There has been quite a bit of discussion about armor lately.  Would be interesting and informative to hear from first hand accounts of what happens.

How nasty is it?  How disabled is the average person after taking a round?

IF you have been in this scenario, either shot yourself or tended to someone who was?  What happened?  What type of armor?  What was the weapon used?

Little brother was shot in the iotv exiting a striker in Iraq.

Broke his leg.

I know a number of people who were shot wearing armor. Some were able to keep going with little problem (sometimes because of adrenaline). Others were knocked out of the fight.

It's a little like voodoo. It depends on the quality of the armor, caliber, distance, angle of strike, physique of the person wearing it, and on and on. Everyone I know who took a hit (or more than one) in the armor survived.

Have a buddy who got pegged in the chest plate while he was jerking off on a guard post in Iraq.

He said it felt like getting kicked in the chest. He also said it completely ruined his evening plans.

As a medic I treated an LEO who took two 9mm to his vest from close range.

Didn’t penetrate but ended up with 2 broken ribs and one hell of a bruise.

Bravo, sir!

Big difference between soft armor and plates.  

Getting hit in a chest plate isn't going to knock you on your ass, but you reaction to it might.  Spall off steel plates might fuck you up.

If, with 1980s plates, a guy can take two 7.62x51mm rounds standing on one foot, nothing in terms of common firearms is going to really impair someone's ability to fight when stopped by a plate.  There's a video somewhere with a 12ga slug too.  

I have pictures somewhere , was shot in the back with an AK no clue on distance. Knocked the wind out of me and left one hell of a bruise. The esapi and soft armor backing did its job.

Soft armor does that.

I think about that video all the time. I've shot some of my old armor and it stopped it but I'm not voluntarily suiting up and taking 7.62 nato. Ballsy, stupid but ballsy.

The snackbar was closed bitch!

Googd podcast about being shot 27 times.

I've known two people well who got shot while wearing a vest.

One by a .22, he said it felt like a bee sting, and it was on video, and you could see him reaching inside his vest and rubbing it.

The other was shot in the chest by a 9mm (it hit his badge, hanging from his neck, too).  He said it felt like getting punched really hard.

Neither one went down, or was out of action.

I didn't get shot, but id say the LB/ft of energy delivered to my vest was WAY above that from a 12 gauge. no bruise where the vest was covering my back.  (posted this before)

I fell 5 feet and landed on a square steel catch basin that was about 3/8th inch thick , it went across by back at an angle starting about right hip up and across to left lower ribs. I was wearing my issues iiia vest in an internal carrier under my shirt. I bruised my left kidney badly.

When I was laying on the deck of the boat all I could think was I can’t feel anything below where I’ve been impaled by the boat.  I thought I had been stabbed/impaled on something and it was sticking out of my back. Coworker was like "OH SHIT, when he saw my back(which didn't help..), turns out that id taken red paint from the catch basin and embedded it in my shirt.  Never broke skin. I was in great pain due to the kidney that had been hit, worse than a kidney stone, I drove my self to hospital with a 5.5MM kidney stone stuck in the tube, this was worse and made me non functional.  Ambulance was called. When I got to the ER the X-ray showed no spine damage and I was taken off the backboard. Kidney damage was just bruised.  My back had a line bruise from lower right hip to just where my vest started about an inch from where my spine was.

They tell you in training that the vests help with car accidnets and falls too.

2 weeks in bed on serious pain pills and muscle relaxers, i don't really remember the 2 weeks.

I’ve had a few friends get shot but they were all wearing hard plates. They all said they were knocked down and it felt like getting hit with a bat or kicked in the chest. I haven’t been shot yet so I can’t tell ya myself. I can say I’ve worked on penetrating wounds and I’d much rather have armor than not.

IIA Soft armor. .380 point blank in the chest. Intentional cause I pulled the attacker's gun to my vest since we were in a crowded club. Cracked a rib. Didn't knock me on my ass, but the combo of the impact, muzzle blast, and fighting with the dude for the gun wrecked my brain. I usually tell people I took him to the ground after getting shot and subdued him, but really I think I basically had a death-grip on his hands and gun and simply fell on top of him until I brain rebooted.

I took two rounds of 9mm gold dot to the chest while wearing a vest, it hurt like a bitch and the bruising was insane, but I drew a pistol and shot two rounds between his legs and sunk his canoe before he found fire off a third shot.

Whatever gets the job done.

Did he get some amateur rhinoplasty afterward?

I was right there with you till the word canoe. Now I need the full story.

I know a few. “Hurts a lot” but that’s about it.

Not a single one of them was an 80’s training video.

A buddy of mine took a round right on the corner of his E-SAPI plate while flying a PAVEHAWK in Afghanistan. It saved his life. He was wearing soft armor underneath as well.

One of our passengers took a machine gun round to the edge of his Kevlar just above the ear. He lived but got a massive contusion. The thin skin of the C23 did little to slow it down.

literally jerking off?
I’m thinking if that was timed just right it.........

I was repoing a boat on lake havaso, I had paddled over in a canoe and I left it on the dock when I got in the bank’s boat and headed for the boat ramp.




ETA: I must have been rattled pretty good, I put two shots into the boat between his legs, when I was aiming for his dick.

Took two 9mm to a safariland vest some years ago.  Like getting kicked in the chest, bruised a little bit, but otherwise non-debilitating.

I wouldn't do it again.

Friend of mine on his first tour in the 'stan took an AK round to the chest plate while on patrol. He had no reaction time and best guess was it was fired from about 50 yards away and caught the lower part of the plate. Lots of brusing and said it winded him pretty good. The offender was ushered to the great Snackbar in the Sky.

Another friend, also in the sandbox, got shot TWICE and didnt realize it until someone pointed out to him that his PC had holes in it. As the story goes, they had just walked into a toilet bowl ambush, so Im sure the adrenaline dump from being fired on from all sides was massive.

Third friend, LEO plainclothes wearing soft armor was fired at by a perp with a 9mm. Took one slightly to left of sternum. Perp got deaded but he said he didnt realize he was shot until after when he couldnt breathe because it had winded him, and then had a massive panic moment. Bruising and cracked ribs had him sidelined for a good bit.

We had a patient in the ER that had been shot at point blank range in the lower left abdomen with a 9mm. He was wearing 3A soft armor, and while it stopped the bullet, it made a gigantic bruise and a wound that was about 2 inches across and about 1/4 inch deep. Like a very concentrated abrasion. He was lucky as fuck, but he was still going to be a hurtin' unit for a couple weeks.

Read a book by a Vietnam helo pilot, Chickenhawk? He got shot in the chest with two 7.62x39mm rounds through the windscreen of his Huey at close range. His ceramic plate stopped them. He said it left a dinner plate sized bruise on his chest and it hurt so bad he could not even wear a t-shirt for days, just the weight of the fabric was painful.

This guy doesn't seem phased by .308


I wonder if you take more of an impact with ceramic plates vs steel when there is a stop (even though ceramic is more likely to actually stop it)

When I was a military game warden, I was shot twice in the torso by an asshole with a .22.

I was wearing soft armor at the time. 1 round hit me about 3" above my navel, the other just below my breastbone. Both left bruises about 3" in diameter; the 1 below my breastbone hurt like hell.

Combat jack?

Bumping this so I can catch up later