From: Jeff Shultz 

There have been something like 9 upgrades to the basic Interceptor body
armor... one guy in Iraq was saying that he'd had three upgrades just since
being there.

The stuff they have is so much better than what they used to have only five
years ago. And they're still improving it.

Ask Microsoft for perfection on the first release, why don't you?

Oh - link?
http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/004039.html contains many of the
press and milblog stories on this.

On Tue, 10 Jan 2006 21:03:23 -0500, Steve Ewing wrote:

> On Sat, 07 Jan 2006 14:18:30 -0500, Rich Gauszka 
> wrote:
>
>> Yep - it depends were they where when they go the fatal upper body
>> wounds.
>> If part of a truck convoy passing roadside bombs then pile the armor on.
>> I would assume that the Pentagon study would have taken that into
>> consideration.
>
> The article mentioned mobility as a consideration, but also says the
> troops in the field were requesting it, and hanging their crotch guards
> under their arms to fill in the gaps (I guess if a round hits you in the
> 'nads you are not going to care if there were a layer of kevlar in front).
>
>  From the article:
> =====
> "As the information became more prevalent and aware to everybody that in
> fact these were casualty sites that they needed to be worried about, then
> people were much more willing to accept that weight on their body," said
> Major Wendell Leimbach, a body armor specialist with Marine Corps Systems
> Command, the marine procurement unit. [...]
> Almost from the beginning, some soldiers asked for additional protection
> to stop bullets from slicing through their sides. In the fall of 2003,
> when troops began hanging their crotch protectors under their arms, the
> Army's Rapid Equipping Force shipped several hundred plates to protect
> their sides and shoulders. Individual soldiers and units continued to buy
> their own sets.
> =====

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