Sipsey Street Irregulars: Praxis: Kevlar Helmet Update.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Praxis: Kevlar Helmet Update.

Enhanced Combat Helmet (ECH)

MICH The Comfortable Life Saver

The U.S. Army has ordered another 60,000 MICH (Modular Integrated Communications Helmet) helmets. Formerly called the Gallet, after the designer, and now known as the FAST ballistic helmet, the manufacturer has long been known for designing helmets for fire, police, and rescue personnel. When first issued to troops eight years ago the MICH was 14 percent lighter (at 1.36 kg/3 pounds) and more comfortable than the 1980s era PASGT. MICH was most appreciated because it can be worn for long periods without becoming uncomfortable. The latest models are even more comfortable, with an improved interior that also offers more protection against bumps and explosions. . .

Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH)

Inspired by the success of MICH, a version of the helmet was renamed ACH (Advanced Combat Helmet) and ordered in large quantities. Last year an improved version, ECH (Enhanced Combat Helmet) showed up. The U.S. Army and Marine Corps found that their new ECH was even more bullet proof than expected. While testing the ECH it was discovered that the machine firing metal fragments at the ECH (to represent shell and bomb fragments) could not fire fragments fast enough to penetrate. The ECH was supposed to be invulnerable to pistol bullets, and it was, but some types of metal fragments were expected to still be dangerous. So ECH was tested to see how well it could resist high-powered rifle bullets. ECH was not 100 percent invulnerable but in most cases it would stop anything fired from a sniper rifle. Overall, it was calculated that the ECH was 40 percent more resistant to projectiles and 70 percent stronger than the previous ACH helmet.

The ECH made use of a new thermoplastic material (UHMWP or Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene), which is also used in the current FAST helmet. UHMWP is lighter and stronger than the Kevlar used in the ACH and earlier PASGT and, it turned out, provided much better protection as well. The ECH began replacing the ACH last year, with 200,000 to be purchased. The ECH costs $600 each, twice as much as the ACH. But for troops under fire, the additional cost is well worth it.

PASGT Helmet, aka "K-Pot," "Kraut Helmet," etc.

I have previously posted on this subject in a Helmet Tutorial in 2009.

Lots of K-Pots are out there on the legal surplus market, few ACHs and NO ECHs. The Army's CID is very careful these days to track down missing state-of-the-art gear, especially electronic sights, night vision, ESAPI plates and ECHs. There are also federal police trolls out there who go from shop to shop, trying to entrap folks into buying such gear. Caveat emptor.

Oregon Aero PASGT-to-MICH conversion pads.

That said, the available K-Pots can be cut down to MICH pattern with a Dremel tool and made more comfortable. They can also be upgraded with a new suspension system from Oregon Aero. The up-grade kits are not cheap, however, and militia poster "Tire Iron's" tutorial on the K-Pot to MICH downsizing by Dremel seems to have disappeared from the Net. (If anyone has one stored electronically, or has Tire Iron's email address, please forward it.)

Oregon Aero PASGT-to-MICH conversion with pads and chinstrap.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: This same story made the rounds (in 1980) about the K-pot. NO helmet is 100% bullet proof. 99.999% of all body armor WILL FAIL if you hit it at the right angle with ihe right bullet. (In the 80's they told us that kevlar would stop "frags and bullets up to 3000 FPS") The word is PROPAGANDA.; December 2, 2012 at 9:17 AM
Miles said...: I wouldn't cut a PASGT down.

The laminated kevlar layers are sealed at the ends and cutting those sealed ends off would probably induce the layers to delaminate.

The ACH was designed to help alleviate the tendency of the helmet rotating forward, down over the eyes, by being pushed from the rear by the neck piece of the Interceptor OTV.

If you've got a Interceptor and a PASGT, work on getting an ACH, or set up the neck piece so it can be easily pulled off if you have to go prone.; December 2, 2012 at 9:37 AM
pdxr13 said...: Oregon Aero suspension upgrade makes a painful and annoying PASGT helmet into a fitting and comfortable helmet that you can wear for a long time. Not only is the helmet going to be worn more, it is likely to reduce TBI by reducing brain acceleration/deceleration in non-penetrating hits. Having your skull hit the inside of a helmet hard is a painful sucking thing to be avoided or mitigated.

Kit was not too expensive at $59 a couple years back.

Cheers.; December 3, 2012 at 12:41 AM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Praxis: Kevlar Helmet Update.

3 comments:

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