6B3

6B3 (romanized from 6Б3) is a Soviet and Russian body armor.

History
During the early stages of the war in Afghanistan the 6B2 was adopted. However the level of protection of this vest was not enough to protect against automatic weapons. In mid 1979 the first examples of new vests arrived, these were the 6B3 and 6B4. These both protected the user against rounds of AKM calibre and weighed around 10kg. The protection in the front and back of these vests was the same. This was soon found to be rather heavy and solutions were sought.

In 1985 the 6B3-01 and 6B401 were introduced. These were the lightweight versions of the previous vests. They featured 6.5mm thick titanium in the 6B3-01 and ceramic in the 6B4. The back protection consisted of lighter and thinner titanium. This saved weight compared to the older versions.

The 6B3TM was adopted in 1984, and has 6.5mm titanium alloy plates in the front, combined with 15 layers of synthetic "SVMT" (romanized from СВМТ) fabric. In the back the vest has titanium alloy plates of 1.5mm thickness and 8-layers of "SVMT" fabric. The vest weighed 7-12kg. The front of the vest is rated for 5.45x39 bullets. An interesting feature is that the 6B3TM and 6B3TM-01 titanium plates had differing levels of hardness, not all titanium alloy was equal.

The 6B3 variants can be found on various pictures in Afghanistan, though the 6B2 was much more common. Later the 6B3 was developed into more versions and camouflage covers were also adopted. The vest saw widespread use in both Chechnyan conflicts and recently even in the South Ossetian conflict. These variants are most often in modern Flora. They are still used by both VDV and Naval Infantry. They have been slowly replaced by the new 6Bxx series.

Variants
6B3 - ballistic vest Zhe-85T (romanized from 6Б3 and Ж-85Т)

6B3-01 - ballistic vest Zhe-85T (romanized from 6Б3-01 and Ж-85Т)

6B3TM - ballistic vest Zhe-85TM (romanized from 6Б3ТМ and Ж-85ТМ)

6B3TM-01 - ballistic vest Zhe-85TM-01 (romanized from 6Б3ТМ-01 and Ж-85ТМ-01)