Body Armour – Stab Vest

 

The Fortis Stab Vest protects the vital inner body parts from low-to-medium force stabs, thrusts, cuts & blows or attacks with sharp, edged or spiked weapons, including hypodermic syringes.

 

The Fortis Stab Vest has been tested and certified to the United Kingdom's strict Home Office Police & Scientific Development Branch Standard KR1+SP1 and is CE marked.

 

Please refer to the datasheet below for further information.

• Unisex design

• Lightweight

• Extremely flexible outer cover with special liner giving enhanced body cooling properties

• Available as a covert or overt version

 

Firearms are certainly dangerous, but contrary to the wide perception knives can be as lethal. Even worse, knives are a more common threat weapon and as such the risk of a potentially deadly attack with knives is much higher. Until now manufacturers developed effective protective solutions against firearms, but ballistic protection is not capable of stopping knives. This can be solved with the Fortis Stab Vest and Fortis Dual Purpose Body Armour.

Almost 2/3rds of all attacks involve an edged weapon.

 

A knife
Never runs out of ammunition
Never jams
Never misfires
Rarely misses target
Cuts bone, tendon, muscles, arteries, veins with one thrust
Can bring about sudden shock, pain, and extended wound channels
Has superior concealment capabilities 
 
Facts
Attacks with edged weapons usually occur when you least expect them.
Many people seldom saw the edged weapon that penetrated their body. They failed to recognize the danger cues due to faulty perception.
Knife attacks were found to be exceptionally accurate, to penetrate deeper than some bullets, creating remarkable permanent cavities and rip through numerous organs in one stroke.
In reality, within their respective ranges, knives are superior to firearms as far as lethality is concerned.

 

How far can you stick the knife in?
Based on a medical study of a large group of persons the depth of life-critical organs within the body was investigated. Using CT-scans it was determined that - at 20mm of knife penetration through body armour - there would have been injuries to pleura (41%), pericardium (7%), liver (61%), spleen (28%) and kidneys (4%). 
The worst-case scenario of one person was a breaching of the liver at a 9 mm penetration. Through statistical extrapolation, allowed penetration was dropped to 7mm to provide 99.99% confidence levels. This is the penetration as defined in the HOSDB and NIJ (US National Institute of Justice) standards.

 

This is also an important difference between ballistics and knife performance of body armour: a bullet should be stopped whereas a minimal penetration of a knife is allowed.

Home Office Body Armour Standards (HOSDB Home Office Police & Scientific Development Branch)

 

KR1 or KR1+SP1   Tested at a performance level of 24 joules of energy. Armour at this level should offer maximum periods of wear in standard risk patrolling environments and would also be suitable for covert use.

 

KR2 or KR2+SP2   A medium protection level, which is tested at a performance level of 33 joules. This level should provide for a general duty garment for tactical response teams and special forces.

 

Due to their higher velocity bullets have much higher strike energy than knives. However because of the very small effective diameter or area in which knives have to be stopped, the energy density for knives is much higher. This clearly indicates the threat level imposed by knives or edged weapons.