The all-in-one, lightweight Home Office Scientific Development Branch-certified Level HG2 KR2 SP2 armoured vest – distributed in the UK by Interconnective – was put through a rigorous testing regime at the Lorica Research facility in Worcester – a testing regime that far exceeds the Home Office’s own standards.
One of the first tests was the firing of twelve rounds from an Uzi sub machine gun (9 mm). Having sailed through this test, six rounds were then fired from a .357 Magnum and then three rounds from the world’s most powerful handgun – a 44 Magnum (the ‘weapon of choice’ for Clint Eastwood in the excellent Dirty Harry movies).
Subjected to knife attack
Finally, it was the turn of a sawn-off shotgun to inflict its worst on the armour with single rounds of 00Buck and Birdshot. Then the same Cuirazz Body Protection vest was subjected to a knife attack from a specially-designed test rig with a very high energy level of 36 joules. The measurement of joules is the unit of measurement designed to test the energies of force behind an attack.
While there’s an allowable tolerance of 7 mm penetration in a knife test, there was no penetration by the knife during the demonstration. Finally, a needle attack which was blunted in the first three layers of the 22-layer vest.
Five defences-in-one
“One of the key features of the tests was the low level of blunt or ‘back face’ trauma which occurs behind the vest as a result of the impact of projectiles on the vest,” said Bobby Logue, Interconnective’s managing director. “The Cuirazz Body Protection vest uses the five defences-in-one Armour logo (all- in-one armour) to emphasise its capability to defeat the threats of ballistic, knife, spike and needle, blunt trauma (blunt objects, kicking and hitting, etc) and shrapnel attacks.”
One of the benefits of the Cuirazz armour is that, unlike traditional armour, it doesn’t lose its resistance properties even when wet.
Comments from the inventor
The Cuirazz Body Protection vest armour pack fabric was invented by body armour scientist and Lorica Research’s managing director Digby Dyke, who commented: “Our fabric once again proved its unique defensive capabilities under a multi-threat attack. If you’re responsible for equipping colleagues with body armour then you must determine the true threat to which they are exposed. Is it bullet, knife, spike, needle, blast fragments, blunt injury or something else?”
Dyke concluded: “Frankly, for the majority of workers in the private security industry, thanks to terrorism it’s all of the above. Fortunately, our invention makes it possible to have protection from all of these threats in a single body armour vest.”
