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Show G.I. PROTECTION New Jacket Stops Bullet WASHINGTON. A jacket made of plastic and nylon and which will stop a revolver bullet at point blank range has been developed by the army quartermaster corps. According to reports on the effectiveness ef-fectiveness of the jacket, a soldier wearing it would be knocked down by a bullet fired from 15 feet away, but the jacket most probably would save his life. The army pointed out, however, that the jacket would not stop a bullet bul-let fired from a machine gun or, rifle because a missile from these, weapons travels at a much greater; velocity than a pistol bullet. A rifle fired at close range would kill whether or not the soldier hit! was wearing one of the new jackets; jack-ets; but a soldier protected by such: jacket would have a chance of be-' ing saved if hit by a rifle or machine ma-chine gun bullet fired from an appreciable ap-preciable distance. Thick but Light Existence of the new jacket was disclosed at San Pedro, Calif., recently re-cently by Maj. Gen. W. H. Middle-swart Middle-swart of the quartermaster general's gen-eral's office, and greater detail concerning con-cerning the garment has been ob-tained ob-tained from the national military establishment. The material in the jacket is nearly near-ly a quarter inch thick, and it weighs seven pounds. A thicker material ma-terial would of course make the jacket more impenetrable, but that would make it impractical, since it would add too much weight. The present jacket, which is not a finished product and is still undergoing un-dergoing development, is heavy prji.aghwhen it is considered that a field ove'icoat weighs only half a pound more. . Rather than bullets from small arms like rifles and machine guns, the new jacket is designed to stop fragments from large shells, bombs, mortars and grenades, and partly spent and ricocheted bullets. Tlvj material is tough and spreads the shock of impact over a considerable consider-able area of the body. Artillery Deadly The army., ground forces recently brought out in a report on battle casualties that big artillery guns kill the most soldiers, although rifles and machine guns are the most deadly. This report, which until recently was "classified" and not available for publication, showed that multiple multi-ple wounds from fragments of shells from big guns appear to be the rule in battlefield deaths, and that to be killed by a shell you usually have to be close to the burst. The fragments frag-ments lose their lethal velocity at a relatively short distance. On the other hand, if you are. close enough to be badly wounded by one fragment, you are likely to be struck by many of them. It is in such situations that our military men feel the new jackets will be useful in saving lives. The work is being done by the research re-search and development branch of. the office of the quartermaster general, gen-eral, with certain private concerns co-operating. |