- Joined
- Aug 25, 2017
Some Level III, maybe Level IV I can't remember, plates can be vulnerable to M193. Specifically steel plates. There was a reason why every jewtuber shilling AR500 was shooting them at 35 yards or an undisclosed distance. Speed kills steel armor. There was one dude who made a video punching a Level III plate at CQB distances with a Mk18 (short barrel). Polyethylene plates traditionally stop M193, but are vulnerable to M855. Ceramic plates don't have these vulnerabilities, but are more fragile because the ceramic can crack. This vulnerability is greatly exaggerated and quality plates from known companies can take far more abuse than they're certified for. There are even harder Brinell steel plates, 550-600, that I've heard don't have the M193 vulnerability. I don't know what parameters they were tested under.Doesn't matter what armor they have, if someone was seriously going to assault the tranch, they'd be using M193 which is commercially available and will breach IV plates.
The lack of variety of rounds that the NIJ tests armor with allowed all kinds of misinformation and straight up disinformation regarding threat levels. Nowadays there is the Special Threat rating for individual rounds to be tested and certified to NIJ standard.