One of the brands I encountered at Enforce Tac and IWA earlier this month was Hexonia. They have been working on Gladius, the German Army’s Future Soldier System and produce some very interesting knit garments.
They’ve done a lot of work on the clothing subsystem of Gladius which includes ballistic undergarments as well as Combat Shirt. Hexonia’s approach to ballistic underwear, called BALUW is the combination of three dimensional production techniques utilizing specialty yarns. As you can see, they offer body mapped knits for the torso of the garment. Their production offers ergonomically shaped products with significantly reduced number of seams, or in some cases, no seams at all. BALUW is worn as a first layer directly on the skin. The tight fit is to ensure that it can’t be blown away from the skin by a blast wave. Even the elastic zones are made of ballistic material and increase comfort without reducing the level of protection.
Their material combination also has excellent physiological properties. It has a very smooth hand against the skin and doesn’t lead to any abrasions. Additionally, thanks to the hydrophobic materials, sweat is absorbed readily and wicked away from the body. What’s more, the material is flame retardant with no burn, melt or drip. Finally, BALUW can be washed at 60 °C.
