Anyone have experience with Surplus French Flak Jacket

Flak jackets are typically NOT designed for stopping bullets, if that's what your interest in them is.
Denis
 
DPris said:
Flak jackets are typically NOT designed for stopping bullets, if that's what your interest in them is.
Denis
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then what the heck are they for??? just so you can carry all of that extra weight Around in battle?? have you ever served in the military?? they are not light.
 
When I was in the Air Force ('80's), we had left over Vietnam era flack jackets and the old steel pots.

The vests actually said on them that they were only protection from fragments.

Depends on what threat the vest/armor is designed to defeat.

That old steel pot wouldn't stop a round either. That's why the new kevlar lids were spec'ed to stop a 7.62x39 at 100 meters.

TG

P. S. You don't have to have served to know this stuff.
 
richard thurman said:
I was in and they stop small arms fire. the way you where talking they where not worth anything.
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Um... no.... a bullet proof vest or armor stops small arms fire. A flack vest only stops frags. As I said it totally depends on what it's designed for.

The original question was about a flack jacket.

They are worth something when in an enviroment where most of the wounds are from fragments and or shrapnel. That's what they were designed for.

The vast majority of wounds during VN were from fragments from arty and IEDs.

TG
 
Flak jackets don't stop anything. They "might" slow it down...or not.

I wore a flak jacket back in the first Gulf War. It was hanging on the truck while we were digging in. It was still there after we took incoming...plus a few more holes.

Flak jackets are useless on today's battlefield.
 
Most modern "flak" vests are bullet resistant for pistol rounds and fragments, and allow for a rifle resistant plate front and back. I was only wondering if this vest had any ballistic material or was a plate carrier. I got my answer.
 
It arrived and only has a plate pocket in front. It was clearly designed to hold ballistic material front and back with a rifle plate in front, along with a throat protector. It's inability to hold a rear plate will lead me to return it, but the front pocket will fit a 10x12 plate.
 
My comment was based, as others have said above, on the difference between a flak jacket & an armored vest.

The flak jacket in normal usage was designed & intended to stop FLAK, which is metal fragments from exploding ordnance, shrapnel & high-speed fragments of target materials like sheet metal & aircraft parts, and so on.

When you talk about a flak jacket, that's been the accepted usage of the term.
I used to wear 'em, too, in the AF.

If you talk about an armored vest, different animal.
Denis
 
Flak jackets & vests go back many decades & were distinctly different from armor or bullet-resistant vests. Totally different roles.
Those of us who wore them never considered them bullet proof, there was a reason why they were named after "flak". :)
Denis
 
I put together a rifle resistant vest for under $400 from the evil bay...

[video=youtube;AS1vVxEavqE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS1vVxEavqE[/video]
 
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