This is often a misunderstood topic so I thought I should share a bit of knowledge.

Purpose

Body armor is meant to keep you in the fight.  That is, armor is meant to protect your vital organs which, if hit, would immediately take you down and prevent you from putting rounds on target.  The possibility of saving your life is a secondary benefit of body armor.

What to protect

With this purpose in mind we must understand those structures we need to protect which we can realistically protect while still maintaining a high degree of mobility.  Our primary concern is the heart and the large blood vessels which sprout from the top of the heart:  the superior vena cava, the arch of the aorta and the pulmonary trunk.  I will refer to these vessels simple as "related vessels" from here on.  A hit to the heart and its immediately related vessels will very quickly take you out of the fight and kill you within a minute or two.

Second in importance to the heart is the respiratory diaphragm, the muscle which, when contracting, allows you to decrease air pressure within your lungs and thus take in air.  Destroy the diaphragm and you destroy one's ability to breath.

Protecting the vertebral column goes without saying -we wish to protect as much of this as possible without sacrificing mobility for obvious reasons.

It is important to note that a hit to the lungs may prove to eventually be lethal but is not nearly as lethal as quickly as a hit to the heart and its immediately related blood vessels.  The liver and kidneys, while highly vascular, are also not immediately incapacitating.

Front/chest plate

The top of your plate should be at the level of your suprasternal notch aka jugular notch. If you follow your sternum towards your head, the soft spot you reach at the top of it is the suprasternal notch. Your plate should ride at least level with the top of your sternum while standing.

The importance of positioning the plate at the top of the SN Notch is that you have a bundle of large blood vessels which rest on top of your heart and lie behind the manubrium (the uppermost portion of your sternum), most notably the aortic arch. The aortic arch receives blood from your left ventricle and will have the highest velocity of all the blood in you systemic circulatory system. Get hit here and you will be done. So, make sure your plate is riding higher, rather than lower because protecting your aortic arch is much more important than protecting your guts.

Also, as you can clearly see with the image below, a smaller plate allows for more comfort and mobility to the shooter will not necessarily mean you will leave immediately incapacitating areas unprotected -large plates will only cover a little more of your peripheral lung tissue and guts.

Reference image (anterior view)

Red is your heart and related blood vessels
Dark Grey/Yellow is a properly positioned plate
The sternum and clavicle are white with black outline



Positioning of rear/back plate

Find the most prominent bony eminence at the base of your neck. This is your vertebral eminence. Count down two bony spinouses (or measure down about an inch) and that should be above the level of the superior aspect of your sternum.  Positioning at least this high will ensure your entire heart and its immediately related blood vessels are protected.

Reference image (posterior view)

The vertebral eminence is marked in the diagram below in blue.





Side plates and shoulder plates

Side plates are intended to protect the highly vascular elements of your abdomen.  Side plates were introduced to prevent troops from bleeding out in the chopper on the way to the field hospital.   Side plates are not necessarily intended to protect the heart, but if you wear them high up into your armpits you can protect some of the lower portion of your heart.

Protecting your heart from a shot to side is accomplished by shoulder plates, such as the ones manufactured by Crye Precision.

To sum it up

Here are general guidelines to follow at a bare minimum.  As always, the more protection you can have without sacrificing mobility the better.  This is just the bare bones.

Front plate:  should be even with top of the sternum while standing, extend at least 1.5 inches past the bottom of your sternum and should cover the entirety of your nipples

Rear plate:  should lie no lower than an inch below your vertebral prominence

Side plates:  the higher they ride the better

Indeed it is..... tag & thanks OP.

Thank you for posting that here.

Thanks, tag.

Good post!

Probably one of the most useful posts ever in the tac gear forum. Great info for guys getting into armor.

Also, 4 posts since dec 2005? Ultra lurker status

You know it!  

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this.



dude feel free to post more.

EXCELLENT POST!! Very good information!

LightFighter!!!

I wish the retarded &%@($ers at CIF knew this stuff...

Hahah.  Not just CIF how about even HALF of the MARINES who wear this stuff.

4 posts since 2005?


Must be trollin'

I am being totally serious, I went through 3 deployments, and the only people who had any clue about how to size/wear the IBA/OTV were the NG shooting team that was instructing small arms marksmanship.  We had several Soldiers literally crippled because CIF decided what size IBA we needed, and wouldn't let us exchange it when it turned out they were completely wrong.  That's not even adressing the whole protection part of the schema.

or he has a life

this will use up printer ink, thanks

Thank you.

Thank you!

I hear ya.  I got issued an IOTV on my 09-10 deployment and it was improperly sized and top of my side-plates stopped just below my arm pit and my front plate almost an inch below the sternal notch.  I'm a medic and seeing this also happen to a number of my buddies really got me heated. Stupid  mother^#@!ers at CIF.

+1

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

Great post my friend!

+1

Thanks

Glad somebody finally did this.

This diagram applies to all plate sizes , or just 10X13 plates?

When I got my plates I was trying them on and showing them off for the wife.  She was pretty upset by the fact that the plates didn't cover my lower abdominal region and asked me "what happens if you get shot there"



I replied "That's what life flight is for"



She didn't think I was nearly as funny as I thought I was.

Any plate size, as long as it is big enough to properly cover the vitals.

Sorry mods, but I have already come back to this thread a few times when talking to buddies at work.  I just posted here to move it back to the front page . . .

bump for great info!

This PDF version may help:

http://sixty-six.org/x_drive/proper_wear_of_hard_armor.pdf

Good stuff. Thank you.

Great thread

ETA:  I have put together a couple of plates/plate carriers recently and one thing I've noticed is that there is some play in how far up the plate will come depending on body position.

bumped to spread some of this fine knowledge.

I had this problem when I first got my DSG plates and  Tac Tailor carrier. I just took a guess based on anatomy that they probably needed to run higher for the reasons listed.

Anyone know if there is a SOP of raising the plate a little bit extra once the plate closure is pulled up as tight as you can get it. I just took some rolled up newspaper and 100mph tape and made a little pad at the bottom of the carrier to prop the plate up a bit (the shoulder straps are as tight as I feel comfortable with already). I occasionally feel the plate roll around on top of the padding so its not optimal.

Is there a better way that people do this?

Great info!

Thanks for the VERY useful post.

I cut up a thick cardboard box into strips and taped it together into a block in the same manner, then taped the block to the plate. It's been working for me so far.

ETA: I wrapped each layer in 100 MPH tape, so it's waterproof as well, so it doesn't degrade.

I have some old GI sleeping pads that get cut up whenever I need some foam.
Might be an option if you need to bump your plates up inside your carrier.

ost

ost

It would be much easier if doctors just tattooed the locations of our organs at birth.

great post, sticky worthy IMHO

Thanks.  I can't tell you how many photos threads I've seen with plates riding too low.

Bump because I couldn't find this in a search anymore!

Why no tack?

This is a rampant problem through the entire military.  There seems to be a big push to get the gear out to the troops, but very little on proper wear and care.  Thankfully when we went through our last mob station I was lucky enough to have my concerns voiced up the chain and was allowed to double check fitment of our guys as well as show them how to put the vests together and how to care for their plates.  There were quite a few guys that were being given vests that were just too damn big, but thankfully we headed it off.  There are now more guys wearing "small" vests that were first issued mediums or larges that put the plates well below the sternum and put the side plates damn near on their hips.  It was a really frustrating experience since obviously the CIF folks were more interested in their upcoming lunch hour than getting everyone in the right sized equipment, but it worked out.

I went through a familiarization class a few weeks ago dealing with some first responder scenarios and mutual aid with Em regency Services, I wasn't able to  participate in any drills, mostly only able to observe and then sit in on some of the tactics and classwork stuff. But I did get to check out the gear setups and prep .ppt

Your conversation with your wife cracked me up so after I went back to prep my gear with my necessary Identification, and other particulars written inside my vest, I drew a Line in paint pen from the plate up with a smily face, and an arrow down below the line with 'lifeflight time please' and a sad face. the all the guys who walked by thought it was was hilarious.

Had the same convo with my wife, minus the life flight comment lol.  She cried.  I just told her Ive got time with the lower half and can still fight a bit, but it didnt help much.

Great post and thread.

It is.  Look at the last Tacked thread in this section, and the last link in the OP.  Personally, I like it done that way over having 30 tacked threads in the top.  
-Sleeper

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_10/259732_LOOK_HERE_FIRST__gear_reference_threads__rules_for_reviews__and_everything_that_used_to_be_tacked_.html
You mean 'Things to Know Before You Get Deployed'?

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but how do you determine what size plate is big enough to cover your vitals? Is it based on torso length? The reason I ask, is I have seen people post here "fat peoples vitals are the same size a skinny peoples vitals".