Real Bulletproof Mandalorian Armor! (US Army in testing)

Disney pluses hit new show the mandalorian focuses on the story of den Jaron an orphan who was raised as a Mandalorian warrior set six years after the Return of the Jedi the Mandalorian is introducing many Star Wars fans to the Mandalorian culture and warrior code we learned that their armor isn't just for protection but like their weapons it is part of their religion spoiler alert for those of you who haven't watched at least the first three episodes I do reveal some light spoilers that won't give away the story but might be some info you want left as a surprise so keep watching at your own peril we were first introduced to Mandalorian armor with the appearance of Boba Fett and the Empire Strikes Back well actually he first appeared as a double-crossing bounty hunter in the animated Star Wars Holiday Special of 1978 where he was actually quite a jerk to that animal that he was riding around on but by the time he appeared on the big screen two years later his armor was a lot more prevalent yes these are original action figures that I got in the 70s and 80s know they're not for sale nerds we didn't really know much about the protection offered by his armor because most of us were in awe of his really cool visor this flipped down antenna rangefinder thing his really cool jetpack with a freaking RPG sticking out of the back it had clear signs of battle which meant that it provided some protection from weapons but the specifics weren't really known at the time it still became a character in its own right just like we're seeing with Dinge Erin's armor right now it turns out that Boba Fett's armor was made of Duras steel which is resistant to blasters and knives and shrapnel but it wasn't made of the best Skaar steel that many of us are first learning about in the Mandalorian bhaskar Steel is known as one of the strongest materials in the galaxy and is very rare so much so that the Empire minted it as a form of currency it not only looks really cool when made into armor but it provides a much higher level of protection than their a steel one that can stop a laser bolt from a sniper rifle and even stop a slash from a lightsaber it goes without saying that all Mandalorian armor looks super cool but what if I told you that not only is US Special Operations Command fielding armored just like this right now but that there are two sets of Mandalorian inspired cosplay armor that can actually stop bullets in 2015 a group of companies that make gear for law enforcement and the military decided to see if they could make real body armor inspired by the Mandalorians they turned to Ryan flowers of Galactic who is already producing Mandalorian inspired airsoft armor the team then outfitted the airsoft armor with real-deal military gear including thermal-imaging radio headset and ballistic protection they called this effort project galactic the project galactic armor starts with a semi-rigid urethane shell that's mainly designed to stop airsoft pellets and hold up to wear on the field underneath ar500 armor custom-fit a layer of level 3 a soft armor two sets were made with different styling this gray set that placed greater priority on protection of the face and head and this coyote tan set with open cheek guards and radio headphones instead of ear guards though they differ on the outside both have exactly the same ballistic protection they look like this panel of level 3 a soft armor underneath though ar500 armor custom-fit the material to the project galactic armor and here's a panel that I pulled out of its protective cover so I can show you that it's made up of many layers of ballistic aramid kevlar is a particular brand of ballistic airmid you might be familiar with but this armor is made up of three different kinds of ballistic Airmen to make it better capable of handling a wide variety of handgun bullets it's level 3 a National Institute of Justice rating means that the project galactic armor is capable of stopping most conventional handgun rounds up to 44 Magnum here's my friend Tyler showing how their 3a armor can take 31 rounds of 357 Magnum hollow points from a Coonan arms 1911 one round did manage to pass through the armor but that was only after stopping a few dozen rounds hitting in the same area note that the NIJ rating only requires armor to stop one round so what you're seeing is in massive performance for soft armor that's just one reason this was a great choice for the project galactic armor let's take a look at the front it's one of the jackets the leads out is expanded fully and there's the back of the hybrid pack [Music] you have we have rounds falling out of the armor it's seen better days others outstanding performance revival that's the armor that was used by project galactic but just like Mandalorian armor real body armor can be made with different materials based upon how much protection you need and how much you have to spend they could have backed the project galactic armor with armor rated steel like makes up this plate that would have made it capable of stabbing rifle rounds up to 7 62 by 51 m80 ball think Rambo's belt-fed machine gun note the coating on the plate it's there because when a bullet hits the steel it breaks apart and the fragments can be big enough and fast enough to injure or even kill you if they catch you under the chin or in the brachial artery this material is called pax con and it catches the bullet fragments oh you don't interestingly enough this is rarely addressed by sci-fi armor we're left assuming that whatever hits the armor is deflected harmlessly away from its wearer and not into any of the unarmed people that might be in the same room this is something that I struggle suspending my disbelief about even though we're talking about fake sci-fi armor in the first place I had a chance to test a or 500 armors level 3 plus steel plate against 760 by 39 shot from a select-fire Hungarian AMD 65 and it had no problem stopping multiple hits from that round I know I got him at least one time oh maybe I hit him twice that third round might have gone off past the target well and I know these things didn't go through but I'm going to check anyway just cuz and no they didn't go through that's no surprise there's some really cool rifle rated armor that's not only lightweight but it's even buoyant in fact it's natural finish underneath this cover is white which you will soon see it's called ultra high molecular weight polyethylene or UHMWPE for short this is the material that the US Army is using to develop a whole new system of soldier protection they're calling Talos tactical Assault light operator suit the US Army's Talos project has naturally been dubbed the Ironman suit it incorporates a powered exoskeleton with armored communication real-time health monitoring of the we're all integrated with a variety of weapons the exoskeleton assists the wear and walking and running so that soldiers can move farther and faster for the same amount of effort and fatigue special fabrics combined with a liquid heated and cooled layer to create a microclimate inside the suit temperature and humidity adjusts to the soldier skin temperature or metabolism protecting the wearer from both hypo and hyperthermia heads-up displays show the wear we're all teammates and tactical assets are located including ammo and other supply status critical to the mission as cool as all of this would be it turns out that Talos is well behind schedule but there is one big result of the project being fielded in combat today US Special Operations Command is skipping the powered exoskeleton and feeling what they're calling light weight polyethylene armor for extremity protection as the name implies the armor is made from ultra high molecular weight polyethylene which is capable of stopping rifle rounds while reducing overall weight here's what that looks like for body armor available on the market today just looking at a plate of UHMWPE armor you can see it's built differently than either steel plate armor or ceramic plate armor like this first of all it doesn't have a pax con coating this coating on the outside looks like line-x because it kind of is is a small mitigating a fragment mitigating coating when a bullet hits the steel it busts apart in pieces and you don't want those pieces hitting you as aware so this coating is there to catch those pieces UHMWPE itself will catch those pieces so it doesn't need a coating on the outside for anti spall anti fragments instead you've got a tough nylon on the front and back side and then you have a very slick nylon on the side the reason it's slick on the side isn't for looks or comfort it's going inside your play carrier it's because you can see how thick this plate is it's the armor and padding the padding is bond to the back of the armor permanently all together this makes it so fat that it's a little bit difficult shoving this into the pocket of a plate carrier and this smooth outside makes that easier that's why it's on the front edges and you don't see it on the bottom it's not needed there I'm testing this armor with a 20 inch Remington 308 wearing a Liberty victory titanium can perfect shot after checking out the armor it did great it's multi hit rated so I'm gonna put a few more into it and see what we end up with all right let's cut this open and see what we got oh yeah look at that you can see how there's delamination you can see there's a little cracking that's how it's supposed to work and inside gosh I'm gonna have to figure out how to get a close-up of that the bullets are fully contained and each of the holes you can see from the side the many different layers of the UHMWPE that are laminated together with heat and pressure and you can see the pockets in here where the bullet actually kind of melted from the heat the material and what's interesting is we know that it contained it because there were no fragments that were even in the plate carrier itself if there was any kind of fragmentation making it out the front side the we would have seen extra holes on the plate carrier and we would have seen pieces of it inside the plate carrier and that didn't happen so despite the fact that these rounds were fully fragmented inside of the armor they were fully contained and you can see that is a layer right there how thin that is that is a layer layer layer and a tall delaminating this is what it was supposed to do the part of this is for me ripping it apart but you can see it's just all bonded together and if this looks like soft armor it is used in soft armor and some soft armor you can even use this to make steel the equivalent of steel cable UHMWPE cable which is lighter and stronger than steel and won't corrode this is used for a lot of different things and boy it sure is effective as body armor that's pretty cool I'm glad I was able to get that apart UHMWPE is just too thick to use as a backing for the project galactic armor but it could actually be pressed into the shape of the project galactic armor if you threw enough money at the dyes required to do so plus the material itself is quite expensive a plate like this cost three to four times what a panel of three a soft armor costs for the same amount that might not be a problem if you have the budget of the US Department of Defense but for a fun side project it gets unreasonable really fast so it makes perfect sense why a r500 armor chose to line the project galactic armor with a level three a soft armor the helmet was also made with off-the-shelf ballistic protection though with a large dose of Mandalorian inspired styling and features the Mandalorian helmet is easily recognized by its t-shaped visor and face guard the original artist seems to have modeled this after Corinthian helmets made popular by the Spartans we share the same t-shaped eye slots and the broad pointed cheek pieces for the project galactic armor the face guard and dome from a galactic airsoft helmet were bonded to a team Wendy ballistic helmet like the body armor the helmet is National Institute of Justice rated level 3a ballistic protection it also offers impact protection from blunt weapons or Falls attached via a flip-up mount the armasight iris monocle provides thermal imaging with connectivity to other thermal optics armasight has since been purchased by filly in 2016 they were introducing a new weapon system called iris that linked helmet-mounted optics to gun mounted optics for the project galactic armor armasight chose to outfit the helmet with a thermal imaging monocle that worked on its own or could relay the image from any armasight brand Thermal gun site that allowed the wear to keep their head behind cover while accurately aiming their weapon you could even link the iris to your teammates gun so you could see what their weapon site sees through your monocle and they could see what your sees through theirs that's a feature I'm not even sure the Mandalorians have the helmet is one area where the designs between a coyote and gray versions of the project galactic armor differ the coyote helmet has comms from TE a headsets the ear cups amplify sound 360 degrees around the wearer while providing protection for hearing whenever the decibels reach unsafe levels the microphone can be configured for push-to-talk or voice activation and the whole comm system is submersible for waterborne operations though I don't think that's something Mandalorians have a huge need for the gray helmet for gos comms for additional protection of the ears while adding plates to fill in the decorative holes in the cheek pieces these plates don't offer any true ballistic protection but they would certainly be useful on an airsoft field both how much wear are many infrared illuminators and target designators these aren't the kinds of designators you'd use to call in an airstrike but they'll help you get the most out of your thermal optics while giving you the option to show your teammates where they need to be looking ballistic helmets like this one are actually made of the same material as the level 3a soft armor it's molded and encoded in a resin to retain its shape the team Wendie helmet used by project Galactic is very similar to this helmet which I had a chance to test with a full mag from an HK mp5 this is 30 rounds of 9 millimeter machine copper hollow points which is well beyond the NIJ standard of protection so I was not expecting it to survive that said it was still the great test for showing how these helmets are constructed and what their strengths and weaknesses over there we go well malfunction although he could hear it there are multiple rounds inside here rattling around that's gonna take some work getting in there oh I could feel more you can see the multiple impacts I got this good you know I miss them sometimes but a lot of them just went running right underneath it pushed even though I was hitting centrally that folded up underneath like like that and came out through the center of his face I did I did find a bunch of holes with aramid fiber on the other side of the rubber dummy's face well that's that that definitely happened but I was able to get five out of the helmet and that's still pretty impressive the helmet is in better shape than I thought the rubber dummy is not in good enough shape but this helmet is not designed to take that many rounds in one spot of course being made of level three a soft rubber means that these helmets can be defeated by hard sharp objects if hit with enough force like that generated by a scorpan reverse draw crossbow ascorbic ventilator Xtreme shot that 400 green arrow at about 445 feet per second generating over a hundred and seventy-five foot-pounds of kinetic energy I bet you weren't expecting to see that yes Darryl could use his crossbow to take out a zombie wearing a ballistic helmet but that's a different show all together there are helmets made of UHMWPE but instead of going for increased protection the materials mainly used to reduce weight however it does show that UHMWPE can be molded into complex shapes could you imagine a set of armor that looks like this that could stop rifle rounds that would be pretty cool but it probably wouldn't be fun to wear and it certainly would cost a whole lot of money to make that's why even US SOCOM is foregoing coverage for maneuverability and creating their light weight polyethylene armor there are no photos of the polyethylene armor be Tesla today but it provides an increase in coverage from 19 percent of the wearer's body to 44 percent while reducing the total weight of the armor by 25 percent that's really incredible when you realize that it's adding protection to the wears shoulders obliques forearms and crying sounds pretty familiar doesn't it if you want to learn more about the real-world products that went into the project galactic armor be sure to see the links in the video description be sure to subscribe for more videos on the technical explanation of technology I really appreciate you watching the tech of tech and I hope to see you next time [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: The Tech of Tech

Views: 858,654

Keywords: Mandalorian, Baby yoda, Star wars, Talos, Boba fett, Beskar steel

Id: _XdoYARA17w

Length: 19min 1sec (1141 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 11 2019

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[u/Captaincods1214]

This is the way