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MDM – Office of Naval Research

The Office of Naval Research displayed several technologies they are developing to help Lighten the Load of the US Marine. One of these projects is the Modular Personal Protection System.

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It is intended as a means to investigate new materials, technologies, and techniques in order to make a leap ahead for personal protection by reducing parasitic weight in armor systems. As you can see, one way is to ditch traditional MOLLE designs.

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Additionally, they have developed a new software tool called CPAT that models survivability based on armor placement and materials.

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This work is helping armor developers in the difficult decision of trade off between coverage and mobility.

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13 Responses to “MDM – Office of Naval Research”

  1. BS says:

    Looks Blue Force Gear-ish, any confirmation on that?

  2. Doc Rob A says:

    Until we can all wear armor like Master Chief, that much protection is never going to work, even if its light, it will still restrict movement, it will still trap heat, and all that soft kevlar will stop NOTHING!!!!!

    • Eric B says:

      No one can disagree the soft armor isn’t doing shit against AK rounds and pistols are not the predominant threat for the Armed Forces, but how about stats regarding soft armor stopping fragmentation from RPGs, IEDs, grenades, etc. Does it continue to make sense to field soft armor and not just plate carrier systems? I don’t have the experience to have an answer, perhaps someone out there does?

      • Doc Rob A says:

        After two deployments, 1 Iraq and 1 Afghanistan, I can tell you as a medic, that nothing that is supposed to get stopped by the soft kevlar was getting stopped, we had guys getting fragmentation injuries from ieds, grenades, motars and rockets, and all of this stuff went right through the armor. And the argument is “well the kevlar slows it down” no it slows the person down, I’d rather wear a Plate Carrier any day and be able to move than take my chances with a full IOTV.

  3. Luke says:

    I think there’s a lot of room to explore different plate shapes for mobility, I’m excited to see what comes out of this sort of experimenting.

  4. Invictus says:

    I’m getting hot just looking at that, and I live in Alaska and it’s 40 degrees out.

  5. Stefan S. says:

    By the time your “Dear Leader” is done with the DoD. You’ll have to sign a hand receipt for that chemlight.

  6. If Kevlar is used in the concept then a lot of weight reduction could be made with the use of Goldflex or Dyneema.

    Soft armour still does have a place but it just needs to be used in conjunction with the right plates for optimal performance.

  7. 11b says:

    It doesn’t look like they are reducing weight- face shield (WTF?), DAPS, leg DAPS (WTF?), and that awful throat protector that is so incredibly uncomfortable. Unless you are a .50 gunner, soft armor has got to go. This kind of crap makes a squad immobile.