Davedove was saying that soft armor does not soften the blow, au contrare mes ami.

Soft armor catches the bullet and transfers a huge percentage of the energy 90 degrees to the line of flight by bunching up. Imagine throwing a softball at a sheet on the close line drying. No matter how hard you throw that ball it uses up its energy puckering up the sheet. Now make it 12 sheets. See what I mean?

What you may not see on TV is the "NUTGUARD" on the body armor. In Iraq it is there. The nutguard is an upsidedown tombstone shaped kevlar flap that hangs down in front to the knees. It is in fact the front half of an armored kilt.