Army awards contracts for lighter body armor

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Army has awarded contracts for newer, lighter body armor known as Improved Outer Tactical Vests.

The new vests weigh three pounds less than the Outer Tactical Vests that soldiers wear now and provide an additional 52 square inches of protection in the rear.

“The new vest is higher cut in the armpit area, eliminating the need to attach the Axillary protector to the current Deltoid Axillary Protector set,” said Lt. Col. Robert Myles in a news release from the Army’s development center for advanced soldier equipment.

Myles is product manager for soldier survivability at Program Executive Office Soldier (PEO Soldier), based at Fort Belvoir, Va.

The vest also is designed to be less bulky than the body armor that soldiers wear now, according to PEO Soldier.

“IOTV incorporates the side plate carrier into the vest, reducing bulk and weight as well as negating the need for add-on side plate carriers,” according to PEO Soldier.

The Army also is bumping the number of available sizes from eight to 11.

Other improvements include a waistband that takes much of the weight off the shoulders, better carriers for side ballistic plates and a quick-release handle that allows soldiers to shed the vests quickly in emergencies.

Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan will start receiving the new body armor in June, according to PEO Soldier.

In April, an official with PEO Soldier said troops would start getting the vests that month.

Last week, PEO Soldier told Stars and Stripes in an e-mail reply that no contract for the vests had been awarded and the organization could not comment further.

“As no contract has been awarded yet, we are unable to answer your questions at this time,” a PEO Soldier official said last week.

But on Wednesday, PEO Soldier said contracts were awarded for some but not all of IOTVs in April.

“The latest contracts are follow on production contracts to support the entire theater requirement,” PEO Soldier said in an e-mail.

PEO Soldier was unable to further clarify the matter by deadline Wednesday.

On Monday, the Army awarded two contracts for IOTVs: Specialty Defense Systems won a contract for 155,000 vests and Point Blank Body Armor Inc. won a contract for 75,000 vests, a PEO Soldier news release says.

In November 2005, the Army and Marine Corps recalled 18,425 sets of body armor manufactured by Point Blank because they did not meet certain ballistic criteria. The recall only affected the Outer Tactical Vests themselves, not the ballistic plates.

Prior to that, the Corps recalled another 5,277 sets of body armor made by Point Blank after a small sample of each lot failed to meet ballistic standards.

Since those two recalls, the Army, Navy and Marine Corps have continued to purchase body armor from Point Blank and military officials have expressed their confidence in the company’s product.