Using computerised surface wound mapping to compare the potential medical effectiveness of Enhanced Protection Under Body Armour Combat Shirt collar designs

Abstract

This technique confirms that reinforcing the neck collar of an EP-UBACS would be expected to reduce injury severity from neck wounds. However, without knowledge of entry wound locations for injuries to other body areas as well as the use of AIS scores without clinical or pathological verification its further use in the future may be limited. The ability to overlay any armour design onto a standardised human was potentially the most useful part of this tool and we would recommend developing this technique using underlying anatomical structures and not just the skin surface.

Clinical and post mortem analysis of combat neck injury used to inform a novel coverage of armour tool

“…However this study has demonstrated that COAT is a useful tool for objectively comparing between body armour areas of coverage. Unlike Surface Wound Mapping [5,13,15], COAT it is not reliant on knowledge of wound locations and therefore can be used for the remaining body where such information has not been collected. COAT is also not reliant on threat specific data [11], hence can be used to assess situations post Afghanistan where no wounding data will be available initially or to plan with.…”

“…Neither size was liked by soldiers and both were rarely worn, resulting in potentially preventable neck injuries. Significant resources had been implemented in developing neck protection prototypes for ergonomics assessments to potentially replace these collars [12,13]; these prototypes could therefore be used to demonstrate the utility of COAT compared to previous analyses such as SWM [12,13]. The aim of this research was therefore to analyse all combat neck wounds to determine which anatomical structures were responsible for death and morbidity and utilise this knowledge to compare armour designs within COAT.…”