Dragon EOD "William" in full bomb suit REVIEW III

A bomb suit or Blast Suit is a heavy suit of personal armor designed to withstand the force released from a bomb. It is also sometimes referred to as a Demon suit due to the number of people who are killed in the suit. In contrast to ballistic armors, which primarily focus on protecting the torso and head, a bomb suit must protect all parts of the body equally, since a bomb's force always impacts the entire body.

This is the Dragon Models (DML) 1/6 scale 12-inch US Army EOD Squad Leader - Operation Iraqi Freedom - "William" (Sergeant First Class) boxed set with William fully suited up in his bomb suit - a SRS-5 (Search and Reconnaissance Suit Model 5) which is considered the light suit version. Scroll down for pictures of this EOD bomb suit with alternate black helmet version.

This Dragon set has Sergeant First Class William (the 1/6 head sculpt is supposed to be Jeremy Renner as Sergeant First Class William James from the 2009 Academy Award-winning American war film "The Hurt Locker", about a three-man United States Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team during the Iraq War. (see my post HERE for close-ups of the head sculpt and box contents)

Being a suit designed to withstand explosive force, it is very heavy, bulky and difficult to maneuver in. These drawbacks make it unsuitable for combat situations. However, they are often used by explosives experts while attempting bomb disposal.

EOD technicians wear Bomb Suits during reconnaissance, 'render safe' or disruption procedures on potential or confirmed explosive threats. Such suits must provide a tremendous degree of protection from fragmentation, blast overpressure, thermal and tertiary effects should the threat device detonate. At the same time the suit can significantly hinder their mobility or situational awareness.

As someone commented on my earlier post, "The helmet in this kit is an old type which is not the same as the one in the movie. The bomb suit in the movie is type EOD 9A and the helmet comes with a black frame hosting the visor glass." Like I mentioned, another instance of Dragon re-hashing old stuff and selling them off as new. Since I didn't manage to get the earlier released Dragon "U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Unit - Dennis" figure, I didn't mind this. Dragon did produce and release some great stuff when they were at their peak years ago. This was one of those IMHO

By using the Hasbro released G.I. Joe EOD / Bomb Disposal basic outfit (see previous post on suiting up), there now seems to be an additional neck protector in the front which was what I was going for

And here's the Dragon Models (DML) 1/6 scale 12-inch US Army EOD Squad Leader - Operation Iraqi Freedom - "William" (Sergeant First Class) in the SRS-5 (Search and Reconnaissance Suit Model 5) bomb suit but with a black helmet with a visor that has a black frame. This helmet came with the G.I. Joe EOD / Bomb Disposal outfit set which was released before any other company produced one.

The black helmet with black frame visor makes for an interesting alternative helmet to the green SRS-5 helmet

Close-up of the G.I. Joe EOD helmet with visor which is also detachable / removable

And here's the latest released Dragon 1/6 scale US Army EOD bomb suit next to a Hong Kong Police EOD Bureau SRS-5 suit released years ago (more on this in a future post). Click on the picture for a bigger and better view. Same goes for the next picture.

This picture shows all three 1/6 scale EOD bomb suits that have been released by Dragon Models (DML). From left to right, Hong Kong Police EOD SRS-5 suit, US Army EOD SRS-5 suit and the HK Police EOD Bureau Bomb Disposal Suit (this is the heavy weight version which I'd hoped Dragon would release in army green.)