Don't Fall for the Hype of Russia's "Blast-Proof Suit"

"No, I don't thank you for the fish at all" (notindetroit) 04/30/2016 at 12:04 • Filed to: Foxtrot Alpha Oppo Edition, Russia, Bomb Proof Suit, Concussion Physics, Troian Bellisario in here, yes the actress from pretty little liars, how do you pronounce troian anyway, why would the guy who created quantum leap and ncis even do that to his daughter anyway, oppositelock hates automatic transmission, it's oppositelock law, just like hating smart cars, what I'm trying to say is that oppositelock law can be lame at times

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If you’ve been paying attention to various so-called “news” sites you may have seen viral video of Russia’s new “bomb-proof” suit being tested in “combat conditions” as a soldier walks through various explosions before revealing herself to be either a female soldier or mistaking the whole ordeal for being a L’Oreal shampoo add at the end as she whips her hair in perfect camera-ready pose. The whole show is impressive in the typical showmanship style Putin has become famous for, but also in Putin’s typical showmanship style the video reveals little if any that would truly show any sort of ground-breaking superiority over potential adversaries.

The entire showboating nature of the video should have been your first clue; military products are literally a deadly affair and not only do they tend to be capable of speaking for themselves quite effectively without such window dressing, but unless it had been rigorously tested beyond a shadow of a doubt no sane person would put another person’s life in danger strictly for a showy product demonstration. That’s not to say this isn’t the case here, but there’s a reason why Western military demonstrations tend to be filled with talking heads, Russia ups the sex factor and Iran makes grandiose claims of weapon systems that can’t be verified in the slightest. And while there certainly is a chance the woman in the demonstration is a genuine soldier of the Russian military forces, I would also like to add my personal opinion that such a marketing display is highly disrespectful to women in military service (or just women in general) as well as downright reckless.

I would also like to point out that military service members are highly professional, and as such present themselves as professionals when representing their service. A part of that is the tendency for women to wear their hair practically (many outright buzzcutting it) as opposed to trying to act like they’re auditioning for a marketing firm. I’d like to demonstrate that in pictorial form but unfortunately Google image searching “female Russian soldier” turns up a lot of imagery either anti-illustrative of the point or outright porn, so enjoy this image of Italiano-African-American (yes seriously) actress Troian Bellisaro from the television program Lauren. Image from AfterEllen.com.

The Science of Concussive Impact

Questionable over-the-top showmanship aside, and at this point needless to say, the video reveals that while the suit may be great at protecting supermodels from extremely carefully controlled pyrotechnical effects, it doesn’t demonstrate anything that could protect someone in actual combat. That’s because the type of explosive force used to attempt to kill people in combat is of very different nature than what civilians are typically exposed to through visually-impressive pyrotechnics including fireworks. The blast itself is little more than a massive release of energy; it’s how that energy is impacted to the human body that does the damage. Whether a concussive blast from a grenade, the shockwave of a nuclear explosion, or even a massive G-shock from a car or motorcycle crash, your chances of survival depend on how equipment performs to protect what’s inside your skin as much as what’s outside.

Muhammad Ali (then still known as Cassius Clay) vs. Sonny Liston during a boxing match February 1964. Original author unattributed; image from the Library and State Archives of Florida.

You likely learned in primary school that the human body is made up of something like 70% water, not unlike the surface of the planet itself. You may have learned somewhere during science class in some grade level that fluids are also great at transferring force. You’ve more than likely witnessed a practical demonstration of this - how sound (really, the transference of vibrations - i.e., a physical force - on a molecular level through a physical medium as interpreted by our ear drums) travels much more efficiently through water than in the air itself. Or in the physical properties of fluids that allow for hydraulic equipment to even be possible, including the much-beloved miracle that is the automatic transmission.

An illustration of forces at work on the human brain in sufficient manner to cause a concussive injury. Created by and upload to Wikipedia by Dr. Patrick J. Lynch.

The human brain, in addition to being made up of liquid in various forms itself, is protected by a thin solid layer of bone (your skull) and by another thin layer of various liquids providing concussive shock protection. For the most part in our daily lives this natural concussive shock protection is adequate, but when you throw in blasts from bombs or artillery, or a punch to the face from Muhammad Ali or a powerful sack from Denver Broncos lineman Von Miller, or stupid decisions such as driving without wearing your seat belt or riding a bike or motorcycle without a helmet, you start to find out just how limited that natural concussive protection really is. It doesn’t take a lot of G-force to get transferred right through your skull, through that thin layer of liquid and directly into your brain where it starts doing nasty stuff like popping blood vessels and kill you of pulmonary embolism.

This is why both airbags and seat belts are great as they reduce the G-shock that gets transferred not only into your skull but to other vital organs that have finite G-shock tolerance, which is literally all of them. Same goes for not only why wearing a helmet is great, but why you get more protection from a full-face, fully Snell Foundation-approved motorcycle helmet - there’s just more stuff there to absorb impact so your body doesn’t have to. This is also why NFL players not only wear helmets but big, bulky shoulder pads - and as we’ve sadly learned in the past two years, even that may be woefully inadequate.

A Cougar armored vehicle undergoing concussive blast testing. The Cougar is an example of an MRAP - Mine Resistant/Ambush-Protected vehicle, specifically designed with a number of features inherent into the vehicle’s basic structure to protect occupants from concussive forces. These features not only include the basic armored plating of the vehicle but the very geometry of the vehicle’s structure, which is designed to direct a blast away from the passenger and driver’s compartments, potentially at the sacrifice of the vehicle itself (which needless to say is always preferable to human lives). These features include a V-shaped hull that can physically direct a blast away, and wheels and suspension designed to be torn apart from the vehicle and in the process absorb concussive forces - not unlike a modern civilian vehicle’s crash protection scheme. MRAPs such as the Cougar have become the preferred means to transport personnel over less adequately protected vehicles or open-exposure marching as a means to reduce IED-based casualties. Official US DoD image.

Materials sciences have come a long way to produce materials that are not only thin but capable of absorbing concussive force, but so far nothing beats sheer density - or in other words, the more stuff you have in between yourself and a concussive blast, the greater your chances of survival look like. This is why the preferred means of concussive protection employed by the U.S. Army is to put people in 30-plus-ton multi-axle armored beasts and just drive them to where they need to go (and increasingly, let them engage enemies from within such vehicles) as opposed to letting people march around in very shiny, thin-looking suits. To actually make a person “blast-proof,” you need to put a lot of dense matter in between the blast and said person. MRAPs like the Cougar very visually demonstrate that; Russia’s new “blast-proof suit” does not.

Sgt. Gilbert C. Punsalan of the Filipino Army demonstrates the SRS-5 (yes like the Toyota truck trimline apparently) “lightweight” blast proof suit during a bomb disposal practice exercise. Note that Sgt. Punsalan still keeps his extreme distance using a pole that allows him to manipulate a practice explosive while minimizing his exposure. Also note the extreme bulk of the suit, far too buiky to allow for a soldier to practically wear during a serious firefight or artillery bombardment. And keep in mind this is a “lightweight” blast-proof suit! Official U.S. Navy photo.

Another powerful visual demonstration of what it takes to protect a person from a concussive blast is to look at the actual “blast-proof” suits Western militaries use, like the SRS-5 “lightweight” bomb disposal protective suit. Similar suits have been ingrained into the very fabric of pop culture thanks to the blockbuster success of the movie The Hurt Locker , which very realistically demonstrates what such a suit would actually be like and be used in combat for - which is to say, not directly. These suits absolutely maximize the protection offered to the wearer, again, by simply maximizing the material in between the wearer and any potential concussive blast while still allowing the wearer a very limited freedom of movement. Very limited being the key qualifier there; the goal is to allow the wearer to survive a bomb blast, not be mobile enough to fight in turn. If you need the wearer to do that, again, you would put that individual in an armored vehicle that allows that person to either operate firearms or have the vehicle itself heavily armed. Or best of all, remove the individual from the theater entirely and let drones and robots do the work. Unless Putin is aware of some mega-breakthrough in material sciences that the Western world isn’t, all of these - yes, even the Terminator- brought-to-life scenario - are more realistic than what’s suggested by the footage of Russia’s alleged super-suit.

Shrapnel - the real killer

The original patent for the design of a high-fragmentation explosive device invented by Royal Army Lieutenant Henry Shrapnel (yes, seriously, that’s where we get the word from). Public domain image.

Speaking strictly statistically, however, very few deaths in combat are actually caused by concussive force. Most battlefield casualties are caused by shrapnel - flying fragments of, well, whatever happens to be a fragment and flying. Sometimes these may be caused by elements or objects in the environment itself kicked up by a blast, but mostly they tend to be lethal-sharp metallic objects, either from the bomb or artillery casing itself (often specifically designed to fragment upon explosion and splinter into shrapnel) or from fletchettes or solid shot contained within the explosive casing carefully arranged in a pattern designed to maximize distribution. Perhaps one of the most forward applications of this principal is the Anti-PERSonnel-Tracer (APERS-T) or “Beehive” ammunition employed by the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, capable of being fired from the main 105mm-diameter armor-killing rifles of M48 Patton tanks. As the name implies, the ammunition is designed to burst into hundreds of fletchettes reminiscent in both sound and function of an angry beehive and lacerate its victims in an indirect artillery support role, although some stories circulate that the ammunition is specifically designed to be fired at friendly tanks being swarmed by VC in order to kill the hordes while leaving the friendly armor underneath unscathed. That said, virtually all forms of military explosive are designed to produce deadly amounts of shrapnel.

The only real defense against shrapnel is good old fashioned armor protection, and lots of it. This is why developers have spent decades trying to perfect wearable armor that will still allow a soldier to fight, coming up with everything from standard flak jackets (vests with aluminum or ceramic armor plate inserts) to the controversial !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! armored vest. All of these vests have one thing in common - that they are exactly that, vests, not unlike what you may have in your closet. They are not designed to protect the entire human body, and that’s by choice. Because again, it’s exceedingly difficult to protect the human body without outright putting that human body in a heavily armored, protected and armed vehicle.

The final takeaway is that you should take copious piles of salt with you when you see propagandist videos such as what Putin’s Russia is producing. Like the self-proclaimed Ayatollahs of Iran, the so-called ISIS/ISIL state and the mad regieme of Kim Jong-Un’s so called Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Putin is highly invested in parlor tricks that might capture the imagination and fear of civilian populaces more than actual military commanders. All of the above states are waging a war of information as much as actual combat, and being able to sow fear into an enemy’s home front is one of the most powerful weapons currently known to the human race - especially when it can be done without firing a single shot. Information and knowledge works both ways, however, and an informed populace is the best defense against such cheap trickery.

And yes, Troian Bellisario is “that actress who isn’t Lucy Hale/Ashley Benson/Shay Mitchell”/”that actress who is way too old to realistically be playing a teenager” on Pretty Little Liars. No, I am not afraid to openly admit on an automotive forum and website that I watch Pretty Little Liars. And yes the astute among you may also figure out that she is the daughter of Donald P. Bellisario, the creator of NCIS and a bunch of other shows. No, I have no idea how you’re supposed to pronounce “Troian Bellisario” either. Image from Zap2It.com.