SPC Arielle Mailloux gets some help adjusting her protoype Generation III Improved Outer Tactical Vest from CAPT Lindsey Pawlowski at Fort Campbell, KY.
Women Soldiers deploying from Fort Campbell, KY, to Afghanistan will be among the first to critique new body armor designed specifically for women.
In the past, the smallest size body armor available was still too big for 80% of women servicemembers. It was often too long and loose, providing too little protection and uncomfortable enough to affect their performance on the battlefield.
Women at Fort Campbell, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY; Fort Benning, GA; and an Army Reserve Center in Milford, MA, have been testing the armor. But it’s women from Fort Campbell’s 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team will give the armor its first test in a combat zone. From Army.mil:
Soldiers who participated in the test are assigned to a female engagement team that will interact closely with the Afghan population, particularly women, when they deploy later this year. The plan, Hennessey explained, was to let the Soldiers get accustomed to wearing the new body armor and then to train in it for about five weeks. This week, they are wrapping up a human factors evaluation that includes such things as weapons firing and climbing in and out of vehicles — all of the things the Soldiers are likely to do in combat.
The Army’s Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center launched a program in 2011 to come up with a better body armor design for women. TPC aired a report on the new body armor on July 13.