Explaining the ballistic protection of the IHPS
Ballistic helmets are known to provide an increased level of protection against bullets for soldiers. They have advanced over the years by going through improvements. The improvements were targeted at making the helmets lightweight, increasing their ballistic protection and eliminating holes that were risky to the lives of soldiers.
Ballistic protection deals with how safe soldiers are in the face of advanced military tools. Helmets go through rigorous testing to ascertain the number of rounds they can stop. This protection is necessary as negligence to provide it poses a threat to soldiers’ heads. Notably, the exposure of the head to bullets can lead to reduced efficiency of soldiers, memory loss caused by brain damage or even death.
The Integrated Head Protection System (IHPS) is the current helmet used by the army. It is a replacement of the Enhanced Combat Helmet (ECH); this was replaced by the Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH). The ECH was made to protect soldiers from rifle bullets on any mission they find themselves.
The IHPS is an advancement of the ECH because it eliminates the heavy weight feature of the ECH by being lighter in weight. It retains the ballistic protection the ECH provides against bullets, but has a greater blunt impact against blows, explosions, or other objects of war. It is necessary for helmets to provide this advanced form of protection as a result of the nature of missions that soldiers embark on.
Ballistic helmets moved in stages in terms of the protection they provided. Particularly, increased ballistic protection has become a necessary requirement to factor in whenever ballistic helmets are to be replaced. This is because equipment of war keeps going through improvements to increase and retain their capacity to destroy. A tool of protection like helmets also should be able to increase their capacity to protect soldiers as they are integral to a nation’s safety.
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