Body armor is always a trade-off between weight/bulk and protection. The holy grail in body armor is a t-shirt that can stop a rifle round. We’re not there yet, but Hesco is starting to inch their way closer. They’ve introduced new Level III, III+, and IV plates. Using a tile-array pattern in the plate, they’ve been able to achieve lighter, thinner, and stronger plates than any of their previous offerings.
For those who are new to body armor, these levels are defined by the National Institute of Justice, the NIJ. So if you look on the back of an armor plate, you should see a spec sheet that includes something like “Certified NIJ 0101.06 III” or “NIJ 0101.06 IV”. Those can be read as “certified to the NIJ’s standards for Level III armor”.
The standard for Level III armor is stopping 6 shots of M80 ball with a minimal amount of backface (the part touching your torso) deformation. The standard for Level IV armor is stopping one round of M2 Armor Piercing ammo. Armor manufacturers have come up with an “in-between” category called III+ that is supposed to stop M855 ammo. This addresses the gap between Level III armor, which can stop lead-core ammo, and Level IV, which can stop armor penetrating ammo. The NIJ 0101.06 standard does not have a category for something that can stop “mild steel” ammo, such as 5.56 M855 or 7.62×39 M43. Hence, Level III+.
