Air Force investigators yesterday announced at a congressional hearing they are looking into possible fraud on the part of Dragon Skin armor maker Pinnacle. At issue is whether Pinnacle lied about their vests' certification.
Overall, yesterday's body armor battle on Capitol Hill was supposed to have been quite the circus, with props, surprises, and everything. At issue is an NBC news report that claimed side-by-side testing of the Army's Interceptor body armor versus Dragon Skin demonstrated that the latter seemed to provide better protection.
News reports today indicate the Army did a pretty convincing job of attacking the Dragon Skin story. The fraud investigation was certainaly a coup (although rival Interceptor has had its own problems with quality). Notably absent from the circus, I mean hearing, was NBC news, whose report on the body armor debate included a side-by-side test overseen by former Pentagon top tester Phil Coyle, who reportedly faced some harsh questioning during hearing.
One issue that came up was that the Interceptor armor used during the NBC test may not have been the same as that used by soldiers in the field (again, why it would have been nice to have NBC answer for their own testing). But the outcome of the hearing actually validates the most important point that Coyle made: The panel agreed there should be independent (i.e. not conducted by the Army) testing of the body armor.
