Defense Articles

To say things are busy for workers at Oakland Park-based Point Blank Body Armor, Inc. is an understatement. Walk through the company’s new 104,000-square-foot production facility in Pompano Beach and it will become apparent why.

Parent company DHB Industries, based in Westbury N.Y., booked $230 million in sales last year, up from $130 million the year prior. The bulk of the sales came from its South Florida body armor division, which manufactures bulletproof vests. For the first quarter, DHB’s revenues stood at $74 million, compared to $46 million during the same period a year ago. Sandra Hatfield, Point Blank’s president, projects sales should reach $270 million by year-end.

“This is not a normal manufacturing facility–this is not just a cut and sew,” Hatfield says. “We are making lifesaving products here at a totally different level.”

No less than 450 employees crowd into the Pompano facility, each meticulously working on assignments from cutting patterns, to counting layers of bulletproof Kevlar, to stitching the materials up.

Exactly how many orders Point Blank is taking these days is a secret Hatfield closely guards. She estimates the company is fulfilling between 1,000 and 3,000 orders a day for products that include concealable and tactical (visible) armor as well as antiballistic blankets to protect military vehicles from explosives. Since the start of United States military action in Iraq, those items have been in high demand.

Opening the Pompano facility in April was essential, Hatfield says, for the company to fill its rising backlog of orders, which currently stands at $415 million. The facility nearly doubled the company’s manufacturing space, adding to Point Blank’s original facility in Oakland Park and another that opened in February in Deerfield Beach, which together have 118,000 square feet.

Orders flood in from correctional facilities and law enforcement agencies such as the Los Angeles Police Department, the US Treasury Department’s Secret Service and the US Drug Enforcement Agency. Local accounts such as the Broward Sheriff’s Office also contribute to Point Blank’s bottom line.

The company’s biggest customer, though, is the US military.

“If you took all the pieces of the pie and put them together,” Hatfield says, “they are still not as big as the military.”

Deployed troops will soon start getting side protection for their Interceptor Body Armor (IBA), thanks to the efforts of Program Executive Office Soldier. The IBA Deltoid Extension was one of dozens of pieces of equipment PEO Soldier officials showed off to the Pentagon press corps during a media briefing June 14.In the two years since the organization stood up, it has researched and fielded or is in the process of researching more than 350 pieces of equipment–everything from boots to parachutes to new rifles–in order to save soldier lives, improve their quality of life, and increase their effectiveness on the battlefield, said Brig. Gen. James Moran, PEO Soldier executive officer.

“Outfitting soldiers is just as important as [acquiring] a major piece of equipment,” Moran said.

At about 16 pounds, IBA is lighter than the 25-pound Vietnam-era flack jacket it replaced, and it offers better protection, Moran said. The Deltoid Extension will add about another five pounds and protects the sides of the ribcage and shoulders. However, the extension comes with a price for the soldier. Moran explained that it can limit movement and block air from circulating under the body armor–decreasing the soldier’s ability to cool off in a hot environment.

“Everything we do is a balance,” Moran said. “We want all soldiers to come back without any injuries. At the same time, we want them to be combat effective. Nothing can be made to be indestructible.”

Despite the weight of IBA, Moran said he has no doubt that the new body armor has saved lives. In the past 18 months, the Army has purchased about 300,000 full sets of IBA.

The current Army budget buys 50,000 Deltoid Extension sets this fiscal year, all of which will be shipped to selected troops by the end of September, according to Col. John Norwood, program manager for PEO Soldier -Equipment. The Army plans to request enough funding in next year’s budget to equip all 132,000 soldiers in the Central Command area of operations with the extension.

“We have a clever enemy, an adaptable enemy, so we must be clever and adaptable,” Moran said.

The National Institute of Justice has adopted new minimum interim standards for bullet-resistant body armor vests that would become effective Sept. 26.

NIJ through extensive testing found that certain vests were subject to serious deterioration that made them less effective over time, and, in some cases, totally ineffective.

But NIJ recommended that officers continue to use defective armor until replacements are available.

To accelerate the process, the Justice Department has expanded its grants to state and local police for the purchase of vests to replace those found to be ineffective.

NIJ said the interim standards would apply until the completion of random tests on vests submitted by manufacturers to assure they are in compliance.

NIJ said it would probably issue advisory notices as the reviews continue.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered a study of the effectiveness of the vests in the summer of 2003 when a Forest Hills, Pa., officer wearing a vest was shot and seriously wounded. The assailant’s bullet penetrated the front panel of a second Chance vest made with Zylon.

NIJ suspended certification of body armor with Zylon on Aug. 24.

NIJ and the National Institutes of Standards and Technology jointly conducted studies into the durability of Zylon and found that it failed to meet the standards that the manufacturer’s promotional material claimed.

The National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center also conducted tests.

Among the three testing agencies, technicians fired various types of bullets ranging from handguns to assault weapons into about 100 different types of vests.

During the past 18 months, the federal government and numerous law enforcement agencies have filed litigation against second Chance. The company has filed for bankruptcy and reached a tentative agreement to pay nearly $30 million to settle claims.

Under the interim standards, NU found that 12 manufacturers had products that achieved various minimum levels of protection.

NIJ has identified four levels of threat for body armor covered under the interim regulations that the 12 manufacturers comply with.

* Threat Level II requires armor must protect against .357 magnum JSP loads with 158 grains traveling at a velocity of 1,400 feet per second and 9-millimeter FMJ loads with 124 grains at velocity of 1,175 feet per second.

Soldiers may no longer wear body armor other than Army-issued interceptor body armor (IBA), Army officials announced last month.

In a safety message sent to all commanders March 17, the Army warned that commercial body armor may cause “death or serious injury to soldiers.”

Of main concern with officials is “Dragon Skin,” produced by Pinnacle Armor. While the manufacturer has received nearly $1 million lrom the Army to produce lighter-weight armor, Dragon Skin’s capabilities don’t yet meet Army requirements

The product also isn’t Army certified to protect against several small arms threats currently encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yet, the Dragon Skin’s advertising implies that it is superior to IBA. Army officials say there have been no tests to validate the claim.

Body armor currently issued to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan has gone through seven improvements since the beginning of the war, according to Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, the Army secretary’s deputy assistant for acquisition and systems management.

More than 200,000 sets of the latest iteration are now in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.

Commanders have 30 days to ensure soldiers are in compliance.

In addition, commanders may tailor the IBA configuration to meet threat and mission requirements. Components include the outer tactical vest and ballistic plates, throat protector, collar, groin protector, Deltoid and Axillary Protector, side plates and side plate carriers.

Two new fibers are vying to one day replace the respected but heavier Kevlar, the staple of body armor for decades, as the Army strives to enhance mobility by reducing the Soldier load. Body armor is one of the more riveting individual equipment successes, especially from the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, with reports of dozens of saved lives directly attributed to the bullet and shrapnel-halting ability of the helmet, flexible vest and rigid chest plate combination worn by troops. Even though it protects well, body armor ranks with water, ammunition and weapon as the heaviest items worn or carried by troops, according to engineers on the Ballistics Technology Team at the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Massachusetts. “The Army is putting the best available armor materials into Soldiers’ armor,” said Philip Cunniff, a research mechanical engineer. “Part of our work in the Ballistics Technology Team is to develop new materials and techniques to lighten the load of those armor systems.”

Body armor technology has advanced in the past century to protect the head and torso against high-velocity handgun bullets and fragmenting munitions, such as those from artillery shells, mortar shells, mines and grenades. Lightweight small arms protection is also now available for the torso.

The nylon “flak” vest for ground troops and steel helmet from the 1960s were replaced by Kevlar vests and helmets during the 1980s in a product called Personnel Armor System, Ground Troops (PASGT). At the users’ request, performance increased with the PASGT system but weight remained about the same, according to Cunniff. The next major change was in the 1990s with an improved version of Kevlar that helped lighten the vest by 25 percent and increased ballistic protection.

I am trying to write a story about guns, about their power.

I have talked to more than a dozen people who are passionate about this power. They collect it, they depend upon it, they draw energy from it.

But when I look at the blued metal barrel of a Smith & Wesson .38 or the molded black rhombus of a Glock’s grip — all I feel is fear.

Desperate for a way to begin writing, I ask the photographer, who is a good friend and who is coping with the visual side of this story, what her impressions are. She admits that she, too, feels the recoil of a knee-jerk liberal who was raised to associate guns only with violence.

Then she looks at me sidelong. “The other part of it is I’m afraid that if I shot one, I’d enjoy it.” She tells me about an essay she wrote in college for a women’s studies course. The professor asked the students to describe a time when they felt “empowered.” My friend wrote about a road trip: being behind the wheel, driving fast, out in the middle of nowhere, unbound by anyone’s expectations.

But now, as she composes still-life photos of semi-automatic pistols, black powder rifles and pump shotguns, she’s guessing that firing one of them might give her the same sensation of power. Pure physical power. The adrenaline rash of commanding a potentially lethal force.

We laugh about how rarely we’ve felt such power. Neither of us is exactly a born athlete, nimble on a judo mat or easy in the saddle of a horse. Only by the joining of our soft, unruly bodies to a mechanized object can we transform them.

Later this conversation haunts me. Already bored by the guns, I pry apart the borders we’ve set, expand the definition of power beyond the physical. When have I felt any kind of power in my life?

Sex flies first into my mind. Not the physical aspects, but the psychology beneath them. I do not want to admit this. The power to arouse someone beyond rational constraints is the stuff of Eve and Satan. As a young woman chastened by Catholicism, I came fresh and eager to the lures of seduction, and I did not withstand them for 40 days in the desert. Arousing, then denying permission was a marvelous game.

It was followed, in short order, by the game of making someone fall in love with me. Granted, I succeeded only rarely, but when I did, I felt a cool rush of power.

Then I felt miserable. Because to win the game, I had to remain unmoved. And that meant guilt, one-sidedness and messy extrication.

AFTER the attack on Dunblane school by a homicidal maniac, all the politicians rushed to ban the innocent use of firearms. It became a universal wisdom overnight that we did not wish to be like the United States, by which it was understood that we did not want to have gun battles on the streets, hoodlums shooting one another with submachine guns, innocent teenagers being killed, and so on.

Since the Dunblane killings, and the draconian new gun laws, the number of gun crimes has doubled. All that legislation has done is to make it difficult for farmers and sportsmen and legitimate members of gun clubs to get licenses for those weapons which they would not dream of using to shoot children.

Meanwhile, as the police in our big cities know only too well, it is possible for any little would-be Al Capone to go into a pub and buy an AK-47 for a few hundred pounds.

This is a very good opportunity for the Conservative Party, if it had any guts, to distance itself from the Government and to offer an alternative gun policy. From what the police are telling us, it would seem as if the gun situation is out of control and that there is very little that anyone, least of all Tony Blair and his babes sitting in the High Court of Parliament, can do to avoid repetitions of the recent tragedy of the two girls shot at a party in Aston, Birmingham.

We have now moved into a gun-dominated society whether we like it or not.

The only thing which a responsible government can do is to allow responsible and law-loving citizens to protect themselves. We should all be allowed to own guns, and, when our livelihood or property is threatened by criminals, we should be allowed to use them.

Street crime is high in the United States, but burglaries and crimes against domestic property are low - because householders are allowed to shoot burglars. In Switzerland, where they have a comparable law, there is almost no crime at all, since, as well as fully-armed householders, they have also excluded the poor by making it too expensive to live there.

Ken Livingstone is trying to do his best in this department and make London unaffordable for anyone earning less than pounds 100,000 per annum, but it won’t work unless he allows the propertied classes to arm themselves.

Soldiers loyal to President Hugo Chavez seized riot gear–including submachine guns and shotguns–from Caracas’ police department Tuesday in what the opposition mayor called an effort to undermine him.Federal interference in the capital’s police department is one reason Venezuela’s opposition has staged a strike–now in its 44th day–demanding early elections. Tuesday’s raids stoked already heated tensions in this polarized nation.

Greater Caracas Mayor Alfredo Pena said the weapons seizure stripped police of their ability to control street protests that have erupted almost daily since the strike began Dec. 2. Five people have died in strike-related demonstrations.

Strike leader Manuel Cova said opponents would “strengthen the struggle to topple” Chavez in response to the raids.

“This demonstrates the antidemocratic and authoritarian way in which this government acts,” said Cova, leader of the Venezuelan Workers Confederation, the country’s largest labor union.

Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said the seizure was part of an effort to make police answer for alleged abuses against Chavez demonstrators. The government accuses police of killing two Chavez supporters during a melee two weeks ago. “The metropolitan police cannot be above the law, above the executive, above citizens,” Rangel said.

Chavez ordered troops to take control of the force in November, but the Supreme Court ordered it restored to Pena last month. He is trying to break a strike that has paralyzed Venezuela’s crucial oil industry and cost the government an estimated $4 billion. AP

IT looks like any other sports shop in any London high street. But just inside its doorway, facing a wall of designer trainers, is an arsenal of handguns on open display.

Astonishingly, there is nothing illegal about their presence - because they are not real weapons, but terrifyingly accurate replicas. The Evening Standard was able to buy a James Bond-style Walther PPK with breathtaking ease and without being offered any training - even though it fires gas-propelled ball bearings that can cause serious injuries.

And in the course of our investigation, within four days we had obtained an accurate replica of a British Army SA80 assault rifle - part of a massive range of facsimile handguns, rifles and machine guns the shop can order for customers.

After two brief visits to TD Sports, we had spent a mere pounds 170 to legally obtain the kind of weapons police believe are responsible for up to a quarter of all gun crimes.

The presence of the fake firearms at a designer sportswear outlet illustrates how they are becoming youth fashion accessories in parts of London.

Yesterday the Standard revealed police had seized replica guns from secondary and even primary schools - some carried by pupils in their schoolbags.

And concern over gun-toting gangs is now running so high that police have warned teenagers with replicas they risk being killed by better-equipped rivals.

We first approached TD Sports in Walworth Road intending to buy one replica weapon. The handgun cabinet - marked “not for under 18s” - is the first display in the shop, in front of football strips, tennis rackets and designer trainers.

We picked out a Walther PPK - a favourite weapon among teenagers because of its association with Bond - but out of curiosity we asked: “What more can you get?”

Amazingly, the assistant produced a thick catalogue of replica guns, from vintage Colt 45s to Uzis - weapons of the kind that killed two teenage girls caught in the crossfire of a gang war outside a Birmingham nightclub on 2 January.

The guns on offer included an Al Caponestyle Thompson submachine gun, M16s as used by the US Army and Kalashnikov AK47s - each one produced under licence from the makers to guarantee authenticity.

From 1869 until 1941 and the start of World War II, a seesaw battle occurred between Colt and Smith & Wesson. Smith & Wesson was the first manufacturer to bring out a practical, big bore, cartridge firing sixgun with their Model #3 American in 1869. Colt was caught flat-footed, still maintaining percussion revolvers were the future not the past. Due to the patents held by Rollin White, S&W’s plant manager, it would be three years before Colt could produce cartridge firing sixguns. The final result was the Colt Single Action Army, which not only remains in production 130 years later, it’s also replicated by several manufacturers.

Four years after the onset of the Single Action Army, Colt took the lead and in 1877 brought out the first of their double action sixguns with the Lightning in .38 Long Colt and the .41 Long Colt chambered Thunderer. Three years later S&W added the double action feature to their single action top-break Model #3. Both of these original double actions were basically nothing more than single actions with a double action trigger added. They still loaded and unloaded the same as the single action models.

Now it was Colt’s turn again as they brought out the first of their “modern” double actions with the swing out cylinder Navy Model of 1889. It would be a while before Smith & Wesson would play catch-up. However, 10 years later they would introduce the Model 1899 Army-Navy revolver or the .38 Military and Police 1st Model. Since this was the first double action revolver to require the ejector rod be pushed backwards to eject fired shells it also became known as the Hand Ejector. With the top break single action and double action sixguns from Smith & Wesson, ejection was automatic as the barrel swung down.