| Armor, Body, Fragmentation, Protective, Vest Type, M-52 | |
|---|---|
 1967, 27 February,Company C, 9th Marines, Operation Chinhook | |
| Service history | |
| In service | 1952-1980+ |
| Used by | United States Marine Corps United States Navy |
| Wars | Korean War 1958 Lebanon Crisis Vietnam War |
| Specifications | |
| Weight | 8.5 pounds (~3.8 kg) |
M-1952 Flak Jacket was a 20th century American flak jacket. It was used during the Korean and Vietnam wars.
The M-1952 Flak vest, or "Armor, Body, Fragmentation, Protective, Vest Type, M-52" was a flak vest designed for the United States Marine Corps during the Korean war. Following the joint US Army and Marine Corps designed M51 Flak Jacket, the M-52 used aluminum plates instead of Doron. [1] [2]
The M-1952A Body Armor was an 8.5 pound vest made up of twelve layers of flexible laminated nylon. [3] It had epaulets, a zip front closure and adjustable elastic draw cords on each side. It had cargo pockets with the left one having a pen compartment. [4]
The Marine Corps first used the M-1952 during the Korean War. It reached frontline troops in late 1952, and only in relatively small quantities. [3] They continued to use it throughout the 1958 Lebanon Crisis and during the early stages of the Vietnam War. [5]
The U.S. Navy used them quite heavily in Vietnam, including with their Mobile Riverine Force. The M-1952 was phased out of use by the M1-955 vest during the Vietnam Conflict. [6] The Marine Corps used the vest into the 1980s during training. [7]
A bulletproof vest, also known as a ballistic vest or a bullet-resistant vest, is an item of body armour that helps absorb the impact and reduce or stop penetration to the torso by firearm-fired projectiles and fragmentation from explosions. The vest may come in a soft form, as worn by many police officers, prison officers, security guards, and some private citizens, used to protect against stabbing attacks or light projectiles, or hard form, using metallic or para-aramid components. Soldiers and police tactical units wear hard armour, either in conjunction with soft armour or alone, to protect against rifle ammunition or fragmentation.
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Personnel Armor System for Ground Troops is a combat helmet and ballistic vest that was used by the United States military from the early 1980s until the mid-2000s, when the helmet and vest were succeeded by the Lightweight Helmet (LWH), Modular Integrated Communications Helmet (MICH), and Interceptor Body Armor (IBA) respectively.
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A flak jacket or flak vest is a form of body armor. A flak jacket is designed to provide protection from case fragments ("frag") from high explosive weaponry, such as anti-aircraft artillery, grenade fragments, some types of pellets used in shotguns, and other lower-velocity projectiles. It is not designed to protect against bullets fired from most small arms such as rifles or handguns. However flak jackets are able to sustain certain gunshots, depending on the angle at which the shot was fired, the caliber of the bullet, the speed of the projectile and the range from which the shot was fired.
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The 1st Tank Battalion was an armor battalion of the United States Marine Corps which was based out of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, California. It last fell under the command of the 1st Marine Division and I Marine Expeditionary Force. The unit was decommissioned in May 2021 as part of the service Force Design 2030 initiative which saw it move away from larger armor formations.
Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 115 (VMFA-115) was a United States Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet squadron. Officially nicknamed the "Silver Eagles" and on occasion Joe's Jokers after their first commanding officer Major Joe Foss, the squadron was last based at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, South Carolina and fell under the command of Marine Aircraft Group 31 (MAG-31) and the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. The squadron participated in combat operations during World War II, the Korean and Vietnam Wars and has deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom with a final deployment in 2008 to Al Asad Airbase in western Iraq. The Squadron radio callsign was "Blade".
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