Features
The IOTV is designed to take the weight of the vest off the shoulders and move it to the lower torso. The vest is also equipped with a mesh inner cover that is designed to improve airflow inside of the armor. There is also a back pad in the lower back area of the vest, which is designed to defeat fragmentation impacts to the lower back/kidney areas. However, the back pad does not provide ballistic protection. The vest can withstand a direct impact from a 7.62 millimeter (both NATO and ex-Soviet types) on the front or rear plates (SAPI NIJ standard III), however, the new E-SAPI plates will increase protection to armor-piercing rounds (NIJ standard IV). The IOTV provides, without the ballistic ceramic plates inserted, protection from small caliber rounds (i.e. 9mm) and fragmentation. The soft kevlar panels have been tested to stop 9 mm 124 grain full metal jacket bullets at 1,400 ft/s (426 m/s) with minimal deformation and has a V-50 of roughly 1,525 ft/s (465 m/s). This means that the bullet has to be traveling faster than 1,525 ft/s for it to have more than a 50% chance of breaking through the soft armor panel. These specifications are similar to the NIJ standard level III-A certification, however, military standards do not require their vests to be NIJ certified. This is a huge improvement over the PASGT vest, and the Vietnam era fragmentation vest (which was made of nylon). Both only offered protection against fragmentation.
Read more about this topic: Improved Outer Tactical Vest
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