I did read the article, but I still disagree. Of course the USMC study found more fatal wounds and people who could’ve been saved from lack of side armor. Looking at just fatal wounds and figuring out who would’ve lived, that’s a no brainer. They did not look at all wounds and fatal wounds from what I’ve seen, or even hits from enemy fire, so of course there are going to be more fatal wounds from places that are less armored, but are those areas at all likely to be hit? I also didn’t see any mention of studying the context in which they were wounded. Were they enveloped with people firing from all sides? Were these dismounts? Vehicle riders?

You also say the additional armor would be better for vehicle riders and the problem with weight might be a concern for the dismounts only. I would say the opposite. In some contexts, like Fallujah where you had a lot of urban fighting the extra armor might’ve been a good thing for some of those guys. I think a lot of vehicle riders could face even worse consequenses from more personal gear if they can’t turn to fire, get out of the vehicle in an emergency and so on. More personal body armor ain’t going to do much for an IED hit except maybe give added protection from fragments. That’s why I said add the armor to the vehicle. But as one of the guys here said, in the armor vs. gun fight the gun always comes out on top.

Yup, and I’m sure there are problems with the logisitics system and the manufacturers, the procurement system, etc. No excuse for that stuff and it needs to be fixed. There is also no excuse for politicians on both sides of the aisle flinging this around and pointing fingers. I doubt this surfaced on anyone’s RADAR on this level until now, and they need to fix the problem, not score points here. Like I said before, the POTUS isn’t sitting up at the white house personally designing body armor, and I’m sure most of the congress doesn’t lie awake at night trying to figure out how they can ship shoddy armor to us.