Fatally Flawed - More Evidence Damns Army's Reliance On and Testing Of Body Armor Ceramic Plates

More Evidence That Army's Reliance on, and Testing of, Body Armor Ceramic Plates is Fatally Flawed

As we study Friday's release of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on body armor (asked for by Senators Jim Webb and Hillary Rodham Clinton in May of 2007 and by other congressional offices), it's worth reviewing some important, related news.

First, here's some text copied from the web site for the Ceramics and Composites Material Center at Rutgers University. (CCMC is a multi-university research center, but hosted at Rutgers.)

"Structural Ceramics/Ceramic Armor
Determination of the Root Cause of the Poor Ballistic Performance of Boron Carbide -- Manish Chhowalla and Dale Niesz

Non-Destructive Evaluation of Ceramic Armor -- Richard Haber and Dale Niesz

Property Measurements as Estimators of Ballistic Performance -- Roger Cannon

Effect of Gas Phase Composition in Pores During Densification -- M. John Matthewson and Dale Niesz

Defining Microstructural Tolerance Limits of Defects for SiC [Silicon Carbide] Armor -- Richard Haber"
Note the subject of the first-listed research project. The topic focused on "Root Cause of the Poor Ballistic Performance of Boron Carbide."

Boron carbide is one of the two most commonly used materials in the manufacture of the ceramic ballistic-protective plates used today by America's frontline troops. Here is proof that among the real experts, university professors whose life is researching ceramic and (composite materials), there is open acknowledgment that Boron Carbide ballistic performance is "poor."

Their research is not into how well the Boron Carbide performs. They already have the answer to that question, and under most grading systems were they to issue a grade for Boron Carbide's ballistic performance, "poor" would generally merit a "D," at best.

The other most commonly used material for use in today's Army and Marine Corps ceramic ballistic-protective plates is, silicon carbide, or as it is abbreviated in the fifth item in the above list, "SiC."

Three Rutgers University professors who participate in the premier multi-university cooperative research center in the nation dealing with ceramics, list two principal research topics having to do with the performance of the two most commonly used ceramic ballistic protective materials, and both topics raise serious, fundamental questions about: (1) of how well the ceramic material performs in the case of Boron Carbide, and (2) the key structural integrity, i.e., performance, of the second ceramic material, Silicon Carbide.

(The two authors cited for the Boron Carbide study did not respond to a phone call and emails asking for an opportunity to discuss their project. The author of the Silicon Carbide study did respond in a series of back-and-forth emails, saying, "I am not sure I am at liberty to share my results.")

DOD's View: there's never been a failure of a single ceramic plate, ever...

Yet Defense Department representatives from three-star generals to public affairs civilian flacks continue to claim that there has never been one failure of a DOD-issued ceramic plate. Not a single one. Never, ever.

Which leads us to the next "paradox" in the body armor debate.

Why is the Army installing multi-million dollar x-ray devices in combat theaters to do non-destructive testing on ceramic ballistic protective plates?

Does this installation contradict the Army and Marine Corps claims of zero failures?

Or, does it reinforce the views of the above cited ceramic materials professors who are doing research on the poor performance of Boron Carbide plates, and others researching defect "limits" in the microstructure of Silicon Carbide?

Army officials contribute chapter in "Advances in Ceramic Armor IV"

The following is an abstract posted in an on-line advertisement for the above cited book. Several civilians in key roles of the Army corrupt body armor program, including Karl Masters and James Zhang, boast of their achievements in fielding the Non-Destructive Evaluation Automated Inspection System (NDE-AIS).
Abstract To properly protect personnel, the ceramic plate component in body armor must be free of cracks. Studies by the U.S. Army and Britain(2) have shown that while cracked plates can still defeat a threat, their ballistic performance is degraded. The Non-Destructive Automated Inspection System (NDE-AIS) is a deployable, high speed, automated digital radiographic inspection system that evaluates ceramic plate serviceability in the filed... results demonstrated that the NDE-AIS is 99.8% effective in keeping defective body armor plates from being reissued to Soldiers. Ceramic plates are inspected at an average rated of about 240 plates per hour in a process that automatically identifies and withdraws defective plates from service...

Let's stop right here to take a closer look at this amazing admission from the Army's own body armor experts. They claim a 99.85 success rate in keeping defective body armor plates from being reissued.

Note that the Army authors of this chapter are admitting that there are defective plates that have been worn by our frontline, combat troops because if there were no defective plates, there would be no need for NDE-AIS.

The Army response will be that every single plate ever issued to any Soldier was perfect, hence the perfect historical record of no failures, ever. (Yep, while the Army will admit that defective plates have been worn, they will adamantly claim no defective plate has been shot in combat, ever!! More about this incredulous claim below.)

Thus, according to the Army, the "defective" plates discovered and rejected as unfit for reissue have become so after having been subjected to the environment of tactical operations.

Let's examine that claim, keeping in mind that the Army says that no plate has ever failed to stop a single round at the threat level for which that plate was certified.

The Army is therefore claiming that in eight years of combat in Afghanistan and in six and one-half years of combat in Iraq, all the ceramic plates that became defective due to the bumps and grinds and other environmental factors of tactical operations became defective only in that period following the plates morphing from pristine-perfect to defective. And, during this period no Soldier was ever shot while wearing a morphed, defective plate!!

That's right. For the Army's blatantly specious claim to be valid, we must accept that some sort of battlefield miracles have routinely occurred wherein every frontline trooper that was shot, with the round impacting in their ceramic plate, was wearing a plate that had not yet morphed from pristine-perfect (as issued) into a defective plate.

BTW -- to accept the Army's claim of no ceramic plates failures every, you must first accept the Army's implied claim that every single plate produced in the past eight years has been perfect. Given DOD IG investigations and reports over the past two years documenting serious flaws in the First Article Testing by the Army that qualifies vendors for producing ceramic plates, only the most diehard "Kool-aide drinker" in PEO-Soldier would accept such a preposterous contention.

[NB: The Associated Press broke the story on the GAO report late morning on Friday, Oct. 16. Here's the first graph:
Investigators find flaws in Army body armor tests
By RICHARD LARDNER (AP)
WASHINGTON - The Army made critical mistakes in tests of a new body armor design, according to congressional investigators who recommend an independent review of the trials before the gear is issued to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.]

DefenseWatch will be studying the GAO report and will report its findings as soon as completing its examination of GAO's latest confirmation of serious flaws in the Army's testing of this life-or-death item of personal protective equipment.