Ceramic Armor Performance Matters
Performance matters.
Sometimes on the weekends, I have the chance to read blog posts about what the "other guys" are doing. It makes me smile because we each have our own take in the armor world about what's important and what the customer "needs" to hear. We focus on transparency and performance... the other guys chant the same old mantra and keep their complete test reports a secret. Why are they doing that?
For one armor manufacturer in particular, it's all about "100% Made in the USA" but they never really talk about their performance outside of a ballistics test report showing a couple of .30 M2AP stops. Where are the multi-hit performance tests to failure?
I recently read a blog post where this manufacturer was chastising other companies for "importing their strike faces." At the same time, their social media posts showed numerous rolls of PE material that is not "100% USA" because the polyethylene fiber is imported from China.
Adhesives are arguably one of the most important elements of an armor system... yet, these same companies use imported adhesive sheets (while criticizing foreign strike faces). This entire argument is ridiculous - let me tell you why. The focus of the discussion should be about performance. Why doesn't anyone seem to want to talk about that?
Even US manufacturers of ceramic admit that higher quality ceramic is available outside of the USA. There is no company in the USA that can compete with the quality of Italian aluminum oxide Bitossi ceramic strike faces, period. No other US company can produce aluminum oxide monolithics at the 99.7% purity level in so many shapes, sizes and thicknesses. There are select Chinese sources for highly technical ceramics that well exceed the 90%-95% aluminum oxide monolithics produced in the USA. So, the question has to be for the armor manufacturer... do we offer inferior domestic components or seek performance... no matter where the search leads us? I vote for the latter because at the potential "end of the day" stopping projectiles is what really matters.
US sources for ceramic strike faces exist... but they are rare at high aluminum oxide purity levels and are non-existent for powder pressed 2" greens, kiln produced into product exceeding 99%. There simply isn't a US source that does their manufacturing this way (most domestic manufacturing involves injected ceramics). As a result, even if there was a source, the price would be 400% higher for the same product.
Performance matters because performance is everything if you're being shot at. Focusing on performance means having all sorts of tools in your armor building toolbox. You will have polyethylene from the USA, China and Italy because the varying properties and resins can be combined to achieve the performance that you want at affordable price points. You will have strike faces from the USA, Italy and China direct from sources with high purity levels, offering redundancy in armor design. You will have adhesives that can be altered to match the different ballistic energy between materials and between ceramic tile shapes and sizes. Performance is not a slogan or a blind commitment... it's an active process, engineering and craftsmanship.
It is a business strategy to claim foreign sources are junk. Of course, you can find substandard materials anywhere, including from the USA. Dealing with reputable firms, applying rigorous standards and third-party accredited lab testing dispels the myth that the USA has the only sources of quality materials. This is proven on a prima facia level through the provision of our ballistic testing reports. We just keep beating the other guys. Our armor is a culmination of materials procurement from the world's best sources of high-quality materials. Our test reports make the strength of our products obvious.
Armor manufacturers that want to fall on this sword - claiming that their armor is the strongest around (while failing FIT tests) should wake up and stop misleading the public. For proof, ask them to post every single one of their NIJ-certified lab results to see how many projectiles are really being stopped. Is it 1 or 2 .30 caliber M2AP rounds for their RF3 plates? That's minimal performance... and certainly not the world's strongest.
Focus on performance because performance is everything.