I remember back in the middle of Iraq/Afganistan that the US had its own turn at the "Future Soldier" with Dragon Skin body armour that was supposed to be able to stop any conventional round and yadda yadda but nothing ever came of it.
I think it theory it could stop regular AK-47 and AK-74 rounds in common use by insurgents, but not M855A1. Probably not M855 at close ranges either, but I'm not sure. Maybe that would have depended on barrel length. I say "in theory", because the "scales" were glued in and tended not to stay where they were meant to be.
So here's the thing with Dragonscale. The "scales" are ceramic disks about the size of a US fifty cent piece (around 35mm). Each disk, or tile, overlapping another, static, is pretty bullet resistant. However, they're mounted with adhesive that breaks down after being hit, and all the disks fall down into the bottom of the vest. They're not good. What they had was a PR team running around in 2003, 2004 telling people stateside that "Oh boo hoo we've got this advanced new body armor and the military refuses to give it to your sons & daughters; did you know a US Army General uses Dragonscale but won't let Our Boys wear it?!" Even the idiots at Somethingawful.com tried to run a fundraiser to buy dragonscale armor for troops because that pack of midwits believed the hype. So the military issued a statement and said: if you get injured and discharged or die, no retirement/injury benefits will be paid or your family receive compensation if you were wearing dragonscale when you got hit, period. The "general who had his own dragonscale vest"? Yeah he got it as a gift. Didn't wear it in hostile environs. He just had a vest he was given.
Now, to future soldier: Nobody, not a single person, was touting future soldier the same as Ratnik-whatever class body armor that the Russians will
totally have out tomorrow guys, just wait and see. What Future Soldier was, was data synthesis. Heavier body armor, but the focus was in digital integration, not LARPing as the master soldier guy from Halo. Helmet with HUD, thermals, better comms, etc. Not whatever bullshit the Russians cobbled together out of airsoft gear and stuck at a tech expo.
The reason Future Solider didn't go anywhere was 'cause nobody knew what the software and hardware environment looked like. The hardware platform's a moving target. When I saw a prototype of Future Soldier on display, the computer was an ultra-compact Pentium 2. Now think about something like a raspberry pie board doing the lifting but 1000x faster. But the thing is the hardware (and software) landscape changed so fast guys would design and propose shit...and a week later Intel, ARM, or somebody would release a smaller, faster, cooler, less power hungry chip, or a new Software platform. They couldn't lock in on one.
That's why future soldier never went anywhere.
