US Army Officials Continue to Trap Themselves In a Web of Deceit

By Nathaniel R. Helms

The United States Army claims it has not mounted a campaign to make soldiers shed their clearly superior Dragon Skin body armor in favor of the Army’s inferior Interceptor OTV. Over the last seven months Army officials have alternately claimed and denied that they know all about the capabilities of Dragon Skin, including Army spokesman Paul Boyce telling the Washington Post it would like to get hold of Pinnacle Armor Co.’s Dragon Skin body armor to evaluate ...

Continue Reading →

Is the Procurement System Actually Working AGAINST the Troops?

By Paul Connors

Recently, DefenseWatch Editor-in-Chief Nat Helms beat the mainstream press to the punch and broke a story regarding the complete breakdown in the DoD procurement system when he released the first in a series of articles concerning defective Interceptor body armor. In a multi-part series, Helms trumped the NY Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and other major print and broadcast news outlets in his reportage of the irregularities in the awarding of government contracts, the quality issues ...

Continue Reading →

Pentagon Bean Counters Just Don’t Get It

By Roger Charles

When the post-mortem on our current military venture in Iraq is finally written, and if an honest analysis is allowed, the failure of the United States to provide decent, best-available body armor to our fighters will be acknowledged as the worst equipment failure of all.

And, again assuming an honest report, the stupendous investigative work and writings of Defense Watch’s own editor, Nat Helms, will be highlighted as the benchmark on this topic. Without meaning to embarrass Nat (too ...

Continue Reading →

Interceptor OTV Body Armor Cost Lives, An Internal USMC Reports Shows

The Interceptor Outer Tactical Vest was designed for use with SAPI plates and replaces the Personnel Armor System, Ground Troop Flak vest, more commonly known as the flak vest.

The “Marine Lethal Torso Injuries: Preliminary Findings 8/29/2005” was reportedly made to identify current weaknesses in the product, which was designed and fielded in the nearly billion-dollar joint US Army-USMC Interceptor program that created the controversial body armor.

Critics of the Interceptor body armor system complain it is bulky, poorly made, ...

Continue Reading →

Point Blank Body Armor and Dragon Skin…Conclusion

By Nathaniel R. Helms

US Marine Corps Major General Smedley Darlington Butler received two Medals of Honor for incredible bravery and the title of world-class hypocrite because he dared call war and the trapping of war “a racket.”

 

In the case at hand the product is body armor and the stakes are millions of dollars in Defense Department contracts. To get at it three huge players and a pack of yapping wannabes resorted to slick public relations efforts, retired generals masquerading as ...

Continue Reading →

Point Blank Body Armor and Dragon Skin II

By Nathaniel R. Helms

At the time of this report, despite repeated inquiries, the Department of Defense and the US Army had not commented on this report.

So-called “SAPI” plates do not provide complete protection from sniper bullets because of gaps in coverage around the torso.

Two weeks ago the Armed Forces Network (AFN) radio in Iraq reported enemy snipers are now shooting their intended Coalition victims between the so-called hard armor SAPI (Small Arms Protection Inserts) plates attached to the Interceptor OTV ...

Continue Reading →

Point Blank Body Armor and Dragon Skin

by Nathanial R. Helms

A complete suit of Dragon Skin armor, at more than $5,000 per copy, currently costs about five times as much as Interceptor OTV body armor being issued to the troops. Inceptor armor is primarily produced by two giant companies, Armor Holdings Corporation, the current darling of the Defense Department that has more government contracts than a junk yard dog has fleas, and Point Blank Body Armor, the flagship company of DHB Industries that is currently in the ...

Continue Reading →

PowerPoint – From 1998 “Defending America”

by Peter J. Nebergall, PhD
Note: PowerPoint Presentations still in the news as mentioned in the New York Times recent post.

In 1961, disgusted by the verbal excesses of his fellows, anthropologist Elman Service penned “Models in the Methodology of Mouthtalk.” In this paper, he railed against “conspicuous conceptualization,” his term for pompous presentation designed to impress and bamboozle, at the expense of explanation. He was right, but now we have PowerPoint.

MicroSoft PowerPoint, like its sister Corel Presentations, is just a tool, a ...

Continue Reading →
Page 46 of 46 «...2030404243444546