Why and how did the soviets make better body armor than the western countries in the cold war?

Even their latest design was able to stop 5.56 while the americans still used fragmentation vests

>>63971918 (OP)
Because commies lie.

Ceramic technology was still in its infancy while kevlar was widespread and kevlar at the time couldn't stop larger, rifle caliber bullets like .308 that most of the world still used so there wasn't a big push to issue any

>>63971918 (OP)
Titanium. The west barely had it (the materials for the SR71 had to be bought off the kremlin, through proxies), while the soviets were sitting on the worlds largest supply. Probably general expectations as well, stopping bullets was a distant secondary concern to shrapnel in the west; but when we tried we had plates that could stop .50 BMG way back in Vietnam with those experimental pilot plates. Until the late 80s, it just wasn't considered worth the weight and even then it took until the early 2000s (I mean, how many ISAPOs were ever actually issued?) before it was really taken seriously; the idea being that you can avoid getting shot but artillery will find you.

>>63971918 (OP)
Russia is swimming in titanium, hence their early advanced helmets, early armor, and things such as the Komsomolets, which is likely one of the deepest diving combat submarines in the world (if not THE deepest diving combat submarine).

Otherwise, their armor was either directly comparable or slightly worse than western equivalents (flak jackets)

>>63971918 (OP)
Mainly due to having the edge in metals and metalworking. The kind of shit the soviets (yes this includes Russia) pulled off with titanium is nothing short of magic. However once aramids, specifically kevlar, and ceramics matured it was game over for the reds using an evolved WWI understanding of body armor. However for all the bluster about what the soviets could put out with boron carbide, you never hear how available such units actually were to the average infantry unit. Same with the T80B which was supposedly immune frontally to anything we had in inventory back then. Realistically how many did they actually have and were they common enough to be a serious issue worth considering?

>>63971918 (OP)
>soviets make better body armor than the western countries
they didn't
>Even their latest design was able to stop 5.56
western armor could do so for decades by that point
> while the americans still used fragmentation vests
soviets couldn't field body armor at all, a couple dozen cope vests that nobody ever received are nothing

the meat wave conscript wouldn't normally see any torso protection until the chechen wars

kill all vatnigger shills

>>63971918 (OP)
They didn't. The use of 6B3 is way overstated. It was rush issued to troops in Afghanistan but most soviet troops didn't have body armor at all. And nowhere near enough was ever made to equip line units during the cold war. The US fielded 30 cal rated ceramic plates over a decade before in Vietnam as a test. 20k sets of the variable body armor were sent to Vietnam out of a total of roughly 50k made. The army gained a lot of valuable data about armor design but the cost of ceramic plates prevented them from making a mass issue solution for many years. In the meantime they had developed effective fragmentation armor and it was standard issue. By the 1980's, kevlar had replaced the ballistic nylon vests and US forces had the PASGT vest and helmet as standard issue while the Soviets still had steel helmets and no body armor for the vast majority of troops. The limited use of 6b3 makes it more comparable to something like Ranger Body Armor, a limited issue solution for elite troops. The 6b3 also had a pretty shitty design. It put all the weight on the wearers shoulders and was essentially an apron. It was a theme that carried though the 6b23.

>>63971918 (OP)
>Why and how did the soviets make better body armor than the western countries in the cold war?
The Soviets were advantaged by their access to titanium, but that didn't really help in practice since they couldn't field them for shit. While the PASGT vest was general issue equipment, most Soviet troops did not have body armor at all. Among those that did, IIRC the 6B3 was far more common than 6B5, and unlike the 6B5 it couldn't stop M193 at close range and certainly couldn't stop M855.
Also, the advantage in armor design did not extend to helmets. Soviet/Russian composite helmets were nearly nonexistent until the end of the Cold War, and they were literally completely nonexistent for army troops until the 2000s. To this day Russia does not manufacture and field a general infantry helmet (for their army) comparable to the ballistic protection of the PASGT helmet, which again, was nearly universal issue among US troops by the mid-80s. Their only domestic helmets worth a damn were issued almost exclusively to MVD troops and special forces.

>>63972425
you're forgetting about 6b2, the most common type which is just a flak vest much like pasgt

>90% of the vests you see in afghan on soviet soldiers are those

>>63972425
I read that they had to buy titanium helmets from switzerland at one point.

>>63971918 (OP)
>>63972425
>>63972453
Luckily we have youtube video where someone actually shoots at some actual soviet armor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbPT9z_RzYA

tldr
>Against actual rifle threats the 6.5mm titanium plates would only defeat 556 m855 at 100 meters. It got lol penned at 3.6 meters in video by said m855.
>If you are stuck with a vest using 1.24 mm plates you need more then 600 meters against 5.45 7n6.
>Only the 13mm boron carbide plates have reliable rifle protection against 556 at a distance of 10 meters and it actually outperfoms stated distance since in the video it stops m855 at 3.6 meters and later M855A1

>>63971918 (OP)
>>63972533
In comparison the US had the variable body armor plates and deployed/used them in vietnam 1967. And we also have a video of someone shooting it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z7NJBqPVBM

tldr
>7.62x39 lead and steel core fail to pen less then 10 meters
>5.56x45 ss109 and m855 fail to pen less then 10 meters
>Only 7.62x54r steel core fired from mosin pens

https://www.vietnamgear.com/kit.aspx?kit=31
>42,000 vests were ordered
>28,000 sets of the VBA had been sent to Vietnam by the start of 1970
>remaining 14,500 vests was canceled in February 1970
The US had a design that could almost do the same thing as 6b3/6b4/6b4 vest with 13mm boron plates almost 15 years ahead of the USSR. In another timeline the US would have made rifle rated body armor standard for its army in fucking 1970 while ruskies were still running around with AKM and if they upgrade to the AK-74 they still wont pen US body armor even at point blank range unless they use a PKM or SVD.

>>63972600
the variable body armor is significantly more comfortable, lightweight and low profile, quite similar to modern armor carriers and uses actual full size ceramic plate rather than smaller separate inserts which greatly helps with blunt trauma and backface deformation

meanwhile at the same time as soviets were making 6b4 US had .50 cal resistant plates for aircrews that weren't really any more bulky or heavy than the soviet vests.

>>63972471
Yeah, and they also built their own helmets based on the Tig but those are better known for use in post-Soviet Russia. They had decent protective capability and worked for the purpose they were intended for, but between the shape, cost, and monstrous weight they were utterly unsuited for use as infantry helmets. Same goes for the STSh-81, though documentation is more scarce, from what I've heard from owners they're miserable to wear.
>>63972600
>5.56x45 ss109 and m855 fail to pen less then 10 meters
That's pretty impressive for such an archaic plate, and the weight isn't that bad either.

>>63972080
And they still didn't manage to actually produce enough for their armed forced and what they had was used for some special units or just produced as proof of concepts.
>>63972115
What a load of bullshit. There was nothing special about what they did with the titanium

>>63971918 (OP)
You already got BTFO last week, vatnig:

https://desuarchive.org/k/thread/63957438/#q63957438

>>63971948
>the idea being that you can avoid getting shot but artillery will find you.
It's was and still is true. Americans get away with not fighting people with artillery, but current Ukrainian designs all went for additional soft protection rather than high speed, low drag bare plate carriers.

>>63974891
How did they find targets for artillery before drone recconaisance?

>>63974909
Divination, astral projection, blind guesswork. The usual.

>>63972600
>In another timeline the US would have made rifle rated body armor standard for its army in fucking 1970 while ruskies were still running around with AKM and if they upgrade to the AK-74 they still wont pen US body armor even at point blank range unless they use a PKM or SVD.
They could likely defeat VBAGT using either 7.62x39 BZ API or 5.45x39 7N24, but the beauty of it is that in your timeline, M855A1 would have likely been developed earlier due to the issue of post-armor terminal ballistics and the US would have no need to "escalate" to harder ammo to defeat Soviet body armor.

>>63975566
Dubs ain't wrong. The Spirit World guides US munitions to their filthy, heathen targets. GOD Bless the US of A! AMEN!

>>63971918 (OP)
Can I shoot you with 5.56mm while you wear one?

>>63974909
The same as right now, honestly.
>send mobik wave
>they get shot to shit
>mark treeline from which enemy shoots them from
>call in saturation barrage
>wait until all the trees are gone
>send another mobik wave
The difference is that instead of a guy sitting in a tree with a pair of binoculars and a radio now it's a drone delivering live feed. If you want to shell guys on the frontline it's always easy to find them, beyond that it's trickier but aerial recon and such helps, even if it's a helicopter behind the lines up in the air trying to see where enemy artillery comes from through optics.

>>63974909
Send assholes to die.

>>63971918 (OP)
Bumping this thread after searching for information regarding soviet body armor
https://www.safar-publishing.com/post/most-common-soviet-body-armor-6b2-body-armor-vest
https://www.safar-publishing.com/post/brief-overview-of-soviet-body-armor-vests-in-afghanistan-part-2

>The aristocrats are fucking in afghanistan

Even today Russian armor sucks. The chinese unironically mog them.