MTV, worn
(click to enlarge)

As the Marines themselves note, “body armor can be traced back to before the Roman Empire, when war was waged with sword and spear and the battlefield rang with the clash of steel on steel.” In time, its protection became so formidable that an armored, mounted warrior feared few enemies. A string of reverses from Crecy into the age of gunpowder led to a growing offensive ascendancy, however, eventually leading to a period of hundreds of years in which warriors headed into battle without armor. In recent decades, modern technology began to offer new materials with remarkable properties, which led to the rise of Kevlar and flak jackets that offered limited protection. Special Forces experiments eventually led to designs that added plate inserts of metal or increasingly advanced ceramics. Which brings us to the present day, where soldiers from advanced militaries are once again heading into battle with 30-50 pounds of body armor. Its protection is rather less total than that provided by the knight’s medieval plate, but a lot of soldiers are still alive because of the protection it does provide. Even so, the modern soldiers shares one complaint with the medieval knight: heavy armor that can limit mobility, and heats up quickly.

The Interceptor Outer Tactical Vest became the US military’s standard equipment around the dawn of the 21st century, but the US Marines were less impressed. In the wake of negative After-Action Reviews, they turned to Protective Products International in Sunrise, FL to make a different design, the Modular Tactical Vest (MTV) designed by an ex-Marine.

Now, a halt has been placed on MTV orders, following complaints from the field…

• MTV: Features
• MTV: Contracts and Developments
• Additional Readings

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