1993 Ranger Body Armor did not have back plates.
I sat with Scott McMichael, VP for Protective Materials, Inc., and he had his guys design the back plate – no other government involvement. He personally delivered mine to me for the (aborted) Haiti invasion in 1994, after which SOCOM bought them.
Older T.G. Faust armor had back plates, but those were issued once RBA had all been issued out.
So in the book and movie where they referenced taking out armor plates, was it the front plate that was actually removed?
Only one guy took out a rear plate while talking to grimes gearing up for the mission. I’ve always understood that they took creative liberties with the movie. In act of valour during there first op, they only have chest rigs, no plates. Problem is that these are movies so I’m hesitant to listen to them fully. I’m more curious about lrrp missions in today’s world about weather or not plates are used or if they view the mobility as a better asset. I know that they are recon patrols, but the reality is that there mission was really to take the fight to the assholes deep in enemy territory. I’ve seen conversations about armor scaling based on threat levels and I’ve seen mental masterbation conversations about if we will ever really go back to not using armor under certain circumstances in the future, but extended periods out of a pack on foot makes one look at weight far more critically.
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Supposedly the decision to eliminate back plates cost one Ranger sergeant his life in the Blackhawk Down incident. Something along the lines of (paraphrasing) “I don’t need the back plate 'cause Rangers are always facing the enemy”.
If untrue please feel free to correct me.
Re when to use and not use armor.
When receiving a mission, you will go through MDMP and IPB at the battalion level (Military Decision Making Process and Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield), or TLPs at Company and Platoon levels (Troop Leading Procedures).
As part of these you will do a mission analysis, according to METT-TC:
Mission
Enemy
Terrain and weather
Troops
Time Available
Civilian Considerations
You will develop courses of action, wargame them, compare courses of action and finally decide on a course of action.
Based on the analysis resulting from the factors under METT-TC, a commander can issue coordinating instructions covering dress code, PPE etc.
The leadership level that can dictate PPE will depend on unit, most likely, but usually not lower than Platoon Commander. This will be different in SOF.
The factors that will influence the decision can be, but not limited to:
Terrain
Temperature
Threat
Mission type
I personally feel that body armor should not be a default.
sinister pointed out that the events portrayed in the movie could not have happened because nobody had back plates yet.
But the movie alluded to it, and I’m 99% certain I read something along those lines when I read the book and was wondering if anyone involved in the BOM took out their front plate or not.
As SGM Kyle Lamb said when asked in an interview on the Military Channel about BHD; “That was a movie”. He would know as he was there.
I knew a girl in high school whose dad was a LRRP in VN; very cool guy. The tiger-stripe uni’s and that load-out is vaguely reminiscent of a pic he showed me of him in VN.
My Boss was a two tour door gunner on gunships in V.N. He said;
“We would drop everything when those guys called, pull off a current mission to go in and extract them or provide support while they were extracted.”
He’s a hell of a guy and we share an office, oftentimes when something like this is posted here I like to ask his opinion. He was pretty adamant about the level of respect and how far out on a limb they were willing to go to provide all necessary support for the LRRP’s.
My father was a Marine, in VN three separate times, a year each. He was an intel chief, his last VN tour with aviation, but one of the others (I don’t know which) with Recon. I know the Marines and Army frequently shared the same AO, my dad said much the same in that if they called for extract he would leave the wire and man a Huey for assistance, and the Recon Marines who were around would do the same.
Ranger Body Armor did not have a back plate. T.G. Faust armor did, but was issued to make up shortfalls. General Wayne Downing briefed a few NCOs had pancake-sized bruises on their backs from AK and 7.62x54R hits wearing RBA.
Having been a LRRP, and from sniper-observer and recce teams since 9-11 the decision to wear or even carry body armor is based on METT-T and the enemy’s most dangerous and most likely courses of action.
If you’re in the strategic recon and tac recce roles the point is to try not to be compromised. Different terrain and climate are also going to determine how mobile you are as well as mission duration.
Composite LRRP teams (a US SF team leader and RTO, with three to five indigenous troops) were different than all-US teams (typically from US divisions).
Current LRS teams stay as light and fast as possible.
Cool to see some of the old stuff!
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Depends on leadership, I worked with the LRS guys out of Bragg and they were as described, they got replaced by their hommies from Hood who looked like they just stepped out of 670-1. Their Facebook pages tell the story, the Bragg guys are out roping and MFFing and the Hood page is making announcements about whether or not they can wear Airborne tabs. I think they finally scrapped the being under a cav squadron under a BfsB (MI) Brigade though.
These LRRP dudes were some serious badasses. Long-ass missions, far from any supporting elements, hot, humid jungle full of alien poisonous critters (insect and otherwise, lol), + heavy loadout.
And that tiger stripe is awesome.