Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Armorskin

For the last couple of days, I've been wearing a new body armor carrier, the Blaeur Armorskin.  It's a polyester shell designed to look like a uniform shirt and designed to be worn as outer-wear.

Under it, I wear the base shirt, whith is a cool mesh shirt with sleeves and a collar, also designed to look like a uniform shirt, but hidden part of that shirt is a cool mesh that wicks moisture   Worn together the two pieces make a system that seems to work well for the mission of keeping an officer safe, while making the body armor that we wear more comfortable than the old method of wearing the armor under the uniform shirt.

I've only worhn this system for two days, but I can see that it's a big improvement on the way we used to wear the vest.  Anything that makes a street officer more comfortable is a big improvement, and this system, while fairly new, may be a good first step in keeping officers safe.  The big problem with body armor is that it is so damned hot, and anything we can do to make it easier for an officer to wear armor is a decided improvement.    I know that there are other systems, and as the technology shakes itself out, there will be improvements, but this is a big improvement over the way I wore armor, even six months ago.

2 comments:

Old NFO said...

Good news! Anything that gets you wearing it EVERY day is good!

Rivrdog said...

In my seven-year Marine Patrol assignment, we had to not only wear vests on the patrol boats, we had to do so knowing that they and the gunbelt badly impeded swimming, and thereby, self rescue from overboard falls. We wore the best inflatable PFDs (rescue vest with self-inflating mechanism), but it was a somber feeling knowing that the only thing between us and a watery grave was that device with its little water-soluble pill.