IOTV Rev H vs Eastern Threats Script release

This is the Army’s revision H Esapi plate. This is a relatively new revision, while it isn’t the most modern plate issued out to infantry, this particular revision is very commonly found and is in widespread current use among (amongus) the US military. To accompany it, I have an IOTV equipped with standard kevlar soft armor backers. This plate and kevlar combination are rated NIJ 4 spec against full sized hardened steel core rifle threats and tungsten M995 556 rounds.

Today we’re going to test this armor against a small fortune’s worth of relevant eastern threats including 9x39 AP, 762x39 API, and 5.45 AP rounds. Now I know what you’re thinking, Oxide, where is the full sized rifle threat? Please, be quiet. Notably absent are Russian 762x54R tungsten 7n37 armor piercing bullets, but, I didn’t want to wait on that threat to arrive and instead am substituting hotter .308 M993 western made tungsten rounds instead. Though I am lacking in this instance, I am confident that my clout will remain intact. (DUDS)

Taking a brief moment to talk about what we do have. The SP6, chinese 762 API round, and M993 came from the incredibly knowledgeable and through plate tester Buffman range on  Youtube. The Russian body armor and helmet series would’ve been impossible to complete without his specialty ammo contributions. His content features a myriad of commercial and military armor tests and he served as my guideline and inspiration for these videos. His channel is severely underrated for the volume and quality of information it provides. I can't thank him enough.

The Pab9, and 545 7n22 AP rounds came from Flat Range Operator. Another friend of mine who is an ammo collector and meme maker on Youtube.

These 9x39 and 545 rounds are reloads and it really is difficult to figure how well they’ll do so we’ve brought a chronograph along. We’ve tried to reload them as close to military spec as possible but just in case we’ve brought along longer barreled RPK rifles. Unfortunately there isn’t a fix like this for the 9x39 rounds as we’re using an actual VSS thread cutter.

This VSS was built by the incredibly talented Zach Shaefer. Who agreed to let me use the rifle so long as I brought my own ammo.

The SP6 and PAB9 Nice,  9x39 rounds, are both very similar hardened steel core armor piercing loads for the Vintorez. The PAB9 uses a so called stamped hardened steel core vs the SP6’s machined core. That PAB9 would wear down the weapons in a fashion to what I suspect would be similar to the Army’s problems with the M855A1 bullet, it was also supposedly less accurate and was redesigned and replaced by a new round that goes by BP. Both of these rounds can penetrate up 8mm of steel, so they’re not realistically expected to penetrate the ESAPI. I just wanna see what they’ll actually do, especially when you consider the tremendous size of their hardened steel penetrators, there really arn’t bullets like this anywhere else.

As far as the design specifications for this weapon system as a whole and why it exists I had a lot of initial skepticism. I see a lot of the design basis speculation on the internet saying that it had to be a larger round to factor in the armor penetrating core to enable the penetration of kevlar flak vests and helmets commonly used by NATO at the time of its development. However even subsonic loaded 556 M855 can defeat 3A NIJ rated kevlar… So what’s the real reason those Soviet thinkers went to all this trouble making what many consider to be a vestigial weapon system. Ultimately for me this is one of those instances where I finally understood only when I had the weapon in my hands. The VSS is a lot lighter and smaller than you’d expect, with a really nice trigger. When you picture the appropriate roles of an MP5SD, or even a standard MP5 submachine gun and substitute it with the vintorez, the wisdom becomes very clear. It is ballistically far superior to that subgun in terms of range, stopping power, and penetration. It is perfectly capable of working leathaly in close to medium range environments while being virtually the same size as an Mp5. The 9x39 does what the weaker 9x19 round cannot, while its host is vastly more comfortable then the legacy PBS suppressor equipped AKMS it replaces. Its the best fit for quiet close clandestine work, and only suffers from its antiquity, a valid excuse for being a 1980s release.

The first round we’re going to shoot is the armor piercing SP6 9x39 round.

This round traveled pretty slow at 756 feet per second. This is around 200 fps slower than milspec and represents a hit from about 500 meters. A real pity. Lets hit the armor again with the Pab9 before we get into the results.

Perfect, 956 feet per second. This is the velocity I was looking for.

Neither round has penetrated the plate, with no obvious deformation. This is honestly about what I’d expected, but its a relief to see the plate perform consistently to spec and maintain its integrity after such a big impact, especially after the disastrous IHPS helmet test.

Both rounds impacted the plate and deflected upward inside. Their huge hardened steel cores have shattered against the ceramic. We’ll take the Esapi apart once we’re done hitting it to really examine the effects.

Next is the Chinese 762x39 API round out of an RPK

2700 abouts. That’s pretty darn fast for this round. The plate has deformed slightly but not enough to be concerned. No additional damage from the incendiary effect either. Next up is 545 7N22 hardened steel core. This round isn’t as strong as other 545 AP rounds, however there is tons of evidence that its still in use today on the frontlines of Ukraine. There is absolutely no chance of this penetrating, so I wanted to test the durability of the plate by shooting it in the exact same spot. I let Zach take the reins with his Russian 74M

Three shots consistently at 3k fps. Here we had some interesting results. The first round was stopped by the plate, but the second round penetrated and was stopped by the kevlar before finally the 3rd round went through. If anything this is a strong case for that kevlar backer. I’ve consistently seen kevlar backers save the day in the Russian plate tests and here we see the same effect with the IOTV’s soft armor.

The final kicker is the M993 tungsten 308 round. The only plate that’s stopped this round without unacceptable deformation so far on this channel is the Russian FORT technologies plate that was made specifically for spetsnaz, and that was out of a 20 inch barrel. The Esapi, unlike the Xsapi, is not rated to stop this round, but in Buffman’s tests with an earlier revision E Esapi, it managed to stop this round from a 12.5 inch barrel, though it failed a 16 inch hit. With those velocities considered Esapi plates should also be able to stop the Russian tungsten 7N37 round as according to this poster it travels even slower than the M993 round that was fired out of the 12.5 inch barrel. However, again, we’re shooting out of a 20 inch barrel, pushing the limits of this newer revision H plate.

No dice. A clear penetration. But this is a pretty tough test and only level 4 nij plates on the very high end of the spectrum are going to pass such an extreme test like this.

No need to hit it with anything else. Despite the failure on the last impact, the Revision H proves that it can already stop every relevant eastern rifle threat out there. Buffman has done plenty of testing against earlier revision Esapi plates against western full sized rifle rounds like M80A1, and the plates are all rated against 3006 AP.

Lets dissect the plate and see if we can learn anything from the damage. Esapis are composed of a ceramic layer that is surrounded by a thin layer of dynama polyethylene on the front, with a thick backer of that same material on the rear. These plates don’t typically deform much even from higher energy hits. Interestingly, it seems that the 9x39 rounds penetrated slightly further into the polyethylene backer than the 762 api, although that API round did cause more deformation.

We can also see that one of the 545 rounds left a much smaller hole as it passed through the ceramic after the ceramic was compromised. It seems like one of the rounds managed to pass through an existing hole completely unhindered by the ceramic. That round has to the one that penetrated through.

Despite repeated hits to the ceramic, the monolithic plate is remarkably intact. It is uncompromised in many sections and could still prove lifesaving, especially as evidenced by the kevlar backer stopping that 545 ap round. This could be because of the dynama absorbing the shock from impacts though the ceramic might also have some stronger bond keeping it together better than other plates I’ve seen. Though the impacts are really cratering the plate, the craters are controlled. Swiss cheese if you will.

One things for sure, the ESAPI is much better than the Russian Granit plate.

So the VSS isn’t an armor piercing wonder weapon after all. Something that isn’t really a surprise at least to me. However there is another weapon that has been largely absent from the conversation. The issue with 9x39 subsonic ammo is that it struggles at long ranges and won’t penetrate armor, even up close as we’ve seen. But the Russians already know this. What about 12.7x55? What about the VKS? What about the Ash-12? The Vintorez isn’t designed to beat body armor, but what about those other subsonic fifty caliber weapons? I will answer those questions in a future video.

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