Body armor - defensive tools

[planetaryjim]

Dear Friends,

Ed's wish list on the very long (147 pages!) thread includes a few items like an armored personnel carrier and body armor.  I think those are good things to raise money for, even if we don't put together enough for a rescue vehicle.

Single panels of body armor are available for as little as $25 each from bulletproofme.com.  Yes, these are years old, and are offered for test shoots, but they could readily be sewn into blankets for Ed's windows.  Or, your windows, for that matter, you civil disobedience practitioners.  (You never know when someone off duty or off his rocker is going to get it into his head to swing by your family home and open fire.)

Complete body armor vests are available from the same site.  Here are some bullet proof vests, new and used, from $100 to $355. 

http://www.bulletproofme.com/Bullet_proof_Vests_Catalog.shtml

Here's an APC for $25,000 or best offer:
http://www.shomer-tec.com/site/product.cfm?id=9988685A-F396-6CB8-C00606C9D1EC402A

There are also numerous vendors for bullet proofed vehicles, with bullet proof glass, armored door panels, etc.  For situations like Ed is potentially facing, one could buy steel plating at nearly any steel vendor or junk yard.  Quarter inch and half inch steel plate would stop most routine bullets.

For $974 one can get a bomb blanket delivered which provides some protection.  More for more elaborate blankets.  http://www.tamiamiarmor.com/bombblanketsuits.htm
(Can you imagine how the Mt. Carmel massacre would have been different if the Davidians had these in the windows on 28 February 1993 when the BATFE first attacked?)

In New Hampshire, these vendors sell PointBlank body armor and other products:
Mobile: 603-724-1588
Email: chrisatpbse@aol.com
215 Grove Street
North Conway, NH 03860

Mobile: 603-703-1608
Email: jstpierre@dhbt.com
709 Old Homestead Highway
Richmond, NH 03470
NEW HAMPSHIRE DISTRIBUTORS

Riley's Sport Shop Inc.
1575 Hooksett
Hooksett, NH 03106
Phone: 603.485.5000
Fax: 603.485.8800
Contact: Bill and George

Triple Nickel Tactical
1004 River Road
Windham, Maine
Phone: 207.929.8844
Fax: 207.929.8101
Mobile: 207.671.0520
Contact: Robert Chandler
Email: erchandl2@maine.rr.com

Now, before all the military experts get in line to bust my chops about how nothing can defend against a military helicopter attack, sure.  I'm quite aware that the USA military has guys who are eager to fire TOW missiles into buildings crowded with elderly, infants, and women, as they did in Mogadishu in 1993 to provoke the running battle which ended with the scenes some of you may have seen in the Jerry Bruckheimer agitprop jingoistic hatchet job, "Black Hawk Down."  (If you want to read about the TOW missile attack on a peaceful clan meeting, read the book by the same name, or the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper articles by Mark Bowden.  http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/

Bullet proof vests, kevlar blankets, armored vehicles, and plate steel are not going to defend against the metal plasma shaped charges available from a TOW or other military missile.  However, they might give someone in a difficult situation time to respond to a violent attack by doing something other than dying.  And, armor is inherently defensive, it is not aggressive, so it is good on all the libertarian ethix. 

Besides, those of us not there on the ground in NH want to do our part.  Perhaps buying a $25 kevlar panel and sending it to Ed is all I can do right now, but I'd like to do that much.

Regards,

Jim

[penguins4me]

Bullet-proof vests aren't. They are rated for a specific energy level, and if that level is exceeded, the vest will not stop the bullet. The highest-rated vest (without trauma plates) will not stop any rifle round (excepting _maybe_ .22LR and below). Trauma plates are thick, heavy, and only cover very limited areas. (See The Box O Truth #16 and #24.)

Kevlar panels do not work (at all) without a semi-solid backing, such as ballistic clay or a human body. Putting kevlar panels in windows will keep light out and that's it - they won't stop any bullets.

Now, for personal use, why not spend $200-350 for a good level IIIa vest - might be useful if things take a turn for the worse. I haven't purchased one yet, but I will in the near future.

[planetaryjim]

Trauma plates are also available for sale.  See the sundry sites in my previous link.

For a semi-solid backing, perhaps a couple of layers of plywood held in place with two-by fours.  Half-inch plate steel is much harder to work with than plywood, as far as creating a defensive barricade.  Plywood behind kevlar would seem to fit your requirements.  But, really, if you want to do it right, go ahead and design the perfect fortification.  Be sure to include ramparts and clear fields of fire and lots of gun ports.  Oh, and don't listen to Patton.

"Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man. If mountain ranges and oceans can be overcome, anything made by man can be overcome."  - George S. Patton

Defending posts does not work, at all.  There is no defensive position which cannot be overcome.  There never has been.  Very likely, there never shall be.  People who choose to defend posts have chosen to die.  That was true at the Alamo, it was true at the Maginot Line, and it was true at Mt. Carmel.  No amount of body armor is going to keep anyone safe against a TOW missile when it sends a copper plasma through the wall, and anything else it meets.   No amount of plate steel is going to do that trick, either.   

Active armor, which essentially counters an incoming missile with outgoing shrapnel exploding away from the protected vehicle (found on some tanks) is great, until used, and then it stops working.  So, the first TOW doesn't get ya, but the second one does.  It occurs to me to mention that there is more than one TOW missile, and several more up to date varieties of missile in the USA fedgov arsenal.

The highest rated vest without trauma plates will stop most pistol rounds, and pistol rounds are what most feral agents and most police and most marshalls fire in most situations.  Even some carbines have pistol rounds.  Given the experience of the Combat Applications Group snipers in Mogadishu in 1993, it seems clear that even kevlar alone would have helped a dozen or so Somalis who were brutally murdered when they wandered over an unmarked perimeter early one morning, in an area where there hadn't been fighting for hours, on their respective ways home.  The .223 is such a weak round it took four or five shots to kill some of the men targeted in that situation.

Of course, by all means, get whatever vest you want for personal use.  And, of course, by all means, be sure to dump on any idea for anyone else to do anything to help Ed.  It makes you look generous and decent and magnanimous all at once.  Criticizing any suggestion is far easier and more useful than actually doing something.  And, after all, criticism is on the path to greater knowledge.

[KBCraig]

Kevlar panels do not work (at all) without a semi-solid backing, such as ballistic clay or a human body. Putting kevlar panels in windows will keep light out and that's it - they won't stop any bullets.

Soft armor (Kevlar, et al) won't work when backed with anything more than semi-solid. It has to be able to give; if it's backed with something solid, it will be defeated more easily. Free-hanging Kevlar panels will stop any bullet they're rated for, just the same as if they're being worn.

Worth paying attention to on the BoxO'Truth tests are the impact marks on the clay even when the bullet is stopped. That's serious blunt-force trauma, and it's going to smart.

Kevin

[Quantrill]

I thought I read somewhere that there is only so much protection we civilians can legally buy.  Is this true?  Like basically you can buy the lower-grade BP vests but not heavy-duty stuff?  I always wanted to get one of those riot suits that the guys wear when tear-gassing peaceful protesters.  They look scary and it'd be neat to spend a day or two in public just walking around donning the outfit...

[KBCraig]

I thought I read somewhere that there is only so much protection we civilians can legally buy.  Is this true?

Some states restrict felons from owning body armor. Others make it an additional crime or penalty enhancer to wear it during commission of a crime. Many suppliers refuse to sell to private individuals. But so far as I know, there's no "civilian limit" on protection levels.

Kevin

[Bald Eagle]

www.southernpoliceequipment.com

Let me know privately what you want/need.

Bald Eagle

[MaineShark]

Bullet-proof vests aren't. They are rated for a specific energy level, and if that level is exceeded, the vest will not stop the bullet. The highest-rated vest (without trauma plates) will not stop any rifle round (excepting _maybe_ .22LR and below).

Do your research first, eh?  Oh, wait, I forgot who I was talking to.

Dragon Skin

Joe

[penguins4me]

Aside from an error which KBCraig corrected, what I stated is generally correct when discussing traditional kevlar vests, as was the case before you posted. I say "generally" because I'm certain someone could find a pistol/level II rated vest which couldn't be defeated with .22WMR or some other oddball, low-powered rifle round, but that's the exception rather than the rule in this context.

Dragon Skin is a fairly new development, one I am watching with interest. However, I can't base an opinion on it without further evidence of its capabilities, preferably from independent third parties. Although, if you want to strap yourself into one and take shots from a 7.62 NATO like the Second Chance guy did, go right ahead.

[error]

Huh? I didn't say anything.

As for Dragon Skin, I've heard nothing but good things about it -- except from pencil pushers in the Pentagon.

[penguins4me]

True, but I doubt Ed wants to hang vests costing multiple hundreds (or maybe thousands? no prices listed) in his windows...

[...] Single panels of body armor are available for as little as $25 each from bulletproofme.com. [...]

On second thought, maybe he would... but I'll let someone else buy them for all Ed's windows. ;)

[money dollars]

I'm not buying crap for Ed. He has a lot of money. I don't.

I am trying to decide if I should first go for soft body armor, or two rifle plates and a MOLLE modular plate carrier.

[MaineShark]

Aside from an error which KBCraig corrected, what I stated is generally correct when discussing traditional kevlar vests, as was the case before you posted. I say "generally" because I'm certain someone could find a pistol/level II rated vest which couldn't be defeated with .22WMR or some other oddball, low-powered rifle round, but that's the exception rather than the rule in this context.

Yeah, because 5.56NATO and 7.62x39mm are certainly oddball rounds that no one is likely to actually see used in combat.

Joe

[penguins4me]

Aside from an error which KBCraig corrected, what I stated is generally correct when discussing traditional kevlar vests

[MaineShark]

Aside from an error which KBCraig corrected, what I stated is generally correct when discussing traditional kevlar vests

Why make an absolute statement?  Two actually...

Don't try and pretend expertise in fields you know nothing about.

Joe