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Conway: Better helmet is top priority

Researchers inside and outside the military are developing a new generation of ballistic helmets in hopes of achieving that gold standard for combat headgear — stopping a 7.62mm round.

More specifically, a 7.62x39mm round, the most popular ammunition for the most popular assault rifle in the world, the AK47. Designed in 1947 by Mikhail Kalashnikov, the AK47 was the Cold War weapon of choice for the Soviet Union and its allies, who found it inexpensive, easy to copy and extremely effective. As a result, if Marines and sailors are taking machine-gun fire, it’s probably an AK47 spitting “seven-six-two.”

Instead of using current ballistic fibers — widely referred to as a group by the name of the most popular brand, DuPont’s Kevlar — the new helmets would likely use a hybrid technology similar to hard plastic. This stronger, lighter material would allow ballistic experts to make a helmet that offers more protection without adding significant weight.

Many skeptics say the requirement is pointless — even if the bullet doesn’t penetrate the helmet, the sheer force would likely break a Marine’s neck and be just as fatal as an open wound. And that may be true in some cases.

But experts say new technologies could help mitigate, or somehow distribute, the blunt-force impact.

The new helmets may be costly, potentially twice as much as those currently in use, but improving headgear protection has become a top priority for many senior military leaders.

“If someone can demonstrate that a helmet can stop 7.62 at a 90-degree angle, we want that helmet,” Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway said during a December interview at his Pentagon office. “That continues to be sort of my No. 1 research and development — and ultimately, procurement — effort.”

The science of safety

Industry experts say they are close. Prototypes of new helmets may be in the hands of senior-level Marines and soldiers later this year. And while fielding the helmet may be a long way off, the technology involved marks a significant leap forward for ballistic equipment.

Kevlar-style helmets potentially could stop a 7.62mm round, but they would have to be thicker and heavier. Only with a new material can scientists reasonably expect to develop a helmet strong enough to stop the bullet, yet light enough to match the current helmet’s weight of slightly more than 3 pounds, experts said.

“Kevlar has reached the max of its capability; they’re going to have to find a new technology,” said Dr. Robert Meaders, founder of Operation Helmet, a nonprofit group that advocates better headgear for troops in combat.

Current helmets are designed to a standard that will stop a 9mm round from a handgun. Some Marines have reported examples when the current helmet deflected a 7.62mm round, but it is more likely that these rounds were already weakened or only hit the helmet at an angle, with a reduced impact. Virtually all scientific ballistics tests on the current helmets show that the shell sustains a catastrophic penetration when struck by a 7.62mm round at close range from a 90-degree angle.

To make a helmet strong enough to stop a 7.62mm round using the current technology, the weight of the helmet would likely have to double to more than 6 pounds. It is a weight that most find unacceptable for use in typical military settings, experts said.

For scientists, the need to “stop a 7.62 round” is a fuzzy goal. Different rifles can affect the power of a single shot. The material used in the bullet’s core and the jacket dictate its strength. And 7.62mm rounds vary in velocity, and therefore vary in their force of impact.

Military officials and helmet manufacturers working on the problem declined to discuss the precise level of protection they are seeking, but officials have provided classified specifications to private-sector experts working on the project, which include ballistic standards and a blunt-impact test requirement.

“Obviously, there is a spec out there,” said Pennington Way, a spokesman for BAE Systems, one of the world’s largest defense contractors.

BAE Systems is working on a new helmet design and is “very optimistic” that it will have a prototype for senior military officials to examine by the end of this year, Way said.

Gentex, which manufactures the current Lightweight Helmet used by the Corps and sailors serving with them, is also hoping to make the next new helmet. The Pennsylvania-based company has a team of 10 engineers working on a prototype and hopes to have a final product for consideration within a year.

“There is a lot more science applied today than there ever was historically” to helmet technology, Gentex Director of Engineering Jared Strait said.

Unlike the current helmets, which use layers of high-strength ballistic fabrics in rigid plastics for the shell, the next generation of helmets will likely apply even higher strength thermoplastic fibers in slightly less rigid, or ductile, plastic, defense companies say.

Among the drawbacks to the new material is that it is not as stiff as the Kevlar-type material. Safety tests on the new material show that live rounds can cause more of an indent on the shell’s inner surface, which could potentially cause head injuries.

“As you change materials, you change properties, and you need to understand the implications of that,” Strait said.

Limiting the round’s effect on the helmet’s inside — known as “back-face deformation” — can be done, probably using what engineers refer to as a “frame stiffener,” but it adds to the many challenges to developing the new helmet.

DuPont, which invented Kevlar in 1965, is aware of the military’s goal of a helmet strong enough to stop a 7.62mm round. It is working on developing new materials to meet such a standard, including one known as an M5 fiber, but officials there declined to discuss the details, a company spokeswoman said.

Paying for protection

Whatever product the Corps ultimately chooses, it likely will be pricey. The Lightweight Helmet has a retail cost from $400 to $500; a new helmet would be twice that much.

“Cost is obviously an issue,” Way said. “The military needs to be able to field a solution that they can afford to put on a large majority of their war fighters.”

That’s not just the cost of the materials. That also includes the cost of production. If existing helmet-making equipment can be used, that keeps costs low. But if the new technology requires an entirely new production process — and new manufacturing devices — that would dramatically add to the cost and time involved in getting hundreds of thousands of helmets into the field.

“The roadblock is finding a process that is economical and fast to produce,” said Francisco Folgar, president of Inter Materials, a Richmond, Va.-based company that has a contract with the Army to develop a prototype helmet.

Whether troops in combat have the best protective equipment has been a controversial question in recent years. Last year, members of Congress called for additional tests on body armor after critics suggested that the Army was not using the best armor on the market. Specifically, some experts said that Pinnacle Armor’s Dragon Skin body armor was safer than the Interceptor in use at the time. Since then, the Army and Marine Corps have begun transitioning to new body armor systems.

One armor expert said the same criticism can be made for helmets.

“Based on what we have heard in Congress, you can do better than the body armor that the soldier and Marines have today. No doubt you could build a better helmet also,” said Phil Coyle, former assistant secretary of defense and director of operational test and evaluation at the Pentagon from 1994 to 2001.

More than bullets

For years, ballistics tests were the primary method of research for combat helmets. In Iraq and Afghanistan, however, troops face the widespread threat of improvised explosive devices, leading experts to examine nonballistic performance, such as the effects of compression blasts and other blunt-force impacts.

“We are looking at the whole helmet, not just ballistics,” said Russ Suchy, director of military sales for MSA North America, a Pittsburgh-based company that is also developing a prototype helmet for the military.

The most recent upgrade to the current helmet focused on improved padding and suspension. That came shortly after the Iraq invasion, when the Army and Marine Corps phased out the Personal Armor System for Ground Troops helmet, or PASGT, in favor of models with improved protection inside the helmet and a four-point chin strap rather than the PASGT’s basic two-point chin strap.

Since the war in Afghanistan began in 2001, about 2,100 troops have been formally diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries. But officials estimate up to 150,000 troops may have suffered concussions — considered mild TBIs — from roadside bomb attacks. Nearly 30 percent of all patients with combat-related injuries treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center from 2003 to 2005 had sustained a TBI.

The Army recently sent more than 1,000 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division to Afghanistan with digital sensors inside their helmets. The sensors are part of an effort to study the nature of the threats troops face and gain insight into how to make a safer helmet.

Another key element to any helmet is durability. Combat environments and the troops themselves tend to be very hard on their equipment. And they often use helmets in unintended ways — sitting on them, carrying things in them, using their hard surface as a hammer for a range of informal tasks.

Not only must the new helmet be bulletproof, it must be Marine-proof.

Underlying all of these plans are concerns that simply stopping the round is not enough. While engineers can likely stop a 7.62mm round from penetrating a helmet, such a powerful, blunt-force blow may still cause a fatal neck injury.

Preventing that will cost money. Some experts say one option is to build a layer of high-tech gel into the helmet, to help absorb and distribute the force of the round. That’s likely to be very pricey, but could reduce concussions and what experts call “soft-tissue damage.” Other ideas include covering the hard shell with a layer of titanium, which is light, strong and resistant to corrosion. That hard metal may help break up the bullet as it strikes the surface and better deflect the force.

Similarly, some experts think helmet makers may be able to build on the technology of the armor used on the side of the Army’s Stryker vehicle, which has a metal grate suspended a few inches away from the actual vehicle, which can splinter or detonate incoming rounds and minimize the threat to those inside.

A collar pad, similar to those used on football helmets, might help reduce injuries, but that may limit movement too much for practical use in many infantry situations, such as crawling in the prone position.

Those elaborate solutions likely will not be included in the next round of prototypes under review. For now, the priority remains finding a helmet that reliably prevents the penetration of a 7.62mm round.

Conway said he is fully aware that strong rifle shots still may pose a serious threat to Marines in combat, but the helmet under development would be a step in the right direction.

“Their tests have been such that, if a helmet did stop a 7.62 at 90 degrees, it might snap the man’s neck,” Conway said. “But I’ll take that compared to some of the wounds I’ve seen that Marines are suffering where the helmet doesn’t stop that round.”

Helmet technology has evolved for decades, and no one expects the next helmet design to be the last.

“Once you have fixed the problem of stopping this round, you’re not done. Keep working. Keep fixing it,” said Thomas Stripling, a director of research and education with the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

“The willingness to pay should be a nonissue. There are guys in my group that would pay any amount of money to not be in that wheelchair,” he said. “If it’s somebody’s son or daughter, they’re willing to pay any amount of money to keep their son or daughter safe — I don’t care how crusty the jarhead.”