Overseas Experimentation: Method, Review, Interest and Feedback to Improve New Concepts of Protective Clothing
Abstract
The NATO military forces could be engaged under NBC thread in various climatic conditions which could expose them to warm temperature. Under hot climate, the soldiers, particularly when they wear full IPE (MOPP4), have to face an important physical and thermal load which decreases their operational capacity. A multi disciplinary team under joint Army Staff had developed a complete technical laboratory and field testing process in order to evaluate both the burden provided by the NBC IPE and the lost of capacity of the unit in operation. This process is based on laboratory testing of the main technical parameters of suits, the measure of lost of individual physiological capacity for human subjects on trade mill, the measure of lost of manual dexterity, the measure of lost of visual field and sighting, the measure of lost of voice transmission and understanding and on field testing on overseas sites conducted with skilled military units on typical operational scenarios. On the field, tactical scenarios are based on fighting missions of platoon infantry (Land forces) and on air rescue and search mission (Air force). The main recorded parameters used to determine the global lost of operational capacity are the followings: capacity to perform mission, compared time to complete a mission under both level of protection, hydration needs, and thermal storage. Additionally, elementary tasks and firing exercises are achieved in order to quantify the impact of NBC protective suits on current battlefield actions. Only the methodological aspects of this full measurement process linked to physical and temperature burden are described in the paper. Actual field trials under extreme climatic conditions are complementary with laboratory tests in order to get a concrete and realistic evaluation of the loss of operational capacity of military units that could be engaged overseas under NBC thread.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADP012435
Entities
People
- Bernard Warme-janville
- Bruce Melin
- Dominique Anelli
- Raymond Bugat