Written by Helvegen and edited by Jeff.
Throughout most of the 20th century, fragmentation from artillery, mortars, and other explosives were the predominant cause of casualties among infantry in large-scale conventional warfare. During the Korean War, for example, on average small arms fire accounted for only about 24,4% of US casualties while fragments from shells and grenades inflicted around 67,7%.
This historical pattern pushed toward a persistent effort to reduce casualty rates through personal protection. Just as steel helmets were introduced in World War I, the Cold War era saw the gradual adoption of body armour. Early examples, such as fragmentation vests made from ballistic nylon coupled with fiberglass plates in jacket-style designs, offered basic protection against low velocity fragments. The 1980s brought a major leap forward with the widespread introduction of Kevlar, dramatically improving the ability of soft armour to stop high velocity fragments.
The next evolution came with the addition of hard armour plates capable of defeating rifle calibre threats. While these hard plates greatly expanded protection, they also greatly increased weight, often pushing fully loaded systems over what soldiers could handle, and exacerbated ergonomic issues from their old and underwhelming designs. Bulky coverage restricted movement, increased fatigue and degraded a soldiers combat effectiveness.
Modern body armor design must therefore aim for an optimal balance: maximize casualty reduction via protection while minimizing degradation of a soldier’s overall fighting capability from excess weight, bulk, and poor ergonomics. The French S3 body armour is likely the best example of this era of overly bulky fragmentation vest with added plates.
The mid to late 2000s marked a shift toward lighter, lower profile systems, driven by the experience from the Global War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US. military introduced plate carriers such as the Modular Body Armor Vest (MBAV), Soldier Plate Carrier System (SPCS), and Scalable Plate Carrier (SPC). These systems prioritized hard armour plates while reducing overall weight and improving comfort and range of motion.
While these carriers enhanced mobility for dismounted operations, especially in a counterinsurgency settings, they came at the cost of significantly reduced soft armour coverage compared to the legacy IOTV. The IOTV provided extensive fragmentation protection across the torso, sides, and stomach whereas plate carriers like the MBAV or SPCS often limited coverage to vital organs, relying primarily on hard plates for frontal, rear and side threats.
This trade-off was acceptable in low intensity conflicts against adversaries who possessed limited indirect fire capabilities. However, this becomes far more problematic in high intensity, peer or near peer warfare, where indirect fire, landmines and drones carrying explosive fragmentation warheads dominate the battlefield as demonstrated in Ukraine.
From 2014–2016 and especially since the full-scale invasion of 2022, mortars, heavy artillery, landmines and drones inflict the overwhelming majority of casualties. Data from Russian military medical analyses in 2024 indicated that 79% of their casualties were caused by fragmentation means. These figures underscore a critical design principle: body armour systems must be scalable. In permissive environments and training, soldiers benefit from minimalist plate carriers that preserve mobility. But when the threat shifts to high-intensity warfare, you must be able to rapidly augment coverage while retaining the same core by simply adding protection modules.
Contemporary body armour systems serve a dual purpose: not only do they protect the wearer from ballistic threats to reduce casualty rates, but they have evolved into the primary load bearing equipment (LBE) for the modern infantryman. Ammunition, communications gear, medical supplies, hydration, and many other items are now attached directly to the plate carrier via webbing or pouches, or carried on a battle belt around the hips. This integration makes the armour system the central “frame” for distributing combat load.
For this reason, armour design must treat LBE functionality as a core requirement from the start. Poor load distribution increases fatigue, restricts movement, and greatly worsens the ergonomic downsides of the body armour. Optimizing weight and pressure points becomes essential to sustaining combat effectiveness over extended periods especially with heavy loads.
A notable evolution in this domain is the rise of “harness” or “corset” plate carriers, often referred to as AVS-style systems, from Crye Precision’s Adaptive Vest System (AVS). After limited adoption in Western forces over the past decade, these designs have seen widespread use on both sides of the Ukraine conflict since 2022. Their defining feature is a structured harness that attaches to the rear plate bag, wraps around the torso, and connects to the front plate bag in a manner similar to a cummerbund but attaching itself to the sides of the frontal platebags rather than on its surface. This configuration spreads the weight, across a much larger surface area across the chest, significantly reducing localized pressure on the shoulders and eliminating direct load on the spine. By offloading pressure from the spine and shoulder, these harness systems make heavier configurations far more tolerable for long patrols or for deployments to static positions.
Soft armour protection
When evaluating soft armour in body armour systems, surface area coverage is not the only part of the equation. The level of protection provided by the inserts is equally as important.
A common misconception is that any pistol-rated soft armour will adequately stop battlefield fragments as these are smaller and much faster than the slow moving and relatively heavy pistol rounds against which these inserts are tested. Fragmentation protection is quantified through V50 testing, which determines the velocity at which a standardized projectile has a 50% chance of being stopped by the armour. Western standards typically use a 17-grain (1.1 g) .22-caliber Fragment Simulating Projectile (FSP), while Russian approaches often employ a 6.3 mm steel sphere weighting 1,01g.
A Russian study from the early 2000s (using their standardized sphere test) found that a V50 of 550 m/s stops approximately 48% of “average natural fragments” encountered on the battlefield, while 600 m/s achieves around 80%. These thresholds remain relevant today, though the constant evolution of threats and their lethality complicate the picture and will bring those percentages down
Improved fragmentation warheads designs and explosives produce faster and more aerodynamically optimized fragments via the used of preformed fragmentation which produce more reliable fragmentation effects, only making fragments of the desired size, retaining their velocity and thus energy over greater distance thanks to their more aerodynamic shapes which in turn enhance their penetration capabilities.
We can use the example of 2 hand grenades rated to defeat soft armour. The RUAG HG 85 with its pre notched steel liner producing about 2,000 fragments capable to defeat the CRISAT target at 5 meters. The CRISAT target is composed of 20 layers of aramid and 1,6mm of titanium, created to be an equivalent to the 6B2 soviet fragmentation vest and is often used as an “armoured infantry” target threshold.
The second example being the Rheinmetall Hgr06 grenade in their 3 variants which all demonstrate reliable soft armour defeating capability, overcoming NIJ 3a rated aramid inserts at 2m with enough energy to defeat a 2mm aluminium witness plate.
Those 2 grenades are not particularly unique nor made specially to defeat soft armour , the vast majority of modern grenades use similar designs which are meant to enhance the fragmentation effect in general. Larger ordnance using heavier fragments like the Claymore or OZM-72 anti-personnel mines are a real threat for the armoured infantryman with older soft armour inserts as their penetration capabilities are formidable inside their radius of effect.
There are currently two main materials that make up todays soft armor:
- Aramid, often called Kevlar or Twaron depending on the manufacture, is the mainstay of soft armour since the 1980s, offering excellent flexibility, and great protection compared to older fabrics. These days it is however showing its limitations compared to newer compositions.
- Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene, also known as UHMWPE , has become increasingly dominant in the past 15 years, replacing aramid in many roles such as soft armour and helmets. UHMWPE delivers superior ballistic efficiency, providing far greater V50 values than aramid based protective inserts at the same weight. The main trade-off is the greater rigidity of the insert, which can reduce comfort and ergonomics, especially in full-torso wrap around style coverage as is still widespread today like on the IOTV or French SMB.
The Russian company Ballistika offers soft armour inserts in both Aramid and UHMWPE and provides the V50 testing results for both of them with UHMWPE showing better results in testing compared to Aramid while having a lower weight.
We can see in that table that the aramid inserts need to be about 60% heavier than the UHMWPE equivalent to offer the same fragmentation protection. Using aramid makes little sense if you plan to design an armour vest, but the UHMWPE’s rigidity can be a concern and forces designs to step away from big soft armour inserts covering large section of the body, like first generations of IOTV and instead move towards a more sectioned design to reduce the impact of the inserts increased rigidity.
Hard armour plates:
Hard armour inserts, rigid plates inserted into plate carriers, are divided into three main families: steel, UHMWPE and ceramic composites. Each offers distinct trade-offs in weight, protection, multi-hit capability, and cost.
First of all steel plates should be avoided in modern designs. The primary drawback to steel plates is their extreme weight inefficiency as they are often two to three times heavier than plates with similar protection made from either UHMWPE or ceramic composites.
Plates made solely of UHMWPE excel in weight efficiency against soft core or mild steel core projectiles. Standalone designs like the Integris Multi-Light CXP-913 SA achieve protection against 7.62×51 M80 Ball and 5.45×39 7N6 at a remarkably low weight of around 1.1-1.2 kg for a 25×30 cm plate.
Their major limitation is vulnerability to “armour piercing” projectiles, even at extended ranges. Modern infantry threats increasingly feature hardened steel or tungsten cores: NATO standardized the 5.56×45 SS109/M855 using a hard steel tip decades ago; Russia upgraded their 5.45×39 to 7N6M/7N10 with full hard steel penetrators; and the US adopted the M855A1 and M80A1 EPR (enhanced performance round) with improved penetration. As armour piercing capability proliferates in peer/near-peer conflicts, pure UHMWPE plates lose effectiveness, shifting emphasis to the third category: ceramic plates.
Ceramic composite plates build on UHMWPE’s strengths by pairing a hard ceramic strike face with a UHMWPE backing. The ceramic degrades the projectiles core, while the backing layer absorbs any residual energy, enabling it to defeat armour piercing threats at the cost of increased weight and thickness compared to pure UHMWPE plates. Ceramic plates are the standard of well-funded militaries worldwide.
The name “Ceramic plate” is however a broad shorthand that covers all armour plates that make use of it even though they can vary greatly in the materials used and the plates overall design.
Ceramic plates cluster into four approximate protection tiers (lightest to heaviest), reflecting evolving battlefield threats:
- The lightest are the ones rated for non AP rounds, be it intermediate or full power; like the American SAPI plate capable of stopping 7,62×51 M80 lead core, 7,62x54R LPS mild steel core, 5,56×45 M855 and other projectiles using a pretty small steel tip. This kind of plate tends to be light at around 1,5-2kg. They do however struggle against larger and harder steel cores such as the 5,56×45 M855A1.
- Slightly heavier than the previous are the plates rated for steel core AP intermediate rifle rounds , like the American ISAPI standard which stops projectiles like 7,62×39 API , 5,45×39 7N10/7N22 AP , 5,56×45 M855A1. These plates are usually a few hundred grams heavier than SAPI style plates but they do cover a larger spectrum of threats on the modern battlefield.
- The most common type of plates nowadays are those capable of defeating full calibre armour piercing rifle rounds like the American ESAPI which is rated for full power rifle rounds like 30-06 M2 AP , 7,62x54R API and 7,62×51 P80. They are also often able to withstand tungsten cored intermediate rifle round such as 5,56×45 M995 or 5,45×39 7N24 but are not capable of defeating full power rifle rounds using tungsten cores. The standard weight for quality plate of this category is about 2,5kg.
- The heaviest, thickest and rarest of the 4 are the analogues to the American XSAPI plate, rated to withstand even the full power rifle AP rounds using tungsten cored projectile such as the 7,62×51 M993 or the 7,62x54R 7N37.
SAPI-level protection is increasingly inadequate in peer and near-peer conflicts as the ability to defeat it proliferates. Adding the weight needed to reach at least ISAPI or ESAPI equivalent protection covers far more realistic dangers, while tungsten full-power rifle rounds remain relatively rare and may not justify the extra burden for most soldiers to move to XSAPI just yet.
Beyond material and rating, construction design of the ceramic strike face greatly influences performance.
Two primary approaches exist:
- The tile array: Assembled from numerous small ceramic elements (usually hexagon or squares) glued to the backer and formed into a strikeface. This localizes damage as cracks stay confined to individual tiles which yields greater multi-hit protection with some examples showing the ability to withstand eight to 10+ full-power steel core AP rounds without penetration. The main drawback is that the tile interfaces create potential weak zones at their edges. To compensate for this, the tiles need be thicker which increases the overall weight of the plate compared to a monolithic designs of similar protection level.
- The monolithic strike face: A single continuous ceramic piece glued to a backer. Weak zones are limited to edges of the plate which is hardly an issue in practice. It provides lower weight/thickness compared to tile based plates for equivalent single-hit performance. The primary downside is that impact damage spreads over a far wider area, reducing the multi-hit durability of the plate.
It should be pointed that the multi-hit capabilities of the tile array layout can look wonderful in theory, being able to stop a full burst from a PK machine gun in your plate is a compelling idea but in practice the body armour plates only cover just a bit more than 10% of the average human silhouette. It’s pretty far fetched to expect your plate to stop a full burst of machine gun fire while not getting mortally wounded from any projectiles that miss the plate outright. Another point is that monolithic plates while being more prone to damage still have some multi-hit capability, especially against lighter rounds like 5,56×45 but this will dependent on the manufacturer like using high quality adhesive and laminating to the strike in order to help hold all the piece together after severe damage.
Plate bags:
The most important aspect in the design of a body armour system which will impact every single metric will be its cut, also referred to as its shape. In particular the shape of the front and rear pockets meant to hold the armour inserts. The size of those panels will greatly impact the comfort and ergonomics of the user like torso mobility and arms movement. Most armour vests in military use combine a hard plate with a soft armour backing layer that extends beyond the area covered by the hard plate.
The increased coverage of larger soft armour inserts does however come with several downsides. Chief among these is a reduction to the ergonomics of the vest as the insert interferes with a soldiers arms and torso mobility. On top of the reduction to ergonomics, this wrap around style of soft armour insert also reduces airflow inside the vest resulting in heat getting trapped on the inside.
The problems can be prevented while retaining a large soft armour coverage by choosing another philosophy of design, moving from a 2 large insert to a multitude of modular smaller inserts with more care given to the “protection to comfort loss” trade-offs.
Before we continue, we will need to go on a small tangent to provide some additional context. The majority of army issued plates are rated as « ICW » (in conjunction with), meaning they require the use of a soft armour backer in order to pass certification. In almost all cases the backer will be used solely to reduce the Back Face Deformation (BFD) endured by the wearer when struck.
As armour plates began to enter military service, they were often installed on top of existing soft armour vests or on designs that closely mimicked these older vests. The plates in these vests could thus be made lighter as the soft armour layer behind them would take up the slack in reducing the BFD.
Nowadays in many plate carriers we’re using platebags with soft armour inserts that do not extend beyond the size of the plate itself but are still forced to be there so that the hard armour plate can achieve its rated protection level. While somewhat effective, this method is far from ideal as these days there are better methods for reducing BFD than soft armour inserts and which would reduce the overall weight of the armour system by 0,6-1kg.
These include using a series of pads providing some cushioning between the thorax and the plate which will, the same way it does with helmets, diminishes the BFD endured by user while being These include using a series of pads providing some cushioning between the thorax and the plate which will, the same way it does with helmets, diminishes the BFD endured by user while being more weight efficient and also increasing the heat dissipation especially with the new type of padding using 3D lattice offering increased air flow compared to legacy pads.
We should require maximum BFD rating not out of armour inserts alone but out of whole system which would would permit a more accurate use of the body armour plates and a better application of padding solution to save weight on the wearer.
With this little tangent being concluded, we can now go back to the shape of the platebag. These days many manufacturer produce body armour with platebags that are slightly bigger than the plates that are meant to be placed in them. This offers additional protection with a smaller hit to the ergonomics of the vest compared to legacy system but as was just covered, all the soft armour sitting behind the plate is deadweight. It being only being there to reduce the backface deformation of the hard plate. For this reason, soft armour inserts should not go beyond the edge of the actual hard plate.
As an example, the A-25 Astartes from ARS Arma demonstrates this principle quite well. I replicated the dimension of a medium size Granit 5a plate on the medium size platebag.
Here are poorly coloured 4 distinct areas of coverage offer by the A-25 platebag over the coverage given by the plate. The issue is that most of this area can be easily covered by additional protection modules instead of increasing the bulk of the core of the system.
- The green area is already covered by the side armour offered by the cummerbund
- The bright blue area can be easily protected by collar and neck protection
- The yellow area can be covered by an additional groin protection panel
In the end, only the dark blue area offers “unique” coverage that necessitated a larger platebag to achieve, while bringing with it a lot of deadweight. In the case of the A-25 vest from ARS Arma, the platebags remains relatively rectangular as it does not expend much on the side which is something that is extremely common to this day, as seen on the Polish Rock 3.0 from maskpol which uses large platebags meant to wrap around the user torso.
This increases the size of the platebag and the coverage it provides but a similar result can be achieved by the side flaps of the vest, could have been achieved through the use of an armoured cummerbund. This is why I believe the platebags of a modern armour system should be limited in size at the hard body armour plate, and should trade the soft armour backer against well designed padding to fit the deformation limitation role while increasing comfort of user.
The Cummerbund:
Cummerbunds are the side segments connecting the front and rear plate bags. They play a dual role in modern plate carriers: providing structural support and, in most designs, delivering ballistic protection trough soft armour inserts, hard side plates, or a combination of both.
Traditional cummerbunds are simple rectangular panels, usually about 15×25 cm, but this can vary from user to user depending on their body shape. They are a good place to start when looking for places in which the addition of soft armour can make a difference. Some Russian companies such as Ars Arma or Triada TKO saw an opportunity to increase the height of their cummerbund to roughly 18cm which offers about 20% more coverage with little to no impact on the wearers comfort. There are also other more complex approaches to increase the coverage of the cummerbund. An example of this is what L4 Performance does on their side armour protection module which couples the height increase and adding a “bump” at an extremity and gives the possibility to orient this protrusion either on the rear or the front of the cummerbund, depending on the wearer preferences.
The rigidity of the Cummerbund is often viewed as a positive trait, enhancing overall carrier stability when heavily loaded with pouches, ammo, or comms gear and so on. This makes UHMWPE soft armour inserts particularly advantageous in this application as their inherent rigidity improves load distribution and prevents sagging, while allowing for the use of thicker panels for increased fragmentation resistance without a large increase in weight.
Hard armor plates meanwhile should not be seen a standard for cummerbunds but rather as an up-armouring option for specific threat environments. Adding the commonly used 15×15 cm side plate, especially over soft armour, dramatically increases bulk and restricts lateral movement, while the actual coverage gain remains modest. Hard side plates make sense in theatres where small arms fire dominates, like intervention units practicing a lot of close quarter combat or asymmetric conflicts with high direct-fire threats, but in peer/near-peer scenarios dominated by fragmentation threats, the weight and ergonomic cost often outweighs the benefit.
An emerging alternative to traditional cummerbund soft armour inserts is incorporating protection directly into the harness structure as seen in advanced Russian designs like the MRS series from Triada-TKO or similar “Strike” carriers from SPOSN. By shaping the harness straps to include soft armour panels on the torso sides and under the shoulder straps, these systems can provide some collar and side coverage without separate cummerbund pouches. A key design rule is to avoid armouring the entire harness or parts of it that sit directly behind the rear plate bag where these become deadweight. Armor should be limited to the exposed side torso and shoulder-adjacent areas for meaningful gains with minimal comfort loss.
An emerging trend in ballistic technology offers a compelling alternative for scaling side protection without the bulk of traditional hard plates: flexible rifle-rated armour inserts. French manufacturer Pangolin Défense leads in this space with their “FLEX” series of bendable panels that deliver protection levels comparable to rigid hard plates with 3 different offering of protection level : SS109 , 7,62×39 API and 30-06 M2AP while maintaining significant flexibility. These inserts achieve a rifle defeating capability in a conformable form factor. They flex and drape to body contours in a similar manner as soft armour but they are much more bulky and stiff compared to traditional soft armour.
In my assessment, this technology holds strong potential for upgrading lateral protection in modular carriers. Rather than bolting small 15×15 cm hard side plates atop existing soft armour, users could replace standard cummerbund soft armour inserts with these flexible rifle rated panels resulting in full side torso coverage against rifle threats, with better anatomical fit and increased protection coverage compared to partial hard plate overlap.
A rough weight estimates based on Pangolin’s published specifications for comparable protection level assumes that a 15×30 cm flexible insert rated for 7.62×39 API would weigh approximately 1.5-1.6 kg per side. This represents a noticeable weight increase over pure soft armour but it delivers a formidable rifle level side protection while maintaining a slightly lower bulk than a soft-hard plate combo.
The heart of an effective modern body armour system extends beyond the plate carrier alone it encompasses the conjunction of the carrier and a dedicated battle belt. The belt is essential for load-bearing capability, enabling users to shift as much weight as possible downward to the hips, the body’s most stable load-bearing structure, rather than overloading the shoulders and spine.
The belt:
In well-funded militaries today, battle belts routinely incorporate ballistic protection via soft armour inserts matching the vest’s fragmentation level. Rigidity here is advantageous for stability under heavy loads, making UHMWPE inserts particularly favourable over aramid as their stiffness enhances load distribution without the introduction of excessive bulk.
This integration becomes even more critical with harness-style plate carriers. A key advantage of these designs is the ability to link the harness directly to the belt using rigid attachments like Crye Precision’s “Structural Kinetic Support System” or in short “StKSS” and its copies. The StKSS transfers vest weight from the users shoulders and spine to their hips, dramatically reducing back strain and fatigue during prolonged use, especially with heavy loads.
While reducing the strain from heavier loads, StKSS can decrease the user’s torso mobility and overall comfort in odd position or when laying down. For its many upsides it’s not a perfect system and some prefer to it the classic suspenders to support their battle belts.
Scalability and Up-Armouring:
A defining strength of contemporary body armour lies in its adaptability and scalability. In training or low-threat environments, soldiers can carry only the core system to preserve mobility, endurance and reduce the stress on their joints. When deployed in higher-risk theatre’s, rapid upgrades add protective coverage to reduce casualty rates, accepting increased bulk and strain as necessary trade-offs. Enhancements come via optional protection modules that attach to the base system without permanent integration.
A critical principle many manufacturers overlook is that overlapping armour components create excessive bulk while wasting weight on redundant layers like placing soft armour behind other ballistic inserts. Casualties are statistical, hits result from probabilistic fragment/small-arms distribution, not deliberate weak point targeting which means in turn that gaps in the armour (like those between the plate bag and the battle belt) are not inherently lethal like in a medieval plate armoured duel. Overlaps almost never justify the ergonomic cost. Instead, optimization comes by maximizing quality coverage with minimal impact on physical capacity, comfort, and fighting effectiveness.
Up armouring modules:
The first additional element that should be worn in my opinion will be a soft armour flap attached right to the bottom of the front platebag, covering the stomach and groin area which gives name the name it’s more often refereed at: the groin protector.
It might sound extremely straightforward design wise but we actually can get some more deeper design choices especially about the shape of the said protector. There are currently 2 main categories, the monolithic and the segmented groin protectors. The monolithic ones are very simple, the only parameter to take into account being the shape and length as you need to cover as much area as possible with the least amount of impact to comfort and ergonomic as possible. The majority of the groin protectors uses a shape that sits between a triangle and a hard armour plate, wider on the abdomen and narrower at the bottom in order to reduce the drag on the user.
Since the invasion of Ukraine began in 2022 the Russians have adopted the segmented groin protector at large scale, a design choice which reduces the impact such protection has on a user’s mobility while offering the same area of protection as its monolithic counterpart. Usually such protectors are made up of three parts, a larger central insert and 2 smaller pieces to either side, which are able to move front and back more or less independently from the centre section. This means that the users legs will only interact with the lighter side pieces of the protector.
Another area which can greatly benefit from additional protection when the threat of fragmentation weapons rises are the collar and neck. While being a relatively small portion of the human body, injuries in this area are often lethal. But this is in my opinion the most challenging area to armour, as the comfort of both shoulders and neck will quickly deteriorate with bulky designs which causes soldiers to simply not use them at all. These addons must protect but also have to remain low profile and not get in the way of the user. One of the simplest and less bulky options to increase the protection of the collar is through the use of armoured shoulder pads as was done on the CIRAS up armour kit or like those in Crye Precision’s Modular Trap Armor set. As for the neck itself, the goal is to reduce head mobility as little as possible which can be done by placing the actual armour further away from the neck.
Some design of collar protection can also be used to increase the back soft armour coverage as is done by the MRS 2.0 collar and neck protection module.
The use of a flap similar to groin protection but attached to the rear of your belt, covering your buttocks and the back of your thighs can be of great effect while causing very minimal discomfort. This is something that is regularly seen in Ukraine as at the same time it acts as a sitting mat.
To finish the section on the main up armouring modules we’ll talk about the shoulder protection, in the form of soft armour panel wrapped around the biceps, often attached to the shoulder straps of the plate carrier. These will help protect the upper arm but also help cover the arm pit at the same time. This offers reliable protection against fragmentation for most of your rib cage but also comes with downsides. The added weight on the biceps increases the strain upon the arms and shoulders, while lowering the arms mobility and getting in the way of shouldering weapons, clearly impacting the war fighting performances of the wearer. This is why they tend to be rarely employed as many see the added protection as not being worth the trouble.
This article was not meant to provide a definitive answer to what modern body armour system should be, but it is instead meant to cover design elements that are proven to work and which need to be taken into consideration when designing new systems. The article covers a lot of Russian designs solely because they are ahead in the design and mass fielding of body armour systems that are optimized for high intensity peer and near-pear conflicts. However this does not mean that the average Russian soldier is better equipped than their NATO counterparts as large portions of the RUAF still rely on crude and antiquated body armour designs. The problem does however remain that Russian troops are receiving an ever increasing amount of these designs while NATO is fielding “new generation body armour systems” that are design wise 10 to 15 years behind the current state of body armour designs.