STOPS BULLETS

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21204, 29 August 1940, Page 11

STOPS BULLETS

ARMOURED JACKET AMERICAN INVENTION A 15-pound armoured jacket that looks like an elaborate baseball chest protector has been devised by Gerald Laughlin, General Manager of the U. S. Armour Corporation, and word has come from London thg.t the British Army is considering adoption of it says the Christian Science Monitor.

Far advanced beyond the bulletproof vest, it protects the back and sides as well as the front. In tests it has stopped bullets from a Thomson -sub-machine gun, and from a German Mauser pistol at a distance of 25 yards. The front is composed of three solid thin layers of secret-formula steel separated by two narrow strips of thin rubber bolted together, and the whole covered with khaki canvas; the back is of similar construction, only with two layers of steel, and jointed. It can be produced in quantity for thirty-five dollars.

The steel, 25/1000 of an inch thick, looks like ordinary roofing tin, but will stop a .45 caliber bullet at close range. Laminated with rubber, its strength is increased many times. The development of armour for soldiers, in which the major nations have been experimenting since the World War, has been balked by the fact that no outfits resistant to highpower rifle bullets could be devised weighing less than an impractical 35 or 40 pounds. Mr Laughlin’s 15-pound jacket, with a solid sheet of heavy steel in front instead of the laminated, will withstand high-power rifle fire, he says, with an increase in weight to only 21 pounds. The lighter outfit, however, will provide adequate protection under most circumstances, he says, since battlefield statistics indicate that as many as 95 per cent of war casualties are caused not by rifle bullets, but by shrapnel and other low-and-medium-velocity missiles. Mr Laughlin perfected the 15pound armour recently, and expects to submit it to the U. S. Army soon.