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How Does Body Armor Work Against Shrapnel?

Shrapnel is a different threat from a bullet, and it is tested differently. What NIJ body armor is tested against, how fragment protection is measured as a V50, and what to ask before relying on armor near explosives.

ArmorList Editorial·May 2, 2025·5 min read

Understanding how body armor relates to shrapnel matters for anyone working where explosives are a documented threat, in the military, in some law enforcement roles, or in certain industrial settings. The CDC groups injuries from projectiles such as bomb fragments and flying debris as secondary blast injuries, one of four kinds of blast injury.

Shrapnel is a different threat from a bullet, and it is measured with a different kind of test. This article sets out what body armor is tested against, how fragment protection is measured, and what to ask. ArmorList reports what the records show; it never ranks or endorses a product.

The live version of this page cited the National Research Council's 2012 report Testing of Body Armor Materials: Phase III. What that report records is narrower than a shrapnel statistic, and it is set out below.

Understanding shrapnel and its threats

Shrapnel, in the sense used here, is the fragments an explosion throws out. In our reading, fragments come in many sizes and velocities rather than as a single defined round, which is why fragment protection is not usefully expressed as "stops X".

The National Research Council's Phase III report quotes the U.S. Army's Program Executive Office Soldier: "There have been no known soldier deaths due to small arms that were attributable to a failure of the issued ceramic body armor." The committee calls the statement "carefully qualified", and notes that casualties among soldiers wearing body armor may result from other causes, including rounds larger than the armor was designed for, projectiles or shrapnel striking a part of the body the armor does not cover, and blast effects from improvised explosive devices.

That statement is about small arms and issued ceramic armor. It is not a measure of how armor performs against shrapnel, and this article does not use it as one.

Basics of body armor

Soft body armor is made of flexible ballistic panels, and hard armor uses rigid plates. NIJ Standard 0101.07 sets minimum performance requirements and test methods for body armor used by U.S. law enforcement that is intended to protect the torso against handgun and rifle ammunition. Its levels, HG1 and HG2 for handguns and RF1, RF2 and RF3 for rifles, are defined by named test rounds in NIJ Standard 0123.00. For the rifle levels, see Hard body armor.

NIJ 0101.07 tests ammunition, not fragments. In our reading, a listing on the NIJ Compliant Products List (CPL) therefore does not describe how a model performs against fragments, and a fragment result says nothing about a named bullet. Our advice: confirm which threat a product's claim actually addresses.

Materials used in body armor

Body armor is made from fibers such as para-aramid (Kevlar is a para-aramid fiber that Stephanie Kwolek invented at DuPont in 1965; the brand now belongs to Arclin), from polyethylene, and from ceramic and steel plates. For what each material is, read Polyethylene and Kevlar.

We found no NIJ, CJTTEC or DoD source that ranks these materials against fragments (checked 1 October 2026), so we make no claim about which performs better against shrapnel. What a given product does against fragments is a question for its fragment test result.

How fragment protection is measured

Fragment protection is measured as a V50. MIL-STD-662F, the U.S. military's V50 test method, defines it as the velocity at which a projectile has a 50 percent chance of penetrating the armor. For fragments, the projectile is a fragment-simulating projectile (FSP), a standardized projectile fired in place of a real fragment; the DoD specification MIL-DTL-46593B defines FSPs in .22, .30 and .50 caliber and 20 mm.

NATO's standardization agreement STANAG 2920, with its companion publication AEP-2920, sets how personal armour is tested against fragments and bullets. The Czech defence standard that implements it describes fragment testing with FSPs and results reported as a V50. Current edition: STANAG 2920 Edition 3 with AEP-2920 Edition A, as the Czech implementing standard lists it (checked 30 September 2026).

How to read a V50:

  • A higher V50 means that projectile needs more velocity to get through half the time.
  • In our view, it is a statistical midpoint, not a guarantee at any single velocity.
  • Compare V50 results only for the same projectile and test method.
  • A V50 does not convert into an NIJ level.

Where it is used: the U.S. Army has explained a V50 rating for its Enhanced Combat Helmet as the velocity needed for 50 percent of fragments to penetrate, and describes its Advanced Combat Helmet Generation II as stopping 9 mm handgun rounds along with various shell fragments. For bomb technicians, NIJ Standard 0117.01 for bomb suits addresses fragmentation among its six areas, with blast overpressure. For how ratings work, read Understanding Body Armor Ratings.

What to check

  • Which threat is the claim about: bullets, fragments, or blast overpressure? Each has its own test.
  • For a fragment claim: the V50 value, the FSP used, and the method or specification it was measured under (MIL-STD-662F, STANAG 2920 or another).
  • For ballistic armor where a buyer, policy or funder requires NIJ compliance: the exact model on the CPL, its standard and level, and the date you read its status.
  • ArmorList's product records show the standards a model is recorded as tested to and, for NIJ, its CPL status with the date the list was read.

Sources

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