The USAToday reports that brain injury experts may recommend larger helmets for troops to protect them from IED blasts;
Concussions are a common wound among troops knocked about inside armored vehicles or flung to the ground while on foot patrols by an explosion from a roadside bomb, or improvised explosive device (IED). The study’s findings offer an answer drawn from equipment the Army already has, researchers say.
“This is what appears to be an off-the-shelf solution,” says William Moss, a Lawrence Livermore physicist who co-authored the study.
Helmets normally weigh about 5½ pounds. A size larger headgear would add about 4 ounces, Moss says. The study, which was funded by the Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) found that adding padding beyond an eighth of an inch provided slightly better protection…
If proof exists, do it.
But you are dealing with the shock wave of the blast that is going to cause massive damage to any of the hollow organs. The big danger for TBI is that for the brain for all that it does is one of the least sensitive organ in the entire body. When it does happen the person will not know or incorrectly think it is a headache and ignore it until it becomes worse. (Had issue with guys not wanting to go to the TMC for their post blast evaluation because they felt “fine”.) So I am not sure how adding another thin layer will help. It would help with the shrapnel and secondary injury when they get thrown against something from the blast but not the part that seems to be causing TBIs.
Maybe I’m going against the grain here… but all the “good intentions” of fielding better gear seems to hinder warfighters more than help them. What I mean is this:
I had a big ass flak jacket with SAPI’s in it in Afghanistan. I also had to drive while sitting on a hard ballistic mat for ‘protection’ from IED’s. The flak jacket was extremely cumbersome and didn’t help very much when trying to walk in the mountains (or anywhere really). The ballistic blanket hurt like all hell to sit on.
So I ended up ditching the flak and buying a SAPI plate carrier and ripping out the ballistic blanket completely. Was I taking a risk? Sure, I was. But I was a hell of lot more comfortable and felt that I could move faster.
It seems like people sitting in the Pentagon are politically calculating and trying to stop every death in a war through making every warfighter out there into the Michelin Man. Sure, you may be able to stop shrapnel and some bullets, but they aren’t going to be able to close with the enemy and kill him. Hell- just look at the complaints by grunts with the MTV (the newest flak jacket which is even heavier than the OTV).
Excellent post and a serious subject matter.
But. . . the photo and headline are priceless. Laughed hard. Spewed coffee. Laughed hard again.
Sounds like a lot of griping from people who didn’t bother to look at what the guy is saying. Four more ounces for a serious decrease in traumatic brain injury, based on the research showing that TBI can be induced from skull flexure. As for the comment about other organs, I would choose to protect my brain first, but maybe others wouldn’t.
From personal experience I would have preferred to protect my brain. A lot of the damage is not done by the direct contact, but the over-pressure. One big problem is that the wound is not readily visible. If you add that to the usual military bravado then you can have guys walking around with several concussions and nobody knows it.