Disclaimer: This post is not to promote violence, nor is any of the footage graphic. This is simply to provide real-world evidence for those who might be interested in or benefit from discussions related to the effectiveness of body armor.
There seems to be a prevalent myth among firearms aficionados and gamers alike that anybody hit in their body armor will live, yet still become a casualty due to broken ribs, internal bleeding, heart palpitations from blunt force trauma, etc. This was probably true in the era when "soft" or Kevlar body armor was the best protection available (1970's — early 1990's), but this is no longer the case with rifle-rated ceramic, steel, or poly plates.
As seen in the footage, it appears that a person's reaction to taking a rifle round in a rifle-rated plate is less of a physics question, and more of a question of their mental state and training. They may duck, flinch, stumble, or even fall over under real-world conditions due to being startled (not due to being knocked over, obviously), but then again, they may also do this when a round cracks by without even hitting them. In other words, the reaction to being hit seems to be the rough equivalent of being startled by a loud noise or being on the receiving end of effective suppressive fire.
Regardless of how the person reacts, though, one thing should be clear: people hit in their rifle-rated plates, even if they suffer bruising, do not typically become casualties. (In fact, the story behind the second clip is that the Marine Corpsman who was shot ended up treating the sniper who shot him after the rest of his buddies pursued and shot the sniper).
There is more footage out there, but I either couldn't find it, or the person in the footage was shot in areas not protected by the plate as well, which skews the results and might be too graphic and distasteful to post here. All that said, I hope this little bit of video evidence serves as a valuable resource for training purposes, or otherwise for those interested in studying modern warfare.
by Sheepdog_Millionaire
13 comments
Whats the first video from?
This video footage is from the assault on the Branch Davidians in Waco Texas. Not particularly new tech in body armor.
That slide down the ladder from the first guy was smooth
@1:10.
That was a shotgun fired at the officers.
Buckshot, I think from what I remember.
The second video (the guy next to the Humvee) is a medic. He actually got up, and his team shot and captured the shooter. He rendered first aid to the guy that had just sniped him.
Great compilation work there, bro. Thanks.
It’s really just simple physics. The round will hit with the same or less force that it put into the shoulder of the guy firing it.
So that’s why they call it the Waco Slide!
God did indeed not will it bro
allah akbar vs ceramic plate 🍽️
There’s a recent vid from Ukraine in which a UA solider takes a round to the leg and chest, falls back (seemingly gasping for air), the RU soldier then reaches out of the bunker and shoots him 3-4 times right in his back plates then ducks back assuming he finished him off. But after heaving for breath for 60s, UA dude gets up and walks back to his homies 50ft away, picks up some grenades and goes back to finish the RU soldier.
Does make me curious what plates he had, cause he did seem to have the wind knocked out of him. Ukrainians are built different though, as whatever pain it caused was evidently not greater than his fury from being shot 6 damn times at point blank range lol
The second video is one I’ve been looking for, for years. We used it when training troops on the way to Iraq. The medic got a great bruise, shown in the follow up photos.
I don’t know if I would stand there and let someone shoot me with an AK or an Armalite, but that’s just me.