US Army testing ballistic cups
For obvious reasons, groin protection is of considerable interest in the field of Mixed Martial Arts. Now the US Army is testing…
For obvious reasons, groin protection is of considerable interest in the field of Mixed Martial Arts. Now the US Army is testing cups and boxers designed to lessen the effects of IEDs. Perhaps over time the technology will become more widely available. For now, the idea of a cup for protecting your groin against an exposion brings home the reality of what a warrior actually is.
Not long ago the Army made public its strategy for protecting some of its soldiers’ most delicate body parts. They were beginning testing of what some have called “ballistic boxers and cups.”
One of the cups being considered is made of stainless steel; another is made from high-molecular-weight polyethylene, a plastic that is lighter than Kevlar but better at stopping bullets.
“They all basically work to slow down the fragments. We are looking to prevent penetration of the genitals,” Col. Bill Cole, an Army officer overseeing projects aimed at better protecting soldiers, said in May.
But on Thursday, Cole said that soldiers who have been testing the cups had some complaints.
“The soldier feedback we got from the soldiers at Fort Benning was that they don’t think the cups were very comfortable. We still plan on making some available to soldiers, but they didn’t find them comfortable during long road marches or individual movement or low crawling and that type of thing.”
The “ballistic boxers” seem to be working better. The heavy silk boxers, which look like shorts that professional cyclists wear, won’t stop a bullet or shrapnel from an IED. But the silk can stop small projectiles like those kicked up by an explosion.
“It is expected to prevent fine sands and particles that are thrown up by explosives, so that the tissue wounds are cleaner, less ragged and easier to treat,” said Lt. Jamie Larson, a Marines Corps spokesperson said in May.
And since the silk is treated with antimicrobial agents, the boxers help protect injured troops from wound infections.
While it may not sound like it affords much protection, silk is actually a very strong fiber, said Brig. Gen. Peter Fuller, who heads the Army office that tests and develops new protective gear. He noted that silk was used by medieval knights “under the mail armor” to protect against wounds from swords and other weapons.
Thursday Cole said two Army battalions in Afghanistan are field-testing the boxers and they are getting ready to send boxers to more troops.
Cole said they have no formal results yet but he’d heard of one case in which one soldier stepped on an IED and suffered grievous wounds, but the boxers did the job they were intended to do. They greatly reduced the dirt, small rocks and debris that normally get into blast wounds.