It’s a tee-shirt! No, it’s body armor!
Or maybe it’s body armor made from tee-shirt material. You be the judge here and here.
I don’t suppose we’ll be wearing bullet-resistant tees any time soon, but it does sound as if more comfortable, flexible, and inexpensive body armor is in the works. Among other things.
(H/T Pat)
The implications for our Soldiers is incredible. With a little development they could have basic uniforms that are bullet resistant. Possibly the addition of fabric like this in a quilted or layered fashion might produce a quality body armor that weighs significantly less than modern Kevlar based systems. Dropping 15-20lbs from a Soldiers kit would make them much more effective.
On the civilian side this would be great!! A lightweight, relatively inexpensive shirt or jacket that could be worn like any other clothing would have lots and lots of application. You could wear it to school, church, shopping malls etc. Great improvement. It would also be applicable to industries that reqire protective garments due to work related hazards.
There are bulletproof fasion clothes being made in Mexico (?) now. Supposedly our president wears them.
Blackhawk makes BDU’s with tourniquets built in to the legs and arms, as those are now the only vulnerable spots (besides the noggin, of course). If you take a hit, you can cinch the tourny yourself and carry on with the business at hand.
I hate to burst your bubble but… The only problem with the t-shirt idea is trauma. When a projectile like a bullet traveling at a high velocity strikes an object that it cannot penetrate the energy has to go somewhere. Thus the shock wave from the impact passes into the body of the object hit. That is why there are trauma plates in bullet proof vests.
A friend was in the sandbox a few years ago and in a friendly fire incident was shot in the back with a 12 gauge slug from around 25 feet. Thanks to the trauma plates in his vest he is mostly fine today. Mind you he was in hospital for a while before the use of his legs returned. I wonder how well the bullet proof t-shirt would have worked?
Good point, of course. IMHO, the “bullet-proof tee-shirt” slant in the articles I linked to was mostly just to capture readers’ attention. The real potential benefit is in making body armor lighter and more flexible — not eliminating trauma plates, but overall lessening the burden of wearing armor.