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Personnel Armor System for Ground Troops

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US soldiers wearing the PASGT helmet

Personnel Armor System for Ground Troops, sometimes abbreviated to PASGT, is a combat helmet and ballistic vest used by the American military since the early 1980s and used for 20 years until the system was succeeded by the MICH TC-2000 Combat Helmet and Interceptor body armor, which were introduced in 2003.

1 Helmet
2 Vest
3 Trivia
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

Helmet

Members of 173rd Airborne Brigade wearing PASGT helmets

The Personnel Armor System Ground Troops Helmet, also known as the "K-pot" and also the "Fritz" helmet for its resemblance to the World War II German army helmet is a standard infantry combat wear in the US Military. The shell is made from kevlar, a ballistic Aramid fabric treated with a phenolic resin system and is rated at a Threat Level II, and offers protection against fragmentation and ballistic threats. It meets the 1800 requirement of MIL-STD-662 E. The PASGT Helmet is said to have stopped rifle rounds on occasion, most commonly 7.62 x 39 mm (AK-47) rounds (in one account the PASGT Helmet is credited with stopping an AK-47 round from approximately 25 meters range). This performance would be closer to Level III or Level IV performance, though in a demonstration of the Heckler & Koch MP7 on the Discovery Channel show Future Weapons, a PASGT helmet suffered a catastrophic armor penetration when hit head-on with one round of the MP7's 4.6 x 30 mm ammunition. Similarly, the firearms testing site The Box o' Truth has reported that a 7.62x25 Tokarev fired from a CZ-52 handgun was able to penetrate the helmet at 25 meters. In the same test, both the 5.56x45 and the 7.62x39 were able to yield catastrophic penetrations through both sides of the helmet. ^[1] The PASGT Helmet replaced the steel M1 Helmet in US service during the 1980s and first saw use in combat in 1983 during Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada. The PASGT Helmet is currently being replaced by the Advanced Combat Helmet (MICH) in US Army service and the Lightweight Helmet (LWH) in USMC service. The PASGT Helmet is typically olive drab in color and can be fitted with cloth helmet covers in varying camouflage patterns, which have included US woodland, six-color desert, and three-color desert (as shown above), solid black (for SWAT teams), as well as the new Marine Corps MARPAT and Army ACUPAT designs. The helmet is also used by various SWAT teams, wherein it is often black with or without covering, as well as by various United Nations Peacekeeping forces where it is often painted robin's egg blue to match the UN flag. When worn with a helmet cover, it is also often fitted with a band around it that has two reflective patches (sometimes known as cat eyes) on the rear intended to reduce fratricide incidents. These bands are also used to hold vegetation or small personal items, as with the M1 helmet before it during the later decades of its service life. These bands can also have names and/or blood types printed on them to help identify the wearer. Some PASGT helmets also featured a patch with the wearer's rank insignia on it stitched to the front, and/or a second patch showing the symbol of his/her unit on the sides. Available add-ons include a Helmet Mount Assembly that allows attachment of NE-6015 (AN/PVS-14 MNVD) or F5001B (AN/PVS-7B) night vision goggles. It can also be fitted with an acrylic glass visor for use in riot control operations.

Vest

US Navy sailor wearing a PASGT vest and helmet while qualifying with an M203 grenade launcher.

The Personnel Armor System for Ground Troops Vest, also known as the "flak vest", was the United States Military's standard upper torso body armor from the early 1980s until approximately 2004, when it was replaced by the Interceptor body armor. The PASGT Vest replaced the Vietnam War-era M-69 Fragmentation Protective Body Armor nylon vest, which in turn replaced the Korean War-era M-1952A Fragmentation Protective Body Armor. The PASGT Vest used Kevlar for the first time in the United States military's body armor, unlike the ballistic nylon used in the previous two models. While incapable of stopping rifle bullets, the PASGT Vest provided better protection against shrapnel and reduced the severity of injuries from small arms fire when compared to the M-69. The PASGT Vest weighed approximately 9 pounds, a small increase over the previous model. In order to provide protection against high velocity bullets, the PASGT Vest was, in 1996, combined with the Interim Small Arms Protective Overvest (ISAPO) pending adoption of Interceptor body armor. The ISAPO weighed about 16.5 pounds and consisted of a carrier to hold two protective ceramic plate inserts. A PASGT armor system with overvest weighed more than 25 pounds and was criticized by many US troops as unacceptably cumbersome in combat.

Trivia

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In U.S. Army basic training, certain training companies will not allow the camouflage covering to be placed over the helmet for the new soldiers until they have reached a certain point in their cycle of training, such as basic rifle qualification. At that point, the covering is slipped on, signifying their advancement. Note: Not all TRADOC posts perform this practice. However, "Sand Hill" at Ft. Benning, Georgia does (as of 2007).
The helmet is commonly referred to by soldiers as a "Kevlar" or "K-pot" in reference to the steel pot helmet that preceded it.
Although the helmet offers ear protection, it only provides partial ear protection as to avoid hearing problems.
To wear the helmet properly, one wears it with the front rim down far enough until only two fingers, stacked atop the other, fits over the bridge of one's nose. This provides proper protection for the forehead from frontal threats.
A fast and easy way to wash the helmet is to place it in a dishwasher without the inner sweat headband.
The PASGT vest was the first body armor in US service to be available in camouflage other than solid olive drab, specifically US woodland and six-color desert patterns.
In the absence of up-armor kits, some logistics units operating in Iraq have been known to strap PASGT vests to their vehicles in an ad hoc attempt to improve survivability in the event of an insurgent attack.