Are U.S. soldiers wearing the best body armor?

Independent tests commissioned by NBC News
The testing NBC commissioned at a renowned ballistics lab in Germany was done at room temperature.

Phil Coyle[2], a highly respected former assistant secretary of defense who oversaw weapons testing, helped NBC ensure that the testing met Army ballistic standards in terms of the ammunition used, the number and velocity of shots fired as well as where the shots were spaced.  He’s now with the Center for Defense Information.

Murray Neal, the manufacturer of Dragon Skin, provided Dragon Skin vests right off his production line — the same model (“Level IV”), he says, he provided the Army for testing last year.

Jim Magee, who helped develop the Interceptor body armor used by the Army, provided those vests for testing.

“This is what the soldiers and Marines are wearing,” he said.

NBC News will not reveal the specific caliber of ammunition used in these tests because that might help the enemy, but we have provided that information to the Army.

First, the German engineers tested Interceptor, the Army’s body armor, against what the Army told us is the most lethal armor-piercing round in Iraq today.  Army standards require that body armor stop a single round of this type of ammunition.

Interceptor held up well, repelling three rounds — more than Army standards require.  But on the fourth round, Interceptor suffered a complete penetration.

“That would probably kill that soldier if there was a soldier wearing that vest at that time,” said Coyle.

Next, we tested Dragon Skin, with the same armor-piercing ammunition. The Army says in its testing, Dragon Skin was repeatedly penetrated when hit with one or two rounds of this type of ammunition.

Dragon Skin repelled all six armor-piercing rounds.

“Well, it’s pretty impressive. It took six armor-piercing rounds, no catastrophic failures, with the system. That’s pretty impressive,” said Gen. Downing.

And it wasn’t just that Dragon Skin stopped all the rounds — it did so with much less trauma to the body than with Interceptor.  Stopping the bullet is only half the job of body armor; a soldier can still die from the blunt force trauma of the bullet impacting the vest.

“The fact that this has less trauma means that a soldier’s going to be able to get back up and fight, get into the fight, which is what you want,” says Downing.

For the next round, testers kicked things up a notch — pitting two fresh vests of each type against an even more lethal threat: an armor-piercing incendiary (API) round.

Again, the Army’s Interceptor did well, repelling four shots in a row.  It also stopped a fifth round, but in all likelihood a soldier wearing it would have been gravely injured.  The bullet’s impact left a very deep indentation in the clay used to simulate the human body; too deep for Army standards.  A sixth shot sailed right through the Interceptor armor — a complete penetration.

Then, it was Dragon Skin’s turn.  Remember, the Army insists it can barely handle one or two rounds of the weaker ammunition used in our first test.

And once again, Dragon Skin went six for six, repelling every round of armor-piercing incendiary ammunition.

Phil Coyle — the Pentagon’s former chief weapons tester — says Dragon Skin met and exceeded Army ballistic standards in these limited tests.

“Dragon Skin appears to be more effective, not only against the Army’s own standards, but against threats that are out there in Iraq in Afghanistan,” said Coyle.  “If my son, who’s in the military, is wearing a vest, I would hope it would be this one.”

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