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Air Warrior soft body armor 1990's?


P-59A
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I found it! Ranger Body Armor was the first Army vest to combine a ceramic plate for ‘hard’ small arms protection with ‘soft’ Kevlar fragmentation protection. It influenced subsequent designs, including the Interceptor Body Armor, and marked the transition away from ‘flak jackets’ that provided only fragmentation protection.    “This Vest May Save Your Life!”: U.S. Army Body Armor from World War II to Present (arsof-history.org)

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  • 2 months later...

Its the soft or flex vest for the Gen I Air Warrior system which was woodland camo.  SAPI plates were added to them as well. The vest is still used but in the OCP pattern by aircrews in the Army.  Interesting mix pic I found a long time ago showing a mix of the new A2CU uniform in UCP but still wearing the Gen I Air Warrior stuff in Woodland.  Gen II Air Warrior became the UCP color and went in to Gen III as well.  The original Air Warrior Dev Test stuff was a solid green color.  The woodland Gen I stuff was fielded 2004-2005 time frame. 

awgen1mix.jpg

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  • 6 months later...
Spathologist
On 12/28/2020 at 9:08 PM, P-59A said:

I found it! Ranger Body Armor was the first Army vest to combine a ceramic plate for ‘hard’ small arms protection with ‘soft’ Kevlar fragmentation protection. 

Pretty sure they were doing it in Vietnam with chicken plates...

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Cap Camouflage Pattern I
19 hours ago, Spathologist said:

Pretty sure they were doing it in Vietnam with chicken plates...

Its technically true because it says Kevlar, not Nylon.

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