The Case for ICW: Why Thinner, Lighter Body Armor Often Makes More Sense
Walk through the consumer body armor market today and you will see two recurring claims that contradict each other. The first: thinner and lighter is always better. The second: thin plates are dangerous because they cannot survive being handled. Both claims have truth in them, but both are being used to talk past the buyer rather than help them choose the right product.
There is a category that resolves the conflict, and it is the most overlooked option in the consumer armor market: the In-Conjunction-With (ICW) plate. Built correctly, an ICW plate is the smarter choice for most buyers who already own soft armor — and the engineering that makes it thin is more nuanced than "skip the soft armor and skip the protection."
What ICW Actually Means
An ICW plate is a hard armor plate designed to be worn on top of soft armor. The component layers form a single ballistic system rated to a specific NIJ 0101.07 level — RF1, RF2, or RF3 — when used together.
This may not mean the hard plate has no standalone capability. Depending on the design, some ICW plates handle specific rifle threats by themselves and require the soft armor backing only for the harder threats in their rated envelope. Our GARMS 3, for example, defeats M80 7.62×51 NATO ball standalone with backface deformation under the NIJ 44mm limit — but is rated as an ICW plate at its higher protection level because the soft armor is required for the .30 M2AP. A plate can be a Special Rifle Threat (SRT) on some rounds and an ICW system on others. The label "ICW" describes the system that meets the rated protection level, not a limitation on what the hard plate can do by itself against lesser threats.
In NIJ 0101.07, the required soft armor backing for ICW configurations is HG2, the handgun classification roughly equivalent to the older Level IIIA standard. Officers, federal agents, contractors, and many serious civilian preparedness buyers already own and wear HG2 (or IIIA) soft armor. ICW plates take advantage of what is already there.
Why ICW Plates Can Be So Much Thinner — Both Halves of the Story
ICW plates are often dramatically thinner than their standalone equivalents. An RF2 standalone plate generally runs 0.7 to 1.0 inches thick. Our GARMS 2 PLUS, an RF2+ ICW plate, is 0.377 inches thick at 4.7-4.9 lbs for the full 10"×12" SAPI footprint — paired with HG2 soft armor, it resists M855A1 (the enhanced 5.56 EPR round that gives many thin plates trouble), M855, M193, M80 7.62×51 NATO, and 7.62×39 MSC. Please see the GARMS 2 PLUS product page for the complete and verified resisted-threat list.
Two things make that profile possible, and the industry usually only talks about one of them.
Half one: reduced standalone redundancy. A standalone plate has to fragment the projectile, absorb the energy, and prevent excessive backface deformation entirely on its own. An ICW plate offloads part of that work to the soft armor behind it. The hard plate breaks up the round; the soft armor catches what comes through or helps with energy management. Less ballistic mass is needed in the hard plate because the system is doing the work, not just the plate.
Half two: total composite engineering — which is also what protects the plate from real-world impact. The thinness is not just about removing material. It is about engineering the composite layers — strike face, backer, and adhesive system (our domestically-produced ARMORFILM™ in the case of GARMS 2 PLUS) — so they work together more efficiently. Crack-arresting layers, the right adhesive bond between ceramic and backer, careful edge construction, and matched material pairing all contribute. The same engineering that allows a thin profile is what allows the plate to survive realistic operational impact — drops during loading into a carrier, hits against a doorframe, contact with other gear, the impact of the wearer going prone hard. A poorly engineered thin plate is dangerous in both directions: it may not perform ballistically AND it may not survive being handled. A well-engineered thin plate, designed as a system with the soft armor behind it, handles both.
This is where the industry's disclosure problem lives. There are two real categories of impact protection a plate buyer should care about: operational impact protection (the plate survives realistic handling — (what some users want) and NIJ 0101.07 drop-test protection (the standardized certification protocol where the plate is mounted face-down on a swing-arm apparatus, dropped twice onto a hard surface from 48 inches with 10 lbs of clay, and must still defeat the ballistic threat — a deliberately punishing test). A significant number of manufacturers sell ultra-thin plates without disclosing which category — if either — their plate actually meets. The buyer sees a thin, light plate marketed as "Level 4" or "RF3," assumes it has been drop-tested because nothing tells them otherwise, and finds out later (sometimes the hard way) that the plate was never engineered to survive being handled, let alone tested to NIJ 0101.07 drop standards.
Our customers are starting to notice this and ask questions.
Every Gilliam Arms ICW plate is built with crack-arresting layers as standard construction — engineered for operational impact, the realistic case. The 0.377-inch GARMS 2 PLUS is the operational-impact version. For buyers who specifically want the same plate built to meet the NIJ 0101.07 drop-test protocol — we offer that upgrade at 0.49 inches thick, on the GARMS 2 PLUS and on most other ICW configurations. The difference in profile between the two impact tiers is small. The difference in honesty about what the buyer is getting is significant. Every product description states the impact protection level. Every ballistic label states it. If you want NIJ 0101.07 drop-test construction and it is not listed as an option, ask — most ICW models can be built that way.
The Flexibility a Standalone Plate Cannot Give You
There is a practical advantage to ICW that most buyers do not think about until they need it: the same hard plate can serve in two completely different carry configurations.
A standalone plate lives in a tactical plate carrier. That is what it is built for. It is too thick and too rigid to wear comfortably under clothing, and the carrier itself is recognizable as armor at a glance.
An ICW plate is more versatile. The same plate can be:
Carried in a tactical plate carrier with a separately purchased HG2 soft armor panel inserted behind it in the plate pocket. This is the high-threat configuration — full rifle protection, full coverage, ready for the situations that require it.
Carried in a discreet bullet-resistant vest worn under a shirt, suit jacket, or uniform top. The soft armor portion of the discreet vest handles the handgun threat envelope on its own; the ICW plate slides into the front panel pocket of the vest when elevated threat protection is needed. The wearer goes from low-profile to rifle-rated by inserting one plate, without changing carriers, without changing clothes.
This dual-use capability is something a standalone plate cannot offer. A standalone plate is too thick to disappear under normal clothing. The GARMS 2 PLUS at 0.377 inches can. For executives, plainclothes officers, security professionals, and civilian preparedness buyers who need armor that flexes between tactical and discreet environments, ICW is the only configuration that supports both.
The investment math also works in the buyer's favor. One ICW plate plus one set of HG2 soft armor panels can supply both a tactical carrier and a discreet vest. Buying separate dedicated plates for each scenario costs more and stores worse.
Matching the Plate to the Buyer
ICW is the strongest fit for the buyer who:
- Already owns functional HG2 / IIIA soft armor, or will own it
- Wants the thinnest, lightest hard plate they can get for their full rated threat envelope
- Wants the same plate to serve both tactical-carrier and discreet-carry roles
- Understands that the soft armor is part of the rifle protection system at the higher threat levels and must be in service-life condition
We sell both ICW and standalone. The mistake is buying the wrong configuration for the situation you are actually in.
The Practical Difference
A GARMS 2 PLUS at 0.377 inches paired with HG2 soft armor can resist M80 7.62×51 NATO, M855, M855A1, 7.62×39 MSC, M193, and the full HG2 handgun threat envelope. That is a complete rifle protection system in a profile thin enough to sit comfortably under a uniform or a suit jacket. A standalone RF2 equivalent is typically twice as thick and significantly heavier — it does the work alone, without leaning on a companion layer, and lives in a tactical carrier only.
For the buyer who does not own soft armor and never will, the standalone plate is the right tool. For the buyer who already has soft armor on (or can purchase a soft armor panel), ICW is not a compromise. It is the better-engineered answer for the situation they are actually in, it gives them dual-use flexibility that a standalone cannot, and well-engineered ICW plates often retain meaningful standalone capability against the easier threats in their envelope as well — protection does not vanish if the soft armor is for some reason not present against lesser rounds.
The choice between standalone and ICW is not about more protection versus less. It is about which configuration matches how you actually wear and use your armor.
Gilliam Arms is a US-based manufacturer of hard armor plates for law enforcement, military, contractor, and serious civilian use. All products are tested to NIJ 0101.07 standards, built domestically with domestic and quality global materials, and labeled with the specific impact protection level engineered into the plate. For technical questions about ICW versus standalone configurations, or to ask about NIJ 0101.07 drop-test construction as an upgrade, contact us through gilliamarms.com or use Striker, our AI sales assistant, on any product page.