Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 8550
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 10:45 pm Post subject: I wonder how many lives they sarificed... | |
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... so this Norwood character could be rewarded with a cushy job for a contractor he had formerly had oversight for? Damn. Ten years ago I would have thought ultimate protection for the troops would have been the overriding consideration here. Now it's some Colonel's bank account. I'm not ready to say this is the most corrupt administration that ever existed but it has got to rank right up there.
Colonel Norwood, Armor Holdings and the Loophole That Ate the Law Interesting read and what's fast becoming a national issue. Geez, even the flipping ARMY can't do anything but give lip service to "supporting the troops". |
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Joined: 07 Jul 2003
Posts: 765
| Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 12:32 am Post subject: | |||||
Playing Politics Over Body Armor
There are a few different reasons as to why Interceptor was chosen over DragonSkin, not the least of which is the sheer weight of the vest. While I agree that the Colonel has taken advantage of a loophole, to imply that lives were lost because of the decision is simply overreaching. |
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Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 8550
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 1:43 am Post subject: | |||||||||||||
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Oh come on Cs. With all the IG reports, including those of the DOD itself, about the graft and corruption and profiteering going on as the war drags into its fifth long year, and especially given those reports in regard to the skimping on supplies and protective gear for the GIs, NOTHING is "overreaching" these days. War profiteering on the scale that we're seeing now simply breeds corruption, that's all.
But whatever. Did you bother to go and read any of the linked sidebars cited in the article? Like this one? Are U.S. soldiers wearing the best body armor?
And as far as Interceptor being the best? Well... that may be but has it been proven beyond General Brown's shadow of a doubt?
According to a show I saw on The Military Channel, it weighs more yes, but that's because there's enough of it to cover more of the body than the Interceptor armor does. The Interceptor armor covers the mid torso area. I also know that when I was undergoing law enforcement training back in the 80s, we learned that most fatalities among officers wearing vests occurred when the projectile was able to penetrate the armpit or groin areas at a trajectory (downward in one case, upward in the other) that allowed them to reach vital organs. The Interceptor armor is basically just an update/upgrade of that same 80s technology and the same areas of the body are still more or less vulnerable. Dragonskin appears to address this problem.
And how about this for the ultimate testimonial from the guy who designed the current armor?
Or maybe this:
Of course we haven't heard anything about how many"catastrophic failures" they've suffered in Iraq due to the heat and we're not doing any fighting in the Antarctic, at least so far, so I'm guessing the heat ranges assigned to the metal versus ceramic materials are extremes (as such figures usually are) and haven't really come into play in any practical manner. But given the differences of opinion and the fact that the IG of the DOD and other government agencies feel it is important enough to be conducting investigations into the matter, the question still stands. How many deaths of military personnel might have been prevented had their body armor protected those two main areas of penetration better than it did. Not something we can ever really know of course but the question is certainly not "overreaching". |
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Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 8550
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 2:13 am Post subject: | |
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Here are a couple of the other links:
Air Force Executive Director for AFOSI Provides False Testimony During House Armed Services Hearing Senators Clinton & Webb Call for Investigation into the Effectiveness of Body Armor Issued to Our Troops And to make it as bipartisan as possible: Levin, McCain Request Review of Body Armor Systems I may not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier but I DO try to get my homework done. 
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Joined: 07 Jul 2003
Posts: 765
| Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:26 am Post subject: | |||||||
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Nofs, did you even read the analysis I posted? And the links inside of the analysis?
How about this...
This from Allen Bain , inventor of the Dragon Skin technology for Pinnacle:
To me, this seems to be being played up by a manufacturer of body armor that did not live up to testing results, who is using the current chaos surrounding the military to try to get some financial benefit for themselves. |
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Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 8550
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 4:31 am Post subject: | |
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Yes I did follow your link and read the article. The points raised are indeed cogent ones and if nothing else, actually point up the need for continued and extensive side by side testing as the development continues on both. But to simply say one is the best without that testing is disingenuous at best and damned suspicious at worst. The arguments do nothing to mitigate the need for a major investigation or two of the DOA's actions in the matter.
I've tried to avoid going to the intangibles here but since it's become another battle of the media sources as to whose test proves what, I'm going to offer the following, just for consideration. IF.... if everything involving the testing of the two systems was strictly overt and above board and the Interceptor system indeed won the contract(s) purely on the basis of it's actual and demonstrable superiority, then why was the Dragon Suit dropped from testing before the test program had run its full course and why did the company almost immediately go to such great lengths to find a loophole by which they could hand Colonel Norwood a fairly significant reward for his services to their company? In other words, what were they rewarding him for if their product had already won hands down in a perfectly fair evaluation? What service did he perform that he couldn't even wait the year provided for in the law under its original intent but had to end his military career at exactly that point and in a move so ethically challenged as to warrant little credibility, take a high paying job with a company he had just handed a major contract to? I know you like to scoff at those kind of obvious hitches in the normal getalong when their offered as possible indicators that the situation at the least requires investigation but damn, when hardly a week goes by without some new scandal coming to the fore, sooner or later you've got to conclude that that much smoke probably indicates there's a little fire there too. Remember, this is the day of no-bid contracts and failed privatization projects. I suppose we ought to feel thankful that the idea that there might be something out there from an upstart little bunch of outsiders that Wall Street never heard of and that could be better than what we've been buying for the past 20-30 years, even made it to an aborted evaluation program. |
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