You telling me that helmets are design to stop sharpnel and not bullets?

Question

WW2 helmets design to stop what?
The Iraq U.S. helmet design to stop what?

That's crazy, why cant we design helmets to stop bullets like vests does?

Answer 1

a bullet proof "brain bucket" would be to heavy..plenty of troops have been shot in head and the helmet does its job, it re directs the bullet

Answer 2

When you get to High School study physics.

I have run 6 miles with a 3 pound pot more than once. To say it was a pain in the neck is just a blinding flash of the obvious.

Your job Young Luke is to go forth and find a site that tells you how thick a piece of Kevlar has to be to stop a round from the AK 47 and the M16. Then the progressive amount to stop a 7.62.

BR Vests have ceramic plates of varying thickness depending on the round you expect to be shot with. The more stopping power the thicker the plate or plates.

BR glass is layered glass. The more layers the greater the stopping force and the weight.

How much weight can YOU run with for six miles???

SSG US Army 73-82 and 21 years experience in Banking Security Products

Edit: David M, I know you are sincere however the design of those helmets is BR not BP. 2" of BR glass will keep a teller at the bank safe from small arms. It can be replaced with 1" of acrylic. I have seen mantraps built using 1/2" kevlar (in sheets like dry wall) again this is designed to stop small arms fire not military weapons with large powder charges designed to mame/kill your enemy.
The best example was given to a group of us in this manner:
Q. Why a .45 instead of the .38 like Police use.
A. If I shoot you in the hand with the .38 it will put a hole in your hand. If if shoot you in the hand with the .45 it will blow your f...ing arm off at the elbow.
The bigger the round the bigger the charge the bigger the safety device. I NEVER was allowed to use the phrase Bullet Proof. Bullet Resistive because at best that is all that happens.

Answer 3

That's pretty much what they've always been designed to do.

It's basically a problem of weight and mobility... to build a helmet that is "bullet proof" (rather than "bullet resistant" which is all a ballistic vest is) would make that helmet too heavy and reduce mobility of the soldier.

Also, there is a problem with transfer of energy... There is generally a transfer of thousands of ft-lbs of force when you are hit with any bullet/shrapnel/fragmentation. If you are hit with something wearing the current, un-modified, ballistic helmet, the energy transfer is such that it usually breaks the chin-strap holding the helmet to your head. The helmet absorbs the energy, flies of your head, and leaves your noggin rather attached to your shoulders. If the helmet stays strapped to your head, the transfer of force has the potential to cause serious injury to the wearer (not that being shot in the head doesn't potentially cause serious injury as well).

A helmet would have to absorb the impact and distrubute the force of impact across the helmet... As I previously stated, something that would be difficult to do in that small a space without increasing the weight and impacting soldier mobility.

Answer 4

first off, the body armor is not completely bullet proof, it can be penetrated but there is no way I would tell you how on here, the helmets also are very good at stopping bullets, they deflect bullets at certain angles. I would say thats as good as we can get if we still want mobility. Its better than the helmet our enemy wears (a black and white checkered rag). WW2 helmets stopped shrapnel, and also deflected bullets to an extent.

Answer 5

A high ranking officer in Panama was shot in the helmet and he wasn't injured enough to see a medic. It could have been a "war story" that made the news much like Hillary Clinton's and Joe Biden's brushes with snipers. We do know odd objects have stopped or deflected bullets including pocket watches, bibles and flasks so it's possible.

Answer 6

the force of a bullet hitting a helmet designed like a bullet proof vest would be like hitting the poor guy upside the head with a 2x4 he'd be lucky if his neck wouldn't snap and if it was strong enough he'd probably bust a flip

Answer 7

Because the helmet would weight about 30 pounds, so the impact of the bullet would break your neck killing you.

It's pretty basic: you can still die even if you have a bullet-proof vest. You will die of blunt force trauma. The best example of this would be Mike Tyson hitting you in the chest with a baseball bat. The energy from the bullet needs to go somewhere, so it presses the ceramic plates back on you, as that energy is going to be transfered into you.

So imagine a heavy ceramic plate around your head. Bullet hits it -and the proverbial Mike Tyson with a bat- is now upside your head.

Your neck is snapped, and you're dead anyway.

That's the answer in a nut shell.

Answer 8

Because what is killing the US soldiers in Iraq is not bullets, since the insurgent avoid at all cost to engage the army, so they use plenty of ied`s to raise the death toll. And since about 80% of the US forces casualities are caused by those devices, better be protected against those instead of bullets.

Answer 9

they are meant to deflect bullets and shrapnel up to a certan degree but not a rifle such as a ak-47 at any possible close distance

even vests cant always stop a bullet

Answer 10

the current helmet has stopped (deflected) bullets but the wearer sure knew he was hit as it put him to the ground. they are designed to deflect rather than stop a bullet.