Is the Army Preparing for a Major Deployment: Orders 177,000 Bulletproof Armor Plates

Traditionally, the best way to keep track of future military deployments – absent unexpected events, of course – has been to follow key procurement contracts from the U.S. Department of Defense of mission critical offensive wartime equipment such as weapons and ammo, or, less followed, core defensive components such as kevlar, body armor and other forms of core personal protective gear. These usually take place shortly prior to major “events” involving US armed forces.

Which is why we were surprised to learn that earlier today, the US Department of Defense revealed it had placed a $93 million order for 177,000 ballistic body armor plates from the US military’s traditional supplier of protective equipment, Ceradyne which several years ago was purchased by 3M. Both production and delivery are expected to be concluded over the next several months.

As Ceradyne explains, body armor is worn by virtually everyone in the US armed forces.

Worn by U.S. Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines, the lightweight enhanced small arms protective inserts (ESAPI) are inserted into outer, modular tactical vests to provide torso protection against small-arms fire. These body-armor plates routinely protect U.S. armed forces in battle.

Ceradyne has become the go to provider to the DoD for virtually all armor-pierceing protection: it has fielded orders for hundreds of thousands of body-armor inserts and at least 100,000 enhanced combat helmets to the U.S. Armed Forces.

The last time Ceradyne announced a major ballistic armor insert contract with the Pentagon, was last October when the DoD ordered some 28,000 armor inserts for a price of $34 million. This happened just as US troops were being covertly deployed in increasing numbers to Iraq and Syria.

With this latest, and largest to date, order of bulletproof armor inserts, is the US army preparing for another major offensive, and if so where?