| Show The Salt Lake Tribune Soldiering Sunday September 13 Fireproof Suits for Tank Crews Provide Extra Piece of Safety WILMINGTON ) Del - The peoplea atjJvfW’s labs here spent most 'day recently showing me at my of st something that I wish the mili- would pay a bit more attention tary suits for tank crews to: Vi(T&is tyjiot a glamorous subject and does not involve enough money to f aropse congressional interest Yet a soldier who needs such a suit needs it badly! suits? Why? Buy Taijjcs unfortunately tend to burn t ffle£ are full of flammable sub- started like fuel and ammunition J The turret among other things is I moved "by hydraulics Hydraulic lines run through the tank carrying hy- I draulic fluid at high pressure When these lines are hit they spray the flu-- j id everywhere in a fine mist And hy-- t draulic fluid burns ' The Army knows all of this and has installed in its tanks an automatic fireftinguishing system that seems ' to Be pretty good Nonetheless the tanked still faces a substantial possi-- i' bility of finding himself trapped in a flame-fille- d tank The result is horri- -' ble In a few seconds he can suffer serious burns over most of his body The pain will make it unlikely that he will be able to climb out Further- -' more bad bums occurring to large numbers of men on confused battle-- '' fields do not have happy outcomes £ Somg of the scenes that came out of WoflcCWar II are too grisly to print ihe number of these injuries If 'l can be reduced DuPont makes a cloth called Nomex that prevents burning for several seconds (how V'rtSmysfceonds depends on how hot the - flamed hOw long the exposure what the undergarments are and so on) A few seconds may not sound like much but when a soldier wants to get out of a tank in a hurry a few seconds are all he needs — but he has got to have them Nomex is not a new product Race drivers have used it for years Still I wanted to see it in action so I was shown what the people at DuPont call metal Thermal Man a man-size- d dummy outfitted with sensors that is kept in a glass case Under electronic control nozzles spray liquid propane on the creature and simultaneously ignite it The result is hideous if you think of the dummy as a human It is also a pretty good approximation of being in a burning tank The engineers put ordinary fatigues on the dummy and burned it for several seconds — an awful thing to watch A computer attached to the sensors on the dummy showed which areas of the dummy would have been badly burned if the dummy had been a tanker: just about all of him Then the technicians put a Nomex suit on the dummy and did the same thing The difference was remarkable With the suit on the victim would have lived without it he would have nt Fred Heed And it doesn’t help morale if the troops know that such suits can be made and aren’t Some old combat men bitter about similar deficiencies in other wars said that the Army just doesn’t care about soldiers This isn’t true The military goes to great lengths to pro bat mote the survival of its men For example the fire extinguishers on tanks are there to protect the men The key is that the fire extinguisher is PART of the tank The Army has a large and powerful organization to design and think about tanks These people tend to get what they want including safety equipment There is no important organization that thinks about suits for tankers Bureaucracies being what they are programs that don’t have important constituencies don't get much attention Unfortunately explanations don’t help the guy in the tank He needs a suit and we really ought to get him one Shop weekdays 10-- Saturday 107 9 1 b "llv- "WS t - ' MfM- ? 'V f i v fef D ' died unpleasantly (CMnr 25qff Carters9 and Curity layettes Entire stock of undershirts training pants gowns sheets washcloths towels and receiving blankets A & B '"T fv C Overalls tops and & bottoms T D " jj V v 'm bodysuits 2-- 25 - off Sleepwear E Selected styles in - - J W: and T :M - " ''4 ' 25off Diaper bags bibs " ? ' ' and stuffed toys SSI! F Reg G Reg 149-5-4- 9 $l4-$2- 3 bags ' All 225-75- 0 bibs Diaper 1049-109- 9 H Entire stock of 25 plush toys off E 59-2- 5 Reg $79 Strollee Carriage stroller - Lauren BaLOS ANGELES (AP) call talked of elephant hunts in Afri- Iargo 299 Carters D Reg $ 5 Choose from assorted pastels in toddlers’ sizes 4 Hollywood Stars Gather to Mourn Huston ca Harry Dean Stanton delivered a song of the Mexican Revolution and Jack Nicholson wept before telling a ribald joke These were among the diverse elements when friends and gathered Saturday for a memorial service for filmmaker John Huston who died Aug 28 at 81 Five hundred people in the Directors Guild Theater also saw scenes from such Huston classics as “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” “The Maltese Falcon” and “The African Queen” Daughter Anjelica Huston also told of her father’s last moments fa“Contrary to some reports my ther didn’t die in his sleep” said the actress who won a Oscar for “Prizzi’s Honor” directed by her father She related that after her father had left the Fall River Mass hospital he sat with his longtime companion Marcella Hernandez “and pretty much knew not where he was going but that he was going” Miss Hernandez asked if he wanted to send for the children and he declined preferring to hold her hand and talk of many things Conducting the tribute were Nicholson star of “Prizzi’s Honor” and Miss Hustori’s longtime companion Richard Brooks and director-write- r who worked on the script of “Key ® Osh playwear Having been around men burned in tanks I immediately decided that every guy in armor ought to have a suit of that stuff They don't When I asked different Army people why we have only sort of good suits for some armored crews I got different answers Most men blamed bureaucracy For example one answer is that buying suits costs money and the Army consists of a lot of programs competing for too little money Moreover the money for suits comes out of current budgets The money saved by having suits doesn't appear until the war comes The Pentagon worries about current budgets The economy is false Treating a burned man is very expensive So is training his replacement The more worried a man is about being burned the less aggressive he will be in com- - 25Koshoff 1649 Reg $22 Baby’s Sof 5-9- Sak 0 Value priced Trimfit Jamakins in a terrific assortment of colors - Savings effective through September 10 in Fashion Infants and ? t '4 Toddlers Jfc-t- F i V " 4 ? 4 r n 1987 A7 |
