So, I remember seeing some photographs in the news of the French Police-soldiers, and it got me to thinking; dem are some bad-ass shoulder pads they got going on. While I tried to look for a better resolution photograph, I failed so, dem's what you get. But it reminded me of another French shoulder pad system, from the Felin Body armor system, and it got to me to thinking; those are some bad-ass shoulder pads. Now, at first glance you might say, eh, whatever, they're kind of cool, but it looks pretty mundane like, you should sort of look like that, right?
Wrong. The interceptor body armor, used by the Americans and to a limited extent our allies, does not look as cool. Yeah, it has a characteristic "war-fighter" look to it, but still, the shoulder pads are just... lacking. I mean for such a cool vest, the shoulder look silly and stupid, like, droopy, sad almost, like it was an afterthought they put on there. With the French, they went all-out, balls to the walls on this, and just blew them out. Plus the matching camo on them? Spot on. The interceptor just has a sort of, odd, bloated look, like it was cobbled together at the last second (becuase it was).
Now, while we can argue about the effectiveness, the fact of the matter is, the French one's look cool. Granted, we don't want to steal their look. But something very similiar could not hurt. Some of you might even argue that the shoulder is not as important from a tactical perspective, but I disagree. On top of a shockwave passing through the shoulder in to the lungs being a good chance of a collapsed lung, or the radiating energy breaking a rib and doing the same, the clavicle vein runs through there, which is connected to the heart. Like slitting the jugular, blood will come rushing out of there, and will squirt out like a fountain, basically meaning, you'll die a very fast death if you are hit in your clavicle. Not as fast as a direct hit to the heart but, it's pretty close. Thus, the shoulders are an important, but often overlooked part of body armor. Most police vests don't cover the shoulders at all.
Granted, covering up the clavicle can eliminate most of this risk, however again energy radiating out from a wound to the shoulder could damage surrounding blood vessels, and thus cause the damage.
Henceforth, I declare, we need better, bad-ass looking shoulder pads to be able to compete with the French. Also, good job French police-soldiers.
KEEP IT UP! :big:
What do you think, ED?
Should we get, more specifically America, similiar shoulder pads, or what do you think?