page_title: Bulletproof vest
section_title: Recent years
hierarchical_section_title: Bulletproof vest / History / Recent years
caption_attribution_description: English: Marines with Security Company, Combat Logistics Battalion 4, Combat Logistics Regiment 3, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, adjust Lance Cpl. Andrew Best’s Modular Tactical Vest before vest trainers inspect configurations. It takes about three hours to train Marines to configure, wear and care for the MTV. Photo ID: 2007451233 Submitting Unit: MCB Camp Butler
context_page_description: A ballistic vest or bullet-resistant vest, often called a bulletproof vest, is an item of personal armor that helps absorb the impact and reduce or stop penetration to the body from firearm-fired projectiles and shrapnel from explosions, and is worn on the torso. Soft vests are made of many layers of woven or laminated fibres and can protect the wearer from small-calibre handgun and shotgun projectiles, and small fragments from explosives such as hand grenades.
  These vests often have a ballistic plate inserted into the vest. Metal or ceramic plates can be used with a soft vest, providing additional protection against rifle rounds, and metallic components or tightly woven fiber layers can give soft armour resistance to stab and slash attacks from knives and similar close-quarter weapons. Soft vests are commonly worn by police forces, private citizens who are at risk of being shot, security guards, and bodyguards, whereas hard-plate reinforced vests are mainly worn by combat soldiers, police tactical units, hostage rescue teams, and special forces soldiers
  Body armor may combine a ballistic vest with other items of protective clothing, such as a combat helmet.
context_section_description: During the 1980s, the US military issued the PASGT kevlar vest, tested privately at NIJ level IIA by several sources, able to stop pistol rounds (including 9 mm FMJ), but intended and approved only for fragmentation.  West Germany issued a similar rated vest called the Splitterschutzweste.
  Kevlar soft armor had its shortcomings because if "large fragments or high velocity bullets hit the vest, the energy could cause life-threatening, blunt trauma injuries" in selected, vital areas.  Ranger Body Armor was developed for the American military in 1991. Although it was the second modern US body armor that was able to stop rifle caliber rounds and still be light enough to be worn by infantry soldiers in the field, (first being the ISAPO, or Interim Small Arms Protective Overvest,) it still had its flaws: "it was still heavier than the concurrently issued PASGT (Personal Armor System for Ground Troops) anti-fragmentation armor worn by regular infantry and ... did not have the same degree of ballistic protection around the neck and shoulders." The format of Ranger Body Armor (and more recent body armor issued to US special operations units) highlights the trade-offs between force protection and mobility that modern body armor forces organizations to address.
  Newer armor issued by the United States armed forces to large numbers of troops includes the United States Army's Improved Outer Tactical Vest and the United States Marine Corps  Modular Tactical Vest. All of these systems are designed with the vest intended to provide protection from fragments and pistol rounds. Hard ceramic plates, such as the Small Arms Protective Insert, as used with Interceptor Body Armor, are worn to protect the vital organs from higher level threats. These threats mostly take the form of high velocity and armor-piercing rifle rounds. Similar types of protective equipment have been adopted by modern armed forces over the world.
  Since the 1970s, several new fibers and construction methods for bulletproof fabric have been developed besides woven Kevlar, such as DSM's Dyneema, Honeywell's Gold Flex and Spectra, Teijin Aramid's Twaron, Pinnacle Armor's Dragon Skin, and Toyobo's Zylon. The US military has developed body armor for the working dogs who aid soldiers in battle.
  Since 2004, U.S. Special Operations Command has been at work on a new full-body armor that will rely on rheology, or the technology behind the elasticity of liquids in skin care and automotive products. Named TALOS, this new technology may be used in the future.
caption: US Marines being issued the MTV at Camp Foster, Okinawa
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