Jake Ganor
What are the latest developments and advancements in technologies designed to improve ballistic protection?
The past year has been a relatively quiet one for advances in body armor materials. New composites, new soft armor materials and new metal alloys or ceramic materials have not been broadly fielded. UHMWPE (Ultrahigh Molecular Weight Polyethylene) is more dominant than it has ever been – with Avient and Honeywell both struggling to keep up with demand – and advances in Kevlar®, beyond last year’s Kevlar EXO™, are laboratory curiosities rather than commercially available armor materials.
That’s all more of the same. But, no new materials does not mean no noteworthy advances; to the contrary, there have been significant advances in better standard implementation, better deployment models and tactics, more ergonomic designs, and police-specific head protection. Police armor is gradually becoming less like a single issued vest and more like a layered survivability system: Daily soft armor on the body; rifle protection close at hand; portable cover when movement is required; body-specific fit; and helmets tested as complete law enforcement systems rather than repurposed military shells.
The Ongoing Standard Upgrade – NIJ 0101.07 and HG/RF Threat Levels
I’ve been writing about this for the past two years and NIJ 0101.07 is still in the process of being implemented. Rumor has it that the new CPL – the list of certified products – is scheduled for release in early 2027. In the meanwhile, the transition from NIJ 0101.06 to 0101.07 is moving from abstract standards talk into implementation and awareness of the new HG and RF threat level language is growing among purchasers and vendors.
As I’ve noted before, the big practical change is clarity. Handgun threats are now HG. Rifle threats, which are now categorized as RF1, RF2 and RF3, communicate more directly than the old Level III and Level IV shorthand. ARF2 gives agencies a more useful intermediate rifle category instead of forcing every rifle armor conversation into either “ordinary Level III” or “full AP-style Level IV.” For police buyers, the value is that the RF1 and RF2 levels make it harder to hide weak threat definitions behind familiar, but undefined and ambiguous, labels.
Rifle Plates – Moving Closer to the Patrol Officer
There has been a push for rifle-capable patrol armor and the statistical argument for it is straightforward: Police shootings remain a low frequency, high consequence problem and the first officers on scene are usually patrol officers, not tactical teams.
In the FBI’s 2025 LEOKA (Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted) data, 53 officers were feloniously killed, 43 of them by firearms. Where firearm type was reported, handguns were identified more often than rifles: ten handgun entries, five rifle entries, no shotgun entries, and 24 unknown firearms. Unfortunately, that large unknown category prevents any clean handgun versus rifle conclusion from the fatality data alone. But, it nevertheless makes a strong case for police rifle armor in that soft armor already addresses the common handgun threat, while any rifle incident creates a catastrophic protection gap. For active shooter response, barricaded suspects, rural long gun calls, high-risk warrant service, and vehicle staged patrol equipment, rifle plates make sense and should probably be kept close at hand.
That does not mean every patrol officer should wear rifle plates for an entire shift. Most police work still favors concealable or external soft armor optimized around comfort, coverage and wear compliance. A sounder and more reasonable conclusion is simply that rifle protection has moved closer to the patrol officer. Agencies increasingly treat rifle plates as staged equipment: in the vehicle; in an active shooter kit; in a quick don carrier; or assigned to officers most likely to respond to rural calls, high-risk warrant service, barricaded subjects, active shooter incidents, or long gun calls.
The advance, then, is that we’re beginning to see a new deployment model: daily handgun armor worn continuously, plus rifle armor kept close.
Ballistic Shields Returned as Portable Cover
Agencies and grant programs are again treating shields as practical patrol equipment, especially for active shooter response, barricaded suspects, hostage rescue, domestic violence calls, felony stops, welfare checks, and casualty extraction.
That makes sense. A vest protects the person wearing it. A shield creates movable cover. It can protect a second officer; cover a rescue; help cross a threshold; reduce exposure in a hallway; or give patrol a safer way to move toward a threat.
What’s important to emphasize is not that shields are new, but rather that they are becoming more common outside specialized tactical units. Compact rifle-rated shields, vehicle carried shields and rapidly deployable patrol shields fit the same broader pattern as rifle plates: Police armor is moving from passive personal protection toward layered response equipment.
Fit Became a Protection Issue, Especially for Women Officers
Fit is now impossible to hand wave away as a mere comfort issue. Poorly fitted armor creates coverage gaps; shifts the strike face away from where it is supposed to sit; interferes with breathing and weapon handling; and makes officers less likely to wear the equipment correctly.
The best recent data point comes from the United Kingdom’s 2024 National Uniform and Equipment Survey which gathered 27,079 responses. The results were ugly: 61% said body armor was very uncomfortable and caused ongoing discomfort; 64% said uniform or equipment restricted movement or effectiveness; and 38% of female officers reported crushed breasts from body armor design. Among female respondents, 85% reported at least one health condition caused or worsened by a uniform or equipment.
Those numbers describe systemic design failures. “Unisex” armor usually means male pattern armor scaled down. Needless to say, this is not the same as armor shaped for female anatomy and it is not the same as armor fitted across a full range of torso lengths, bust profiles, shoulder widths, waist to hip ratios, and duty belt interactions.
The standards world is responding. NIJ 0101.07 includes improved test methods for armor designed for women, including methods intended to evaluate shaped armor and potential vulnerabilities around construction features and edges. This comes in recognition of the fact that female armor cannot be treated as a tailoring problem after the ballistic package is already designed. The shape itself affects ballistic testing.
The product world is also moving. Armor Express markets structured female soft armor with narrower chest dimensions and integrated cup structure. RMA Armament has released female fit rifle plates. Mehler has introduced the Woman Soft Ballistic Panel, an anatomically molded female panel offered to VPAM 3 and SK1 configurations and designed to integrate with multiple vest models. These are the kinds of products which signal the real change: Police armor for women is moving from accommodation to engineered product categories.
Fit is increasingly written into procurement. Female cut armor, whenever needed, should be available at issue, not special order. Fitting sessions should include the full duty load out. If an officer cannot shoulder a long gun, breathe properly, sit in a patrol vehicle, wear a radio, and move without the armor riding into the throat or crushing the chest, the armor has failed operationally even if an NIJ lab gave it a passing mark.
Helmets as Law Enforcement Systems, Not Repurposed Military Shells
The police helmet market is also changing. For decades, many law enforcement helmets were essentially military derived shells, surplus ACH or PASGT helmets, or bump helmets pressed into jobs they were never meant to perform. The most noteworthy armor advance of 2025 is towards helmets tested and purchased as complete law enforcement systems.
The DEA and FBI Ballistic Helmet Protocol 2024 set the stage and was implemented in earnest from 2025. It is written around pistol caliber law enforcement threats and treats the helmet as a complete system: shell, NVG shroud, rails, suspension, and retention, as worn by the end user. The protocol includes environmental conditioning, water immersion, stringent penetration and backface deformation testing, impact testing, compression testing, and retention testing. It also pays attention to edge and hardware areas which matter in the real world because helmets are not smooth laboratory test samples.
Actual procurement has followed. Busch PROtective’s AMP-1 X was selected under an FBI/DOJ five year IDIQ contract and is offered in FBI configurations around 2.8 pounds to 3.1 pounds with rails and NVG mounting. Galvion’s Hellbender™ FE was also announced under a five year DOJ/FBI contract vehicle, with modular upgrades including maxillofacial protection and accessory integration. ArmorSource’s AS-223 is another example of a law enforcement oriented helmet built around reduced trauma and DEA/FBI protocol compliance.
Full disclosure: I own and operate Adept Armor. With that out of the way, I believe that our forthcoming Nova Titanium helmet points to another possible direction. Instead of another thick UHMWPE or aramid shell, the Nova Titanium utilizes a thin shell made of enhanced toughness 260LC titanium. The entire helmet weighs 2.02 pounds fully configured in size L/XL, including shell, pads, retention, and standard hardware. It is rated for 9mm FMJ at over 1300 fps with low backface deformation; offers edge-to-edge metal coverage; and is designed around an indefinite titanium shell service life and compatibility with Adept’s NovaSteel™ accessory ecosystem, including mandibles, the accessory mounting circlet, ballistic nape protection in the form of the helmet lobster tail, and a forthcoming blast liner.
A titanium helmet will never be a rifle-rated helmet and it isn’t optimal as a military shell as it’s a lot better against handgun bullets than it is against fragments, but it belongs in the serious police helmet conversation because it attacks the barriers which keep helmets from wider patrol availability: weight, price, deformation, and service life.
The larger helmet trend is that police helmets are no longer just hand-me-down military shells. They are platforms for head protection, face protection, comms, hearing protection, night vision, and blunt impact management – and police requirements are very different from military requirements.
The Real Trend
The past year’s real police armor advances are practical, not glamorous: Rifle plates are moving closer to the patrol officer. Shields are returning as portable cover. Fit is being treated as part of protection. Helmets are becoming complete law enforcement systems.
Practical advances are useful advances because armor is ultimately judged by whether it protects against the threats officers actually face; whether it can be staged or worn when needed; whether it fits the person issued it; and whether it performs as a complete system under realistic conditions.
Still, here’s hoping for more material advances in 2026-2027!
Jake Ganor is a materials scientist, armor engineer and a designer of ballistic shields. His company, Adept Armor (ade.pt), is pioneering next generation armor systems. His book, Body Armor and Light Ballistic Armor Materials and Systems, is available on Amazon.