Australia — Ballistic plates for combat body armour – made in Australia

Bal­lis­tic plates for com­bat body armour to pro­tect Aus­tralian troops can now be made in Aus­tralia thanks to the devel­op­ment of new man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­o­gy.
Min­is­ter for Defence Sci­ence and Per­son­nel War­ren Snow­don and Min­is­ter for Defence Materiel Jason Clare announced the new tech­nol­o­gy dur­ing a vis­it to the CSIRO in Mel­bourne today.

“Body armour is one of the most impor­tant ele­ments of a soldier’s per­son­al pro­tec­tion. It offers pro­tec­tion from bal­lis­tic threats like small-arms fire and frag­ments from impro­vised explo­sive devices,” Mr Snow­don said. 

“The bal­lis­tic plate insert­ed into body armour is made from an advanced ceram­ic mate­r­i­al that is incred­i­bly strong for its weight. The stronger and lighter the bal­lis­tic plate, the bet­ter pro­tec­tion it pro­vides to our soldiers.” 

New tech­nol­o­gy to man­u­fac­ture the bal­lis­tic plates has been devel­oped through a part­ner­ship between: 

• The Defence Mate­ri­als Tech­nol­o­gy Centre;
• Aus­tralian Defence Appar­el (ADA);
• The Com­mon­wealth Sci­en­tif­ic and Indus­tri­al Research Organ­i­sa­tion (CSIRO); and 
• The Vic­to­ri­an Cen­tre for Advanced Mate­ri­als Man­u­fac­tur­ing (VCAMM).

Aus­tralian Defence Appar­el will soon be able to man­u­fac­ture the bal­lis­tic plates at their fac­to­ry in Bendigo. 

Mr Clare said that most bal­lis­tic plates used by the ADF are cur­rent­ly import­ed from the Unit­ed States. 

“Man­u­fac­tur­ing these plates in Aus­tralia has big advan­tages. It will allow for new tech­nol­o­gy to be pro­to­typed quick­ly and for prod­uct devel­op­ment to occur in Aus­tralia,” Mr Clare said. 

“Thanks to the hard work of the sci­en­tists, engi­neers and Aus­tralian Defence Indus­try here we now have a world-lead­ing prod­uct that can be pro­duced here in Australia.” 

The Defence Mate­ri­als Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­tre is a not-for-prof­it com­pa­ny joint­ly fund­ed by the Com­mon­wealth Government’s ‘Defence Future Capa­bil­i­ty Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­tre’ pro­gram, the Vic­to­ri­an Gov­ern­ment, and indus­try and research body participants. 

The Cen­tre brings togeth­er defence indus­try, uni­ver­si­ties and gov­ern­ment research agen­cies to devel­op new mate­ri­als and man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nolo­gies that will enhance Australia’s defence capability.

Media con­tacts:
Alice Plate (Min­is­ter Snowdown’s Office): 0400 045 999
Kore­na Flana­gan (Min­is­ter Clare’s Office): 0418 251 316
Defence Media Liai­son: 02 6127 1999 or 0408 498 664 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

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