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CaptainObvious · February 12, 2012, 01:19 PM

The purpose of the soft trauma plate is to provide a pillow, so to speak, against the incoming round. I know its not supposed to be able to stop anything. So if a round hits you in the chest without the trauma plate then you will be hurting and probably hurting enough to the point where you wont be able to put up a defense. However, with a trauma plate, you will still be hurting, but the hurt will be less. You might avoid a broken set of ribs with a good trauma plate and just have some bruises. I have seen medical pictures, read different reports, etc., but I havent actually ever had any first hand experience and Im not volunteering for testing of that nature anytime soon

The trauma plates in vests are not typically tested for some reason. It may be because of cost or because the NIJ standards dont allow for such testing...I dont know, but I do know that I have never seen formalized laboratory testing on a trauma plate. On rifle plates, I have seen formalized testing, but as for a trauma plate in an actual vest all I have is youtube videos from certain manufacturers like PPI Speed Plates and the Protech HT. I have read in forums about other departments doing some informal testing on trauma plates.

So Im just curious if anyone has done any testing on a vanilla soft trauma plate (not the Speed Plate or the other exotic plates). Like I said, according to Point Blank, their soft plate is made of the same stuff they make their vests out of and the plate feels as thick as the IIA vest from ABA with the same consistency.

If someone were to send me a spare vest and a soft trauma plate then I could blast a few rounds at it myself and upload it to youtube. However, I cant perform such testing because there are no spares here and there is a budget issue. So I cant be purposely destroying equipment for an unscientific test just to satisfy my curiosity.

Ill throw up pictures of what I got later on. I have the soft plate from Second Chance, the soft plates I bought from Point Blank, the metal plates that came with the ABA carrier, two speed plates, two T15 plates, and two custom made Level IIIA soft plates. This is just a collection of different plates I have had over the years which I have thrown in the drawer and use from time to time depending on what I have to do.

February 12, 2012, 01:19 PM	#3
CaptainObvious Junior member Join Date: February 5, 2012 Posts: 73	The purpose of the soft trauma plate is to provide a pillow, so to speak, against the incoming round. I know its not supposed to be able to stop anything. So if a round hits you in the chest without the trauma plate then you will be hurting and probably hurting enough to the point where you wont be able to put up a defense. However, with a trauma plate, you will still be hurting, but the hurt will be less. You might avoid a broken set of ribs with a good trauma plate and just have some bruises. I have seen medical pictures, read different reports, etc., but I havent actually ever had any first hand experience and Im not volunteering for testing of that nature anytime soon The trauma plates in vests are not typically tested for some reason. It may be because of cost or because the NIJ standards dont allow for such testing...I dont know, but I do know that I have never seen formalized laboratory testing on a trauma plate. On rifle plates, I have seen formalized testing, but as for a trauma plate in an actual vest all I have is youtube videos from certain manufacturers like PPI Speed Plates and the Protech HT. I have read in forums about other departments doing some informal testing on trauma plates. So Im just curious if anyone has done any testing on a vanilla soft trauma plate (not the Speed Plate or the other exotic plates). Like I said, according to Point Blank, their soft plate is made of the same stuff they make their vests out of and the plate feels as thick as the IIA vest from ABA with the same consistency. If someone were to send me a spare vest and a soft trauma plate then I could blast a few rounds at it myself and upload it to youtube. However, I cant perform such testing because there are no spares here and there is a budget issue. So I cant be purposely destroying equipment for an unscientific test just to satisfy my curiosity. Ill throw up pictures of what I got later on. I have the soft plate from Second Chance, the soft plates I bought from Point Blank, the metal plates that came with the ABA carrier, two speed plates, two T15 plates, and two custom made Level IIIA soft plates. This is just a collection of different plates I have had over the years which I have thrown in the drawer and use from time to time depending on what I have to do. Last edited by CaptainObvious; February 12, 2012 at 01:25 PM.