Support the troops

OK... I've got to do a little peddling here. If you guys already know all the info on the DragonSkin scandal, please please please write your senator and congressmen/women asking for an investigation into the Army's "testing." You say you support the troops? There's no better way right now to support them than this issue.

If you don't know the issue, please read up on the whole there here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18771902/

DragonSkin is simply the best invention in body armor ever. And the US Army is denying that it works despite several independent tests and studies. This crap is so good it WILL repel a 7.62 armor piercing round. It'll even repel a frigin GRENADE, something the current US body armor ("interceptor" ) has trouble with. The guy who INVENTED "interceptor" even agrees that DragonSkin is far superior to his invention, which is standard issue in the Army.

So why is the Army refusing to acknowledge this stuff? Politics and money. Simply put: DragonSkin was invented without any money from DARPA, DoD, or the Army. Because the Army has invested $$$ in other body armor research, it won't adopt what's already available!

Here's some video of dragon skin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMEIORtJ-DE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYaSRIbPWkM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_HRQNd84ZA

(Note: these aren't sponsored videos, it's a independent show on Discovery)

So if you believe after reading the wiki entry, seeing live fire tests, and reading news articles that Dragon Skin is superior to Interceptor, please write your senator and congressman about this issue.

After researching this for an hour.. the only things I could find against the armor:

1) Its 5x more expensive (who cares)
2) Weighs 20lbs more than the current Interceptor
3) Only failed when exposed to 160-165 degree temps for 6 hours before being tested.

The adhesive used has since be replaced after the 2 military tests. The military hasn't tested it since the adhesive was changed. The main factor in the testing outside of the military is that no one subjected the vest to intense heat for a set duration.

The vests cost 5x more than the current vest.. money over lives. Who cares about the money.

It looks like it should be tested again by the military.

Amazing stuff. Can't believe the military isn't wearing this already. are they any private firms wearing this stuff yet?

DragonSkin is reportedly standard issue at the CIA now. Furthermore, US soldiers protecting generals have been found wearing this stuff. It's clearly superior, but as riser said there are some drawbacks, like the weight. Still, if the company was given some federal funding i'm sure they could reduce weight and ramp up production.

The cost of outfitting all combat troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq would be approximately $1-2 billion. Quite modest if you ask me.

I can imagine there are a few drawbacks to not wanting to switch to the DragonScale.

I believe the US military is supposed to have new hi-tech body armor and uniforms coming out in 2009-2012. Granted, we have a few years before that but then how long would it take for Pinnacle (Dragonscale) to be able to mass produce enough of these for the military?

So with new equipment already coming out that can will already be mass production and the money involved in that project..

But the DragonScale does absorb shots better.. now you have to look at the stats. When a US soldier is killed by gunfire.. is it a grenade doing it? Multiple shots to the same area, failed body armor, is the area covered by either body armor when shot?

Lots of factors to look at.

I remember when they started talking about that blood clotting bandage they use now. They started using it a year or so into Afghanistan I believe and it started saving lives. They couldn't use it at first because mass producing it wasn't ready yet. Now they're used everywhere.. even then it still took a couple years to get something like that around.

yeah helmet and kevvie are waste of money in CS:S

Yes, there are striking similarities between the M16 project and this one. Astute observation Ninja.

I recall a few years back the military taking some heavy criticism for using cadavers donated to science to.. basically blow up with bombs to test out military equipment. Boots, body armor, helmets to create the new upcoming armor.

Body armor regardless won't stop an IED from killing someone. According ot my friend, a lot of the guys died from the concussion shock regardless of any wounds sustained.

Now.. do you want the body armor that can stop 5 shots or 15 shots in the same spot? Realistically, how many shots hit a single area of a person? I would give a guess of 3 shots hitting in the same area.

All in all I'd the Interceptor armor does what is required to the standards of war.. The DragonScale probably is better but I don't think there would be noticeable increase in lives saved by switching to it.. or at least going through all the changes to make it the main armor.

The one thing different in this situation is that the M16 was deployed into combat situations before being fully tested, whereas the Dragon Skin is not, yet at least. Failure to test it properly caused weapons jams and lost lives.

As a matter of fact, in the beginning, cleaning kits were not issued, and the troops that received the weapons were told that the rifles never needed to be cleaned. ....talk about bad planning...

However, you are right. The Army did give Pinnacle more money for further development of Dragon Skin. I believe this was to avoid another M16 fiasco.

Less stressful on others around.. I'd rather see someone dead in one piece than dead and in multiple pieces. That would really screw with someone's head in combat, especially if they knew the person.

How about use the vests they got and spend the 1-2 billion getting vehicles out with enough armor to protect against incoming shrapnel?

I think we could even spend more then that and stop pussyfooting around and bring in the army, instead of troops.

I was saying: They should send the army and not the troops.
Dont send 10%, dont send 30% (dont know exact numbers)....


Treat it like ww2 and our freedoms depend on it.
Treat it like they are standing next to a big red button ready to send nukes our way.
Treat it like we have something to lose.

I just think we could have been much more aggressive.

At the cost per square foot?

Why dont they station soldiers along every path (pair them up) to watch for suspicious IED placements.

The reason why is that it is not practical to coat a human in 1" of steel plate and have IED deflection guards in place. You would look like some demented steel christmas ornament.

Also, things like ceramics are not the best for vehicles. They are lightweight, but very brittle, and can only be used AS the armor (Steel plate can also be used as the actual body of the vehicle, not just its armor.)



As for Dragonskin, the thing that annoyed me about it was not the reluctance of the army/military to use it, but their FORBIDDANCE of its use and donation by soldiers/private citizens. It is one thing to say that it is too expensive, cannot be manufactured in scale, etc etc, and anotehr to tell a soldier with no armor that he cannot wear the suit his neighborhood mailed him.

I think, more than any other reason, that this is all just a case of who is the "official" supplier contracted by the US government to supply body armor. They have their sweet contract and do not want to lose it.

So someone gets hurt because the old-boy-network does not want to offend their cash-pals.

Pure B.S. If the shizznit works, USE it!

Hard part would be where the IED is only a starter, and they have others waiting to deliver the finishing blow.

Amazing that they have not resorted to cheaper means, but this is probably the most anonymous.....

8O

you arent forbidden to use it, there are people there that DO use it. Now just because the military doesnt supply it to you, doesnt mean if you own it you cant use it. the military didnt supply me my .1911, but I ll be damned if I didnt take it and use it.

Correct you are the russians were there for TEN years and could not beat them.

I don't think it dishonors (sic) them at all. A soldier's role is to follow his orders, and if he dies in the process of doing that it's hardly his fault that the orders were dumb.
I have nothing but respect for the infantry fighting this sordid little "war", and nothing but contempt for the twats that sent them there.

Totally agree. The Taleban were a dangerous influence for the region, and were known supporters of terrorism. By removing the Taleban, we removed one of Al-Qaeda's key base of operations.

Iraq, on the other hand, was totally different. It provided a counter-balance to Iran (which we happily encouraged for years), and although Saddam was an oppressive dictator, his largely secular government suppressed religious uprisings and the civil war that we now see fermenting. Furthermore, prior to the US sanctions following the original Gulf War, Iraq had one of the highest literacy rates in the Middle East, good health care and the most progressive "western" style attitude to women in the region. All of that has now been lost.
Instead, the country has now become a magnet for every anti-west terrorist who wants field training in combat.
There's no doubt that Saddam was an unpleasant piece of work. But he was like the large knife stuck in you - don't take it out until you're ready to treat the wound properly. The rushed job to take us to war, before we'd finished the job in Afghanistan, meant neither job got done properly.

Um

Google it phukker..

http://www.google.com/search?sourc [...] dragonskin

"officially" they were forbidden to purchase and use it. It does not mean that every commander will force their guys to remove what they already have.

I just remember this story from a while ago. 60 minutes or Nightline or somethnig...

Crap, somehow IE decided to run a nice little macro and get me to a funky page after tyoing all of my post, but I will summarize.

Interesting thing on the 10th on the daily show. A point I never really thought much about. Say we were to pick up and leave tomorrow. What would happen? Aside from teh initial turmoil, teh larger factions would turn on the small radical groups that threaten their own hold on the nation and seek to eliminate them.

Groups like AQ would not stand much of a chance in this new jungle.

Being that we cannot leave, is there some way to try to relegate ourselve to teh back seat rather than the punching dummy out in the open? Let these guys start fighting their "future opponents" rather than their "common enemy"?

It would be interestingto see if we could change our whole methodology on this rather than have the blood slowly leeched out of us by hanging ourselves out where anyone can take a shot at us...

Again, you demostrate retard-style thinking.

If we pull out, Al Qaeda will immediately say that they drove us out, thus getting all the idiots there to back them thinking they're so much more powerful.

This is currently going on with the British giving sections over to the Iraqis. They find out the Brits are transferring, they step up attacks and say "We drove them out!" and people join their cause.

As one can only speculate, if we were to pull out, factions would form, they would fight like gangs and control their areas of land. They would form their little militias.. eventually realizing that they're fighting each other instead of what they were originally fighting: The US. Thus, they will attempt to take over influence in the gov't of Iraq, using that money to train, equipment and prepare a vast training ground in Iraq. Iran would influence this heavily.

With these training camps.. they have little infrastructure. They have nothing to lose. Not even their lives. They would be trained to kill, to strike at us without regard for anyone's life. We could bomb them.. but they don't care about their cities. As long as you believe in Islam, you're good enough to go suicide yourself around the world into anything you can get close enough to.

If we pull out now, Iraq is screwed. We need to hang in there. Its improving over there.. but you can't stop the random killings.

They find 100 random killings a day. How many random killings take place in other countries of similar size?

Though I do believe we need to remain there but be seen less. I don't think we should be living in their cities and be a constant prescence. I really think we should let them fight it out, eventually they'll come to terms that its just not worth it.

These are people who thrive on revenge with little regard for life. They'd rather kill than live. Let it be that way. That will force them to stand on their own feet. If a miltia or army comes up to take control, or Al Qaeda shows itself, then the US should actively engage.

Its not a civil war - its a religious sect war. Let it run its course as all religious wars must.

Riser, AQ could say whatever the hell they wanted. You think the Shia's or Sunni's will give a rats ass about what they SAY is happening?

AQ has alo said that they will be waging a war that will drain us, which it is. So, now if we try to find some way to shift the focus if hostilities off of us it is somehow letting them win?

I am not posting a 100% solution, so do not assume it is and start lashing me for it. There IS NO SOLUTION. It is a lose-lose situation. The trick now is getting out while we still have our pants on and trying to not leave the table on fire.

As for Murder rates, don't bring in India to this. You could swing a dead cat and kill a half dozen people there it is so packed. Hell, Wing can swing something else and probably kill a few.

Also,

Also:

Is that you?

AQ came about and started the whole sect fighting. Remember all the mosque bombings out of no where when everything was fine?


How many people were killed daily in WWII? AQ and Insurgents are using the same logic that was deployed in WWII by both sides. Drop a bomb, who it kills, who cares, damage was done.
For focks sake, the US dropped 2 atomic bombs on a city of non-involved people! Those weren't dropped on military targets or the capital of Japan. They were dropped on the civilians. Same tatic..

Why is Iraq getting compared to Vietnam?
Why is there no complete exit in sight?

Let's look at Vietnam. The south Vietnamese didn't want to fight for themselves. They wanted the US to do it. We pulled out, they were over run by Commies. Commies aren't bad for the world, just bad for the people under them.

AQ is bad for the world, not just the people under them. Some Iraqis want to fight for their country. A lot don't. That's the issue. If they don't step up and start fighting en masse for their country, it will end up like a Vietnam.

But on the killings.. 100 people a day. Be realistic about it. 100 people a day out of 27 million. 1,000 insurgents or AQ wanting to kill people.. a car bomb takes out 1-40 people at a time. Random shootings on a bus, indiscriminate, takes out 1-20 people.. It ain't hard to go through an area and kill 100 people when that is your intent.

That focker in VT proved a single person with no intent for their life can easily take out a large group of people.

100 people a day is a tragedy. This is war, this is our future, this is what they want it to be. This is what it will continue to be.

As unfortunate as it is to say, I'm ok with 100+ Iraqis dying a day until they step up and take charge.

Likewise, I'm perfectly ok with 100 Americans dying a day defending our homeland. Why? Because I would be there fighting to defending this country from anyone trying to invade or a terrorist group or religious groups indiscriminately killing.

7% of insurgents are Al-Qeuda and they are only barely tolerated. Just imagine what would happen if...

You are saying they are defending our homeland by being in Iraq?

I certainly hope you aren't because that is GENUINELY stupid.