www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/international/middleeast/14armor.html?ei=5065&en=8dbe100bb8d151e7&ex=1124596800&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print Interesting read on Enhanced SAPI Plates...

was there a point to this post?  i went to go look at the article and they want me to pay $3.95 to read it online.  that is nothing compared to the $95/per they want for you to view each of the photographs and charts, unless of course you wanted to re-use them for your own purposes, which makes it $200/per.  IIRC, the cost of a NY Times newspaper is only like $0.25 or $0.50.

When I originally posted the link, it was accessible for free. It was the only article I had read about the enhanced SAPI plates, and thought others might find it an interesting read.

Try this:
IHT

The article is largely biased BS though.

They aren't struggling to get it in. It just got developed.

The real problem is that the Army needs to decide which soldiers need armor rather than buying everyone the same weak armor system.  

Some soldiers never leave secure areas yet have $1500 vests.  Pinnacle armor's SOV-2000 exists and because it exists I believe the US Army should be fielding it.  The current vests offer basically no side impact protection.  IED shrapnel is no 9mm threat, it nearly always cooks right through level IIIA armor from the side of the vest, as people sit in vehicles and their orientation with IED threats makes them a primarilly side-threat.  

The soldiers at risk every day need to get something worth wearing- even if that vest costs $4500.  

Of our soldiers, seven have been injured and to date none have been helped by the presence of their armor  (two of those killed were the only soldiers whose threat impacted the vest- both times shrapnel from IEDs, both times right through IIIA like butter.    

Anyway my point is that the E-sapi plate is like slapping a band-aid on an amputated limb.

NOT THE SOLUTION WE NEED.