American Body Armor - 160th SOAR Vest

[anelles]

I found this outside of Fort Campbell today. It's an American Body Armor aircrew vest, used by 160th SOAR throughout the 90s. This one has 1991 dated buckles. Soft armor is intact, but no plates sadly.

Vest has been modified by adding a double mag pouch to the front that is attached by buckles. I don't recognize the maker of the pouch. The bottom of one of one of the mag pouches has been cut open and has some adhesive velcro holding it shut, no clue why. I believe the drag handle is an addition also.

The yellow quick release pulls for both plates were removed, the front one was found tucked in a pocket. The rear is missing and the dummy cord for it had been cut and melted to seal it. I'm guessing these were just not used by the original user, and removed.
I've been hunting for one of these for years, I was shocked to see it. The shop owner wanted a pretty steep price for it, so I was considering passing, but she said "just make me an offer, I need this gone, it's been here forever and you're the only one who has even picked it up" as I was leaving.

 

Anyone recognize the maker of the mag pouch on the front? Or know what the plates that would have gone in this look like? I'm guessing some sort of ABA 10x12 plate of the era.

 

[mohawkALSE]

Thats 1 of the few 160th vests I'm still missing but I'm hoping when I find one its un modified much and looks like the standard config as they had during the middle 90s.  This one must have been modified in the later 90s Id guess and that drag handle is certainly a mod.   Its too bad almost all of these I have seen come up when they rarely do lack the iconic 160th chest extraction belts.  Id guess if yours has no quick release pull for a rear plate and seemed modified it was probably a pilots vest who only wore the front plate.  Was def a good thing you still had that pull cable/tab. Im not sure who made that mag pouch either but cool how it mounts with the fastex buckles and can be swung open or totally removed.  Honestly wouldnt be surprised if that pouch was made in their ALSE shop.  They have done alot of that and pretty sure they even made copies of the old ABA pouches and holsters right in their shops over the years and look similar but do have differences from the original ABA stuff.  Here area  few pics of them in use around 1994 I believe. 

 

Second pic you can see he has a holster that looks like the ABA holsters but its actually one of their shop made pieces.

[mohawkALSE]

Oh and looked at your vest again, that drag handle is actually off one of their newer Armor Survival vests, the SARVSO II.   Its a tan molle compatible vest system.  The handle can come off when you separate the front and black carriers.   Pic of the back side of mine:

[anelles]

11 hours ago, mohawkALSE said:

Oh and looked at your vest again, that drag handle is actually off one of their newer Armor Survival vests, the SARVSO II.   Its a tan molle compatible vest system.  The handle can come off when you separate the front and black carriers.   Pic of the back side of mine:

 

That does look like the handle! When was that vest introduced?

[mohawkALSE]

1 hour ago, anelles said:

 

That does look like the handle! When was that vest introduced?

I think around 05-06 but might be as early as 2003.  This is my other one from the front.  These were still trickling around fairly recently among the foliage green CIACS vest.

[anelles]

Interesting that it has a drag handle from a vest that late. This vest must have had an interesting history.

I'm guessing the one I found was used into the early GWOT era then, I've seen some photos of these vests still in use in the 2001-2002 time frame.

[mohawkALSE]

18 hours ago, anelles said:

Interesting that it has a drag handle from a vest that late. This vest must have had an interesting history.

I'm guessing the one I found was used into the early GWOT era then, I've seen some photos of these vests still in use in the 2001-2002 time frame.

Ive seen some later pics, not sure on their dates but thought it was pre GWOT.  Wouldnt surprise me though if a littlebird pilot might have still used one of these into the early 2000s.  In the later 90s into early 2000s the SARVSO survival vest with armor vest wasnt worn by the littlebird guys as it was a bulky load out.  Was a survival vest with extraction harness worn over a soft armor vest.  This tan vest is basically the same style but they made it MOLLE compatible allowing just the armor vest to be worn and be a survival vest as well not needing 2 vests.  There was a lightweight armor vest from LBT that had webbing to mount pouches (before MOLLE) was worn by AH/MH-6 crews and as I said probably still wore the ABA as well.  They certainly had the ABA vests in Somalia so Id think they kept wearing them.   If you got those 01-02 photos Id love to check em out.  I dont really have many pics saved of the ABA vest.

 

[anelles]

These two have been floating around for awhile, 160th in Afghanistan shortly after 9/11,

[anelles]

I believe this is one as well, worn by Gregory Coker. Shoulder straps seem diffent however, maybe not. Not dated, but early GWOT.

[anelles]

One more, caption stated Iraq 2004 on this one.

 

"Fort Bliss Garrison Command Sgt. Maj. Gerardo Gonzalez, then Staff Sgt. Gonzalez, a crew chief squad leader, with the AH-6 Six Gun Co., 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, heads to a high visibility target mission in support of Special Operations Forces in Baghdad, Iraq, 2004 timeframe."

[mohawkALSE]

25 minutes ago, anelles said:

One more, caption stated Iraq 2004 on this one.

 

"Fort Bliss Garrison Command Sgt. Maj. Gerardo Gonzalez, then Staff Sgt. Gonzalez, a crew chief squad leader, with the AH-6 Six Gun Co., 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, heads to a high visibility target mission in support of Special Operations Forces in Baghdad, Iraq, 2004 timeframe."

2d pic is in fact the ABA vest, can see the shoulder strap with the snaps.  That 1st one with the Littlebird is the LBT vest that was modular but pre MOLLE.  Had to use ALICE clips or zip ties or web straps on the vest to secure stuff.  The shoulder straps on those have friction buckles at the front and the straps velcro rearward.  Those were a very low profile vest alone before adding stuff to them.   This is a pic I saved a while back of one in a museum.  Sorta has the same lines as the ABA vest but as I said more low profile and was early modular.

[mohawkALSE]

Thinking about it now, that mag pouch your vest has might be from one of these.  That pouch looks similar on the LBT vest and the LBT vest has velcro and webbing straps that are like 1" to secure stuff.

[anelles]

That LBT vest is very interesting. The mag pouch that was added to my vest looks like it was intended for the LBT's design. The straps would feed through the rear of it, and the velcro hook backing makes sense since that whole vest looks to have loop on it.

 

 

[mohawkALSE]

Yeah, I have seen them come up for sale a couple times, just the vest stripped with no armor inserts either but its been a long time, probably around 10 yrs ago now.  One time one did come up that had some pouches on it and it went for a decent sum of money that was out of my range at the time and not sure if it still had the armor inserts.  Does the ABA vest have a velcro closure at the bottom to insert and remove the soft armor inserts?  Id be curious to see what the date is on the ones you have or if they are even still the original ABA made inserts or something else.

[anelles]

The Inserts are sewn into the vest, no way to remove them.

[mohawkALSE]

Finally got one of these ABA A1-TAC-DPSO vests.   Still had the armor quick doff cables so I thought it was a good one.  No plates or strap right now but working on the strap.  This vest seems to also have trucked on later in life as it was modified at some point with the fastex buckles pointing upwards to attach the LPFC to the vest.  Vest as is has the mounting D rings and belts for mounting the Navy type LPU-21/P life preserver.

[P-E]

Your vests are fantastic ! I like them !