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US Army Developing Armor Tailored For Females
cylonlover writes, quoting Gizmag: "Body armor is a blessing and a curse for soldiers. Modern tactical armor has saved thousands of lives from bullets and bombs, but it can also be a major problem if it doesn't fit properly. That's what the women who make up 14 percent of the U.S. Army face on a regular basis. Now, according to the Army News Service, the Army is preparing to test a new armor that is tailored to the female form to replace the standard men's armor that the women now use. Working on data collected in studies overseas and at stateside army bases, the Program Executive Office (PEO) Soldier has identified several problem areas and has developed a new armor that will be tested in 2013."
Quite frankly, all but the extremely endowed will have minimal problems in the chest area. They're not exactly wearing pushup bras into combat obviously, and most women wearing a sports bra don't have an appreciably bigger chest than the average male body builder (though obviously the dimensions will be different and there will always be outliers). The areas they are concerned about are those that either cause the body army to slip out of position by not being adjustable to smaller frames (shoulders and waist) or hamper mobility (torso length).
One of the things that is supposed to have demoralised numbers of German soldiers later in WW2 is that so many of the Russian tank crews were women. But why should that be surprising? In the Napoleonic wars and after, the powder room on many British warships (where they kept the explosives, not the toilet) would have been operated by women who, according to the official lists, didn't even exist. It seems amazing that so many of them managed to live on cramped warships in addition to the official crew establishment, but memos from Nelson to John Jervis make it clear that this was a case where sensible officers turned a blind eye.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Body armor designed specifically for gay soldiers.
Extensive historical research (no, I'm not kidding) points out that the army with the most stylish and fashionable uniform almost always loses the war. Just saying. Probably don't want to go there.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Well, compared to most other things military spends money on, developing better infantry armor is very cheap (look up the cost of a single Tomahawk missile for comparison).