
Mr. Crane, I'll say this once because you have zero military experience, zero LEO [laws enforcement officer] experience and zero credibility as a defense advisor as far as I'm concerned;
The next time you find something "troubling" seek professional help. The next time you question a Special Forces soldier integrity you will be gone.
I find it outrageous as a tax payer and a professional that you, with zero experience, consult/advise for Homeland Security. I have read articles on your website and find some of them as interesting as the super market tabloids.
Think before you post again.
NB: Markos - are you getting all this? This is how you run a blog, baby! Take everything at face value - OR ELSE!!
.
David Brooks, DHB Industries, and Armor Holdings
This entire body armor issued is tainted with the smell of large political contributions. As I mentioned at the beginning of this diary, David H. Brooks, founder and former CEO of DHB Industries, was forced to resign and sever all ties with the company, which supplied Interceptor body armor to the military. I didn't mention that so far in the 2006 election cycle, Mr. Brooks has contributed $29,000 to Republicans (and $0 to Democrats).
Within the past three months, DHB and its subsidiary, Point Blank, have settled lawsuits for nearly $80 million; the stock has been de-listed from the American Stock Exchange and its CEO and namesake, David H. Brooks, has been forced, along with his wife and brother, to sever all ties with the company.
Brooks, as you may recall, threw his daughter a $10 million bat mitzvah last year. Not her fault: who knew that "My Super Sweet 16" wouldn't cover a 13-year-old's party? But Brooks, like so many fine, upstanding Republicans upon whose lives and livelihoods so many Americans depend, is just that kind of a guy:
The war has been very good to Brooks. In the early 1990s, he was running a small brokerage business with his brother until the SEC temporarily barred him in 1992 over insider trading violations. Seeking a new line of work, Brooks turned his attention to a small body armor company he'd purchased for $800,000 from a firm on the verge of bankruptcy. His fortunes turned dramatically in the lead-up to the Iraq war, when Brooks successfully lobbied for an exclusive contract to make the vests used in the body armor now issued to every U.S. soldier in Iraq. The Pentagon's largesse boosted DHB's stock, which in turn sent Brooks' pay, including stock options, skyrocketing, from $525,000 in 2001 to $70 million dollars in 2004.
- not to mention the $185 million in stock options he exercised that year -
Jim Magee, a retired Marine colonel and former head of DHB's Point Blank subsidiary, recently told the Washington Post that by hiring only DHB, rather than spreading the work around to the 20 or so qualified companies, the military created a bottleneck that kept many troops in Iraq from having state-of-the-art [sic] body armor until nine months after the war began.
Eventually, the Pentagon broke DHB's monopoly to speed up production, but that wasn't the end of the military's problems with the company. Over the course of 2005, the Marines and Army recalled a total of 23,000 vests - all of them produced by DHB -- after an investigation by the Marine Corps Times revealed that the vests had failed ballistics tests for stopping 9 mm bullets. The exposé showed that Pentagon officials had dismissed repeated warnings by inspectors. In one instance, army ballistics expert James MacKiewicz alerted higher-ups of "major quality assurance deficiencies" by DHB and recommended rejecting certain lots of vests and "disciplinary action against the contractor."
Armor Holdings, the other primary supplier of Interceptor body armor to the military, also is a Very Good Friend to the Republican Party. So far in the 2006 cycle, Armor Holdings executives have contributed $72,000 to Republican causes, under various guises, including company names such as O'Gara Hess & Eisenhardt and Centigon, and PACs such as The Freedom Project and the Armor Holdings PAC. The owner of the fund that controls the largest single chunk of Armor Holdings shares, Foster Friess, has, along with his family members, contributed $76,000 to Republicans in the 2006 cycle.
(Armor Holdings execs also have contributed $8,000 for 2006 to Democrat Bill Nelson of Florida.)
Armor Holdings just received another $45 million of a total $461 million "ID/IQ" (Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity) contract for more Interceptor body armor. There's a good boy.
Military Testing and Procurement
The entire body armor issue goes to the heart of a deeply flawed military evaluation and procurement system. Corruption, profiteering and incompetence are nothing new in that system; look at the Civil War:
During the tenure of Secretary of War Simon Cameron, a conniving machine politician from Pennsylvania, corruption flourished during the Civil War. As a result of his sloppy practices, the federal government paid top dollar for shoddy blankets, tainted pork and beef, knapsacks that came unglued in the rain, uniforms that fell apart, and guns that blew the thumbs off the soldiers firing them. President Lincoln replaced Cameron after the secretary repeatedly issued supply contracts without competitive bidding, in violation of Lincoln's express orders.
Even in the thread cited above at Professional Soldiers, several current or ex-Special Forces operatives left no doubt about the efficacy of the system. Here's a comment from a user named "The Reaper":
The Army has a huge bureaucracy dedicated to T&Eing [testing and evaluating] soldier equipment.
IMHO, it is slow, non-responsive, territorial, bureaucratic, probably ridden with graft, nepotism, and NIH [Not Invented Here] syndrome, and not terribly good at listening to soldier input to give them what they need, much less what they want.
For example, it took them over 50 years to get away from non-break-away ski bindings, M-1950 pattern LBE [load-bearing equipment; i.e., packs, etc.], and Korean War-era cold weather gear. By the time they came up with new products, they were three more generations behind the COTS [civilian off-the-shelf] equivalent.
Meanwhile, the civilian outdoor industry has leapt decades ahead of the military in developing and fielding quality field products.
Based upon what I saw over almost 30 years, I think that the miltiary RDT&E [research, development, testing and evaluation] community needs to be torn down and rebuilt from the bottom up.
Next comment, by "Peregrino":
I don't think anybody has to look much further than combat soldier's comments on the ACU [Army combat uniform] to support the contention that NATICK is broken. Nor does anyone have to look much further than Congress to see it will probably never get fixed. COTS is ALWAYS more responsive and less expensive when it comes to individual soldier support. Gov't labs should stick to products that have no commercial equivalent and therefore cannot be researched and developed economically by private industry e.g. planes, tanks, warships and their support structure. Body armor "might" be in a gray area with overlap. So why isn't there an objective standard with independant testing and everything that passes the standards is allowed? One size does not fit all and economics is a piss poor reason to force soldiers to put square pegs in round holes. FYI - USASOC [U.S. Army Special Operations Command] has a list of accepted IBA [individual body armor] that includes more than just the Interceptor. My .02 - Peregrino
Finally, this one, from "bost1751":
Reaper and Peragrino hit on the head. I started skiing on the old Korean era stuff and my first time to the field in northern Maine in Feb my first and last time with the GI sleeping bag. Somewhere in the early 80's SF [Special Forces] purchased off the shelf winter equipment modified to meet SF standards. A great move and a big money saver to those new to 10th Group.
I would like to think SF has continued to recognised the advantages of off the shelf purchases. They are numerous. The R&D by those companies is enormous and eliminates the outrageous cost to the government, along with a real procurement of the equipment. [snip] A peice of ptentially life saving equipment is not something to toy around with. The govt has a system readily available to them and should use it to their advantge. Natic, like all government entities, impedes progress. the field soliers knows what is needed, listen to them.
Here, on the other hand, is what Maj. Gen. Stephen Speakes, director of the Force Development Office, had to say on June 15 before the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee:
The Army's number one concern is the protection of the Soldier. [snip] Interceptor Body Armor (IBA) remains a centerpiece program for the Army,
Our IBA is the best military body armor in the world. [snip] The Army continually monitors the state of industry. Innovation or technology improvements that appear promising are tested and evaluated to see if they meet the Army's stringent requirements for protection. Thus far, we have tested hundreds of products. We are also pursuing a robust science and technology effort to identify promising body armor technologies. We are convinced that our Soldiers are wearing the best possible equipment right now. Commanders in the Theater of operations have the means to give their Soldiers the highest levels of protection known to the Army today.
*coughbullshitcough*
At the same hearing, Maj. Gen. William Catto, commanding general of the Marine Corps Systems Command, testified:
Today, there is no commercial product more capable than the equipment being issued to our Marines by the Corps.
*coughhorseshitcough*
Fortunately, not everyone in Congress has a cough. On June 20, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Ryan Henry was before the House Armed Services Committee :
Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., began reading from a story in the June 18 issue of The Washington Post Magazine. Was it accurate, Taylor asked, that the Pentagon signed a sole-source contract with Point Blank Body Armor to produce outer tactical vests, when other companies could have pitched in to get armor to troops more quickly? And what was the Pentagon's position on the story's contention that pay for an official for Point Blank's corporate parent had increased from $500,000 in 2001 to $70 million in 2004?
Henry -- an undersecretary of defense responsible for international security policy -- protested that he was not an acquisition expert. "I'm not the one who develops the policy or gives [Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld] policy advice on this," he said.
Taylor shot back: "The secretary is not here today, the other guy is not here today, you're the one that's here. ... I think this is a fair question for an undersecretary of defense of this country."
Struggling for a response, Henry replied that no one in the Defense Department would support war profiteering, and that the department does its best to provide troops with the best equipment possible. "We live and work with the individuals who are on the front lines," he said. "We very acutely feel the responsibility to give them the best value we can."
To paraphrase Armando: Heh.
But the Army is stubbornly clinging to the Interceptor-style rigid ceramic inserts. In a "Sources Sought Notice" dated May 1, 2006, the Army grandly states that it is looking for sources for "Next Generation Body Armor." Only thing is, this magnificent-sounding "Next Generation" isn't looking for better protection from ballistic threats (i.e., bullets), but rather,
The Army seeks to identify a Next Generation Body Armor System to enhance individual Soldier mobility, reduce weight, improve comfort, facilitate fighting load carriage, and improve weight distribution of ballistic and fighting load components.
All of these improvements, according to all accounts I've read, are already available with Dragon Skin. And, as far as being more mobile, the "Next Generation" will still use the clunky, fragile ceramic inserts:
The Army will also consider design approaches that will incorporate existing ESAPI and ESBI ballistic inserts. [snip] The Army seeks to retain the capability to accommodate either the 7 Wx8 H ESBI side plate or the size extra small ESAPI plate in the side pocket of the Next Generation Body Armor System.
The Pentagon has clearly indicated which direction it's going: It's just placed a $611 million dollar ID/IQ contract with Ceradyne to provide ceramic inserts, to augment the $461 million dollar contract with Armor Holdings referenced earlier.
So Now What?
I don't know whether the Armor Holdings and DHB contracts have any thing to do with campaign contributions. I do know there are a lot of active-duty military on this site - so I'm gonna ask for your help.
What I would like to know is this:
Has anyone actually seen an Interceptor vest tested with multiple hits, in the same manner as in the Dragon Skin videos? Does anyone have any personal experience of Interceptor or Dragon Skin being damaged by handling? What about any other experience with either Interceptor or Dragon Skin?
More questions: What can anybody tell me about the U.S. military testing and/or procurement system? Why would the Army put in charge of testing the chief engineer for the rival system? How would it serve Pinnacle to press for open tests, if they know their product is inferior?
It would be lovely if the Pentagon would go ahead and allow truly independent third-party tests, and would specify exactly what military specs need to be met in order for any new body armor to be accepted for use by the Army.
Heck, I'd be happy if we could just run the same tests on Interceptor and Dragon Skin side-by-side, so we could just answer the question ourselves.
Until then, please forward this to your congressperson. Especially make sure to get it to the members of the House Armed Services Committee.
I know this has been a long diary, but I really appreciate your sticking with it. It's worth it, I believe.
Acting together, we can make sure our soldiers' interests are being protected.
Thanks.