Prepare to blow a blood vessel, folks.
The Marines bought 19,000 torso-protecting "outer tactical vests" from Point Blank Body Armor Inc. of Pompano Beach, Florida, but the vests failed tests by military ballistics experts involving 9mm pistol rounds.
Heads need to roll. There is absolutely no excuse for this kind of treason. And make no mistake, to do this to troops being put into combat zones is treason of the worst kind.
The Marines defended the vests and denied risking the lives of troops in war zones by giving them poor equipment, arguing that the vests were vastly superior to the "outdated" flak jacket they replaced.
Even so, the Marines said they were recalling more than half of the roughly 10,000 vests given to troops deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and missions in the Horn of Africa region because media coverage about safety questions would "sow seeds of doubt in the minds of Marines in active combat."
So let me get this straight, media coverage would 'sow seeds of doubt' because the Marines wearing those vests would know that they couldn't stop a simple 9mm round? So they think it's better for them to DIE ignorant? Like recalling 5,000 vests wouldn't already make the troops worry about the equipment made by the lowest(or best connected) bidder? I know its SOP for the Military brass to lie to Americans today, but this is just too pathetic for words.
"This is the best quality equipment we could field," said Maj. Douglas Powell, a Marine spokesman at the Pentagon. "I would wear this vest in combat."
Powell said the vests had drastically reduced torso injuries. "The vest is not designed to stop bullets," he said. "The vest is designed to stop shrapnel."
So you'd wear a vest that can't stop bullets into a combat zone? You're either stupid or lying. At this point I'll give even odds on either one.
[Update] Bets are now closed. He's lying. The vests are supposed to be able to stop at least 9mm. They didn't.
The Marines acknowledged providing the vests to troops after signing waivers permitting their use, despite the fact that the equipment did not meet certain minimum standards.
They're caught red handed and they STILL deny there's a problem with this. What the hell is the point of body armor that can't stop 9mm rounds, let alone the AK-47s used in the two largest combat fields right now?
The Marine Corps Times first reported questions about the body armor and made available a July 2004 memo by James MacKiewicz, a military ballistics expert responsible for verifying that the vests met quality standards. In it, MacKiewicz expressed "little confidence in the performance of the items to provide the contracted levels of protection."
The vests failed because they were penetrated by 9mm pistol rounds and came up short on other quality measurements, the military testers found.
"We maintain these vests are effective at meeting the threat posed by 9mm pistol rounds. Present combat operations preclude us from retesting at this time to prove to our Marines these vests are effective. Therefore, we initiated the recall," the Marines statement said.
There are simply no words I can use to describe what I'm feeling when I read this kind of shit being done. Their own testers find a problem and they deny there's a problem. People have almost certainly died from this inexcusable war profiteering. And for what? JUST SOME FUCKING MONEY?!
Where is the outcry? Where is the media? Where is the damn simple accountability here?!
Anyone want to try digging up a little dirt on Point Blank go right ahead. I need to go cool off.
[Update]: 5/9/05 thanks to a tip from QuoVadis
Much better story with a LOT more info.
Complete PENETRATION by a 9mm round through the vest.
Bloody Hell, this goes straight to the top of Marine System Command, Brig. General Catto himself.
'“I concurred with the program manager’s decision to waive the 11 lots in order to rapidly replace the PASGT flaks with a superior, advanced body-armor system,” Catto said in the statement. “Due to the massive deployment associated with [Operation Iraqi Freedom], this was considered to be an urgent need, and was deemed to be in the best interest of deployed Marines at that time.”'
It was in the best interests of the Marines to issue them vests that didn't work just so they'd have vests to wear? WTF?
All vests stand some chance of failing, but the vests issued to Marines from waivered lots have a greater chance of being penetrated than vests that met Natick’s test criteria, experts there said.
And they ignored this. The bastards in charge IGNORED this.
The first vest failures had come to light in mid-January 2003, as officials with Point Blank notified Marine contract officers of problems at their Oakland Park, Fla., test facility. Hatfield told Marine Corps Times the failures stemmed from improper testing equipment at their ballistic lab.
Over the next year, Natick officials assumed responsibility for testing vests from Point Blank as they investigated why the original failures occurred.
In December 2003, contract officers and testers discovered that multiple vests from two other lots failed ballistic tests, this time at the Aberdeen facility.
Vests from lots 69-9 and 69-12 suffered multiple penetrations of 9mm bullets at speeds below 1,525 feet per second. When gauging performance of a vest against that contract benchmark, testers expect that rounds will penetrate half of the time.
Those penetrations were of particular concern because previous tests yielded passing results at an average velocity of 1,620 feet per second, well above the contract benchmark, according to a document written by Mike Codega, a technical representative at Natick who worked with MacKiewicz on the Marine vest program. Also a point of concern was the complete penetration of a vest from lot 69-12. This one was below 1,450 feet per second, a speed at which no vest penetration should occur.
“I recommended we do more testing to validate or to confirm or to find out what happened,” MacKiewicz said in an April 8 interview at Natick. “And as I continued to test, I got more failures … it continued, it didn’t stop. Which is strange because we had had about four years of experience where we had no problem whatsoever.”
In further tests of lots 69-9 and 69-12, as well as four additional lots, MacKiewicz and his colleagues noticed a continued decline in the Point Blank armor’s ballistic strength. Some of the vests were also showing deep indentations — though not penetrations — at speeds that, taken together with the full penetrations in earlier lots and the fact that the indentations were deeper than they should have been, prompted testers to raise a red flag.
It just gets worse....
Natick officials said they pleaded with Point Blank to properly document and track the materials and manufacture of the vests so they might pinpoint the problem. But they said Point Blank could not deliver the information they needed.
The Marine Corps contract included a premium of about $50 extra per vest to cover additional quality assurance procedures at Point Blank, MacKiewicz said.
And worse....
The Marine Corps fielded vests from the failed lots through the end of 2004, documents and interviews show, but stopped taking delivery of Point Blank manufactured vests in early 2005. By then, the contract had not been exhausted — at least 9,000 vests could still have been purchased.
Neither the Marine Corps nor the company would explain why more vests hadn’t been purchased. But in late December 2004, the Army signed a $190 million contract with Point Blank to purchase 360,000 vests through 2006. Point Blank was chosen over 11 other bidders for the contract, the Pentagon said.
And worse.
The company tapped retired Army Gen. Larry Ellis, who joined the company as a board member last year after retiring from the service. He led Army Forces Command in Atlanta, Ga., before retiring in July.
His appointment follows the hiring of another former Army officer, retired Col. Ishmon Burks, to be DHB’s executive vice president for investor and media relations.
Curiouser and Curiouser....this rabbit hole keeps getting deeper and deeper.
[Update]: More interesting details coming to light about the people in Point Blank.
Turns out Gen. Larry Ellis was one of the Stryker proponents before he got 'retired'. And he was one of those who 'lowered expectations' of the Stryker's capabilities in order to keep the money moving.
'More funding for Strykers is so "imperative," Ellis wrote, that money might have to be diverted from a program to refurbish Bradley fighting vehicles, the armored, treaded carriers that many soldiers see as the star performer in Iraq. '
How very *interesting* how these people keep advertising putting money into things that don't work and get troops hurt and killed.