Amazon Affiliate Link: Gung Ho by H John Poole

I know, it's been a while.  It's time to get back to studying and then applying (the most important part) small unit tactics.  The best place to learn them is from America's foremost thinker on small unit tactics and unconventional warfare, H John Poole.  Poole was Vietnam USMC company commander who resigned his commission and enlisted in order to teach small unit tactics to young Marines to try and reduce casualties, much like Lord General Baden-Powell did with his Boy Scouts before the Second Boer War.

This time, I read Gung Ho, an analysis of the teachings of Evans Carlson, James Roosevelt, and Red Mike Edson, the founders of the Marine Raiders in WW2.  Carlson had served as an adviser to Mao Tse Tung during the revolution and subsequent resistance to the Japanese invasion.  He took the teachings of Mao on guerrilla warfare and began training Marines in Mao's idea of "Mobile Warfare", which we now call "Manuever Warfare", and it is the specialty of the USMC.

Carlson developed the idea of a Raider squad being composed of 3 four-man fire teams and a squad leader.  This format was later adopted Marine Corps-wide and is still in use today, because of Carlson's experimentation.  It alllowed greater flexibility.  Carlson is most famous for "The Long Patrol", a 29-day patrol through the jungles of Guadalcanal during the darkest days of WW2.  By using Maoist mobile warfare tactics and individual initiative instead of following battle drills blindly, the 2nd Raiders killed 500 Japanese during the patrol, while only losing 16 men.

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Hoplite Industries sent me a new helmet to test, they claim sourced from a different factory.  I take them at their word, but the helmet is identical in both outer appearance and suspension system, right down to the fake Team Wendy W pad inside.  China is like that though, there might be 5 different state-owned businesses all making the same product with slight quality variations.

You can find this helmet at: Hoplite Helmet

You can read about our testing of the first batch elsewhere on this site, but hey failed to stop a 44 Magnum Soft Point.

This helmet was tested using a 9mm 147 Jacketed Hollow Point fired out of a Ruger RXM at about 15 yards.  As you can see from the pictures, the helmet stopped the round.  The dent on the inside did not exceed the thickness of the padding, making this helmet truly a Level IIIA helmet.

I like the easy to adjust helmet suspension.  The mounting plate for NODs is stiffer and a bit harder to lock in than on my USNV FAST helmet, but it does work and is sturdy.

This is good lower cost entry level ballistic helmet for those just starting out.

Hoplite Industries reached out to me and asked me if I would be willing to be a 3rd party to test their new line of NIJ Level IIIA rated helmets.  I accepted, and for full disclosure, I was sent two helmets, one to test and one to keep as payment.  I told him that I would test them, give him a couple of days to handle any feedback I had, then I'd release the results, either way.

Hoplite Industries had a rough start with their digital night vision, but is geniuinely attempting to fix the sourcing issues they had and build solid products for the tactical/preparedness community.  I know there was drama with others, but I'm able to set that aside, as I want to truly help other guys get out there and I want to recommend quality products to my people.

Hoplite asked me if I had a 44 Magnum available for testing.  He sent me the results of their test on the high cut helmets using 147 grain 9mm Gold Dot hollow points and he wanted to make sure that the mid-cut helmet met the same standard.  I don't have a 44 Magnum, because I am not Inspector Harry Callahan of the SF PD, but my dear friend Allen has one and agreed to help me with the test.  We fired a single round of 44 Magnum, 240 grains, from a Ruger Blackhawk revolver at a distance of 10 yards (30 feet).

As you can see, the UHMWPE fibers became severely deformed and all that energy would have been transferred to the skull and brain of whoever was wearing the helmet.

I immediately sent the photos to Hoplite, who was indeed surprised.  He looked into the issue and found that the mid and full cut helemts came from a different source than the high cuts he had tested.  He asked me if I would be willing to shoot the other helmet with a 9mm to see if the full cut had the same issue.  To his credit, he seemed genuinely concerned to want to do this right.

So, the full cut was tested with a single round of Sellier & Bellot 115 grain FMJ.  The helmet also failed, with a deformity that would have caused injury.  Sure, any round to the helmet will cause some injury and deformation of the helmet, but the fibers still seperated on this helmet.

Hoplite immediately pulled the helmets from his site and offered a full refund or replacement to anyone who bought one before the testing was done, which says a lot of good for him.  

He has switched materials and is ordering helmets made of Aramid now, and intends to send a new pair to me for testing, which I will do, and then issue a follow up review.

While the product didn't stand up to testing, Hoplite's character did.  He didn't dodge or evade the test results, he took immediate action to correct the situation.  We will see what the future holds.

In the meantime, he has re-listed the helmets as non-ballistic bump helmets for airfsoft or fragmentation, but not NIJ rated.

I cannot recommend these helmets for any protective use.