Dragon Skin Armor?

It looked very promising. they even promoted it on the show "Futureweapons."





It seemed very effective at stopping everything and keeping you in one piece. Why did the military ditch it?

Dragon Skin Armor?
Failed a number of tests the military / DOD did on them, the system is still in review.





Vet-USAF
Reply:I saw an "investigative journaling" piece on this. From what it said, it sounds like corruption in the gov' t is preventing it from being used even though it is more effective than the current bullet proof vest our soldiers use in Iraq. Supposedly that is.


The gov't says it failed some tests, but they performed some tests side by side a vest used in Iraq and it did way better.





No one has really dug any deeper than that (not that I know of) so I can't really give you a conclusive answer.
Reply:according to Army Times, they say that in extreme hot conditions (Iraq), the kevlar plates tend to fall out of place and pile up on the bottom of the shell. I saw that future weapons too, and it made dragon skin look very good.


We do need better body armor, at least a lighter kind, but just as effective that lets you have a full range of motion.
Reply:to expensive for the army and yet specail forces still use it so u can't say it failed
Reply:what we need is a vest made of black holes so bullets get sucked into it...
Reply:Nasty story. The DoD claims it's flawed and


Pinnacle made fraudulent tests. Pinnacle


claims just the same about the DoD tests.


The thing's fishy no matter from what side


you see it.
Reply:the maker didnt pay off the right people
Reply:I have used them, There is nothing wrong with them save for the fact that they are really really expensive. Hence not viable for the infantrymen. It is all about $$$.
Reply:I saw that too. looks very cool, but is it cost effective? I think that is the main concern





Also, it sounds like the material isn't as safe as futureweapons has you believe. It failed multiple tests and has some problems around diesel fuel...
Reply:Dragonskin did better on some tests then Interceptor, but Interceptor scored better in all around tests. For example, in temperate environment, Dragonskin did better, but in 130 degree heat (like in Iraq) Interceptor did better, because the scales used in Dragonskin didn't stay in place in that kind of heat.





So for a police officer in Virginia, Dragonskin may be better, but for a soldier in Iraq, Interceptor is better.
Reply:THe problems with Dragon Skin seem obvious to me.





IT may be a superior product IF the incoming rounds always come in straight on and on a flat trajectory.





The disks overlap. There must be angles at which the armor can be hit the will allow the round to shove aside the disk and pass through.





Even so, the failure of any one disk, whether knocked aside, poorly placed, or failure of hte epoxy that holds it, will result, because of the overlap, in a vulnerabilty far larger than just the area the size of the disk.





And there is plenty of evidence that the epoxy does fail under extreme temps. While I was in Kandahar we experienced temps of 130 F and in Kabul -20 F.





Sorry. DragonSkin is an interesting concept, worthy of further development, but not of production for issue.
Reply:personally I just think that it has to do with money or some general not wanting to change his mind. The man that invented the armor that the US military uses now personally came out and endorsed dragon skin saying that it was better then his armor and still the military denied it. Probably the same reason we went with the M16 A-1 in Vietnam, it was a piece of junk and no one like it (the M16 A-4 is much better thank god) but we still used it, someone somewhere is making lots of money. Personally I use Extreme Body armor level 3A for my job, not as good as dragon skin but hey i work for an armored truck company now I don't see myself assaulting anymore buildings.
Reply:It is a constant battle between body armor and rounds to penetrate it. (Same with tank armor.)





There never will be an armor that will forever be perfect and able to stop everything. Each time they upgrade the armor, the other side upgrades the ammo.





Look at the P90 and HK7. Both designed to fire rounds specifically made to penetrate body armor.





And if you can not kill the troops with bullets, you set off bombs along side the road.
Reply:It failed military tests. I'm not saying that the army doesn't buy shoddy equipment, but I don't think it's all that great anyway. Having studied midieval armor and weapons, scale and chain mail doesn't stop wounds, it just changes them from cuts and slashes to blunt trauma, which is why the knights went to plate mail in the first place.
Reply:Where are they getting the dragon skin?