Printable View
So far, I've only seen discussion of penetration of soft body armor as binary, it either went through or didn't. But has anyone put a chronograph on the other side of a IIIA vest to see what the residual velocity is of rifle rounds? Seems like 123grains at 900fps would be a very different animal than the same round at 2000fps. Likewise, 55gr or 147gr bullets would be much less devastating if they lost 1000fps or something. Am I totally off base?
Thanks,
Jon
Are you inquiring about the blunt trauma potential?
If so, yeah that's measured to some degree and has also been studied. I have no idea where it is these days, but there's a paper floating around about blunt trauma behind armor suffered by Russian troops during the 1980s Afghanistan War and how a significant number of troops perished within 3 days of blunt trauma sustained from their armor stopping a round. Turns out they didn't really get definitive care until, on average, 3 days medical evacuation and they were dying from hemothoraces in the mean time.
Best practice is to wear soft armor backers even with stand-alone rated plates, if possible, as it lessens the blunt trauma....but I don't think there's any value assigned more specific than such.