4 Hollywood Myths About the "Bullet Proof" Vest

9/17/2013

by Dave

After spending nearly a decade in Law Enforcement, I can tell you one thing with certainty. I hated my ballistic vest, AKA "The Bullet Proof Vest". They're heavy, they're bulky and almost impossible to wear comfortably. They are also one of the most misunderstood pieces of equipment that law enforcement officers wear.

They Don't Always Look Perfect: Your vest will look perfect right after you put it on. You have it positioned perfectly and the straps adjusted just right. Then you have to go and ruin it by doing something like moving or breathing. Vests are put on when you're standing and your torso is in a straight line. When you sit, you are no longer in a straight line and neither is your vest. Time to adjust it. You stand, your vest stays in the "seated" position. Time to adjust it. You dropped something and your vest is tightened like a vice around your torso to keep it from moving? Time to adjust. Now imagine doing that 15-20 times a shift.
They are Bullet Resistant, Not Bullet Deflective: How many times have you seen a movie and the cops are shooting at the bad guy and it doesn't even slow them down because, "He's wearing a vest!". Bullet proof vests do not have some magic property that can take a metal projectile flying at 1,000 feet per second and stop it cold with no energy transferred to the person wearing the vest. In truth, there is no mushrooming of the bullet on top of a still perfectly intact vest. The vest stops the round from doing something bad, like entering your body, but it still gets punched in a few inches. More than enough to knock the wind out of the person wearing it, maybe even break their ribs.
Vests are Not Super Armor That Can Stop Anything: Standard ballistic vests are meant to stop bullets. That's it. They offer no protection from knives. A vest is a weave of ballistic fibers that work in conjunction to stop the round. The tip of a knife is smaller than the weave in the ballistic fiber. This means it will punch right through the fiber and right into the person wearing it.
We Know What to Do if Someone is Wearing a Vest: We've all seen it. The suspect is wearing a vest and not going down. At some point a frantic cop will yell, "He's wearing a vest! What do we do?". The answer is simple, we train for it every time we go to the range. I think Harry and Lloyd said it best in Dumb and Dumber.*

Bonus: If your character cannot figure out what to do when the suspect is wearing a vest, don't have them shoot the bag of pipe bombs next the suspect so he can die in the explosion. I wish I was making that scene up, but I saw it on TV (so it must be true). First, the bombs won't explode when shot. Second, aiming for the head seems a heck of a lot better of an idea than exploding half the building and innocent bystanders.

*Dumb and Dumber: Written and directed by the Farrelly brothers and produced by New Line Cinema.

3 Comments

Leonidas

9/17/2013 02:23:19 pm

What is the difference between plates and vests?

Dave Merlino

9/17/2013 03:37:36 pm

Thanks for the question. Think of a plate as an accessory to the ballistic vest. You can have a vest without a plate but not a plate without a vest. There are different types that are used in law enforcement functions as compared to heavier military vests. I'll talk about the law enforcement (LE) side and see if I can get our resident military expert, Thomas Sager (former Ranger) to comment on the military side.

For LE the plate is made for the front of the vest centered over the heart.. It can be either a soft ballistic piece or a harder metal insert. Each offers additional protection from higher velocity rounds (rifles) but also have their pluses and minuses.

The metal plate will also offer protection from knives and offer a bit of hard shock value to anyone who punches you in the chest. On the negative it adds to the weight of the vest and the extra rigidity cuts down on your mobility. There are also some who believe that if a round shattered against the vest the shrapnel could hit you in the face. The talk sounds convincing but I have never seen any evidence to show that this has happened.

The nylon insert is lighter, doesn't cut down on mobility and eases fears of shrapnel. But, it does not offer protection from knives or the hard shock value to punches.

Just like a regular vest, they are not infinite protection. Even the hardest, toughest plate will degrade after a few shots, meaning the third or fourth round is going to go right through.

Thomas Sager

9/18/2013 02:10:12 pm

Military plates typically differ from LEO plates (except for SWAT or HRT teams). The plates can be both large and small. Generally the plates that I wore were different sizes depending on the location of the body.

For the front and back the plate would go from around your belly-button to a few inches below the natural notch in your neck (the reverse is true for the back). The smaller plates would be worn on your sides and were about as big as two decks of cards.

In the Military I wore soft armor under my plates, however depending on the operational needs sometimes all we would wear was the actual plates. Differing from LEOs the main firearms we faced were large caliber (AK-47s), so for our purposes the soft armor was more to add protection from shrapnel. This isn’t to say that it didn’t help with protection against AKs, it’s just that without plates AKs could defeat our soft armor.

The argument was always mobility, or protection. The more armor you wore the more protection right? Depends. Sometimes your ability to move to cover, stay quiet, or move long distances can outweigh the benefits of being able to take a direct hit from an AK.

To reiterate what Dave’s post said above, just because you have armor on doesn’t mean that you will still be standing after taking a direct hit. It depends on the kind of round fired and the kind of protection wore. If you are wearing soft armor and military plates the impact will be less then just wearing the soft armor. Of course none of it matters if it is a headshot!

Hope this helps, and thanks for your interest in this topic!!

Thomas (Dave’s resident expert in all things awesome!!)

4 Hollywood Myths About the "Bullet Proof" Vest

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