Collection: Firefight Armor Series

Our Firefight Armor Series is designed to include armor with redundant design for added safety and performance.  Firefight plates include Model 1948, Model 6001, and Model 6001 SRT.

How is it different?

Firefight plates are made just like typical ceramic armor.  Typical ceramic plates become vulnerable after the ceramic is destroyed because the rest of the plate components are not strong enough to resist incoming shots on their own.  In our Firefight armor, the Ultra-High-Molecular-Weight-Polyethylene (PE) backer is more robust.  It can offer protection independently to certain projectiles, especially when they are disrupted by impacted or compacted ceramic fragments.

Figure 1: The robust Firefight PE plate backing

This design makes for a lighter, somewhat thicker armor - but results in more performance, dependability and safety against a burst of shots.

We designed the Firefight line to directly assist in mitigating ceramic vulnerabilities that are associated with the damaged ceramic strike face.

The most common rifle threats are from 5.56 and .223. M855 green tips are a real threat and any of these rounds can break even the strongest ceramic armor strike face.  Once this ceramic is damaged, the armor becomes vulnerable to follow-on shots.

Let's look at a couple of scenarios highlighting the Firefight armor design. Keep in mind that these scenarios are for explanation purposes only.  Real events may not have successful outcomes.

Scenario 1: A police officer is wearing a Model 6001SRT, 6001 or 1948 armor plate and is hit with M855 several times.  The shots land within 2" of each other.  Even though the ceramic was damaged in that area, the remaining ceramic and enhanced backer prevented penetration of the armor plate.

In Scenario 1, the use of any "normal" ceramic armor plate without a backer designed to independently defeat 5.56 and .223 projectiles becomes vulnerable as soon as the ceramic strike face is damaged.

Scenario 2: A security officer is wearing a super thin ceramic, special rifle threat plate from another manufacturer.  He is hit with a .357 Magnum twice and the second projectile penetrates the armor (after shot one damages the strike face).  The backing plate of the armor plate was not sufficient to resist standalone ballistic threats - even at a much lower protection category than the armor is rated for.

A possible solution in this case would be to select an armor model in our Firefight line of plates.