Lightweight Armor Is Slow to Reach Troops

U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Patrick Hilty, front, looks the scope on his weapon during a security patrol in the abandoned village of Now Zad, in the Helmand province, Afghanistan, April 6, 2009. Hilty is assigned to the Explosive Ordnance Disposal, 9th Engineer Support Battalion, attached to Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Gunnery Sgt. James A. Burks

From Tuscaloosa News:

WASHINGTON — The Army has promised to lighten the soldier’s load, and nowhere more urgently than in eastern Afghanistan, where the unforgiving terrain tests the stamina of troops whose weapons, body armor, rucksacks and survival gear can weigh 130 pounds.

But an experiment to shave up to 20 pounds off a soldier’s burden — much of it by reducing the bulletproof plates that protect the chest and back — has stalled, leaving $3 million in new, lightweight equipment sitting in a warehouse in the United States instead of being sent to the war zone where it was to have been tried out by a battalion-size group of 500 soldiers. The delay offers a new window into how Army rules have slowed the deployment of specialized gear that small units are seeking for harsh combat environments.

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My Comment: So typical of the military .... the left hand is doing the opposite of the right hand.