G.I.S GET ARMOR ADD-ONS

A G.I.'s body armor is designed, mostly, to stop head-on attacks, or to keep a soldier from getting shot in the back. But in Iraq, insurgents aren't coming straight at the soldiers. So roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades are hurting U.S. troops in places the Pentagon never thought to toughen up.

That's why the Army and Sandia National Laboratories are rolling out new body armor add-ons, designed to shield troops' flanks and arms.

But before G.I.s start strapping on the new gear in Baghdad, dead pigs had to try it on. Defense News explains:

Gunners standing in a Humvee’s circular roof opening are particularly vulnerable to the blasts of grenades and improvised explosive devices. The menacing blast creates a superheated armor that forms tiny liquid balls of metal that melt the skin, muscle and tendons right off and expose the bone to be destroyed by shrapnel, leaving a limb so mangled it must be amputated.

The brainchild of a retired Army colonel and [Sandia] scientist, the Sandia Gauntlet is a Kevlar sleeve with armor plate inserts intended to protect troops in Humvees. Six layers of Kevlar will block the heat from an explosion, and the carbon composite armor plates shield the forearm and biceps. Each sleeve weighs 4 pounds and does not interfere with operating the machine gun, Jones said. A quick-release buckle allows for easy removal...

A small shop at the Sandia lab built a handful of the devices and shipped them to soldiers and airmen in Iraq to try out…

Before being shipped to Iraq, a Gauntlet encasing a dead pig’s leg was subjected to an anti-tank round detonated 2½ feet away. After the explosion, the pig’s leg was almost pristine...

Despite the porcine success, "no formal orders from the Pentagon have yet materialized. Nor has a manufacturer with the ability to quickly produce large quantities been identified," Defense News notes.

Further along in development is the Deltoid and Axillary Protector -- a removable attachment to Interceptor Body Armor that covers the shoulder and underarm. Those are areas that are "especially vulnerable when soldiers ride in convoys," the magazine says, because "improvised explosive devices often hit the sides of vehicles."

Body armor experts at the U.S. Army’s Program Executive Office (PEO) Soldier began their search for an arm protector in March, after soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq came up with the idea, developed a design and hired a private company to ship them a custom-made version.

The Army experts looked at nine different prototypes and selected one that should provide protection without severely hampering mobility, they said. Still, the attachments will be hotter and heavier… The Interceptor, with plates, weighs about 16 pounds. The attachment on each shoulder will increase the total weight of armor up to 22 pounds, he said.

The Army plans to field 50,000 sets of attachments to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan this year, and 138,000 by January.