Never mind about taking a direct hit by a 7.62 round. Only class 4 body armour can stop a round from an assault rifle, but there is no guarantee that it will not cause internal concussion from the force of the blow to the body.
A lot of combat deaths are not from direct hits by bullets but from shrapnel. Body armour can, in my opinion, reduce casualties from shrapnel blasts to the body. That's the reason soldiers wear helmets - it can't stop a bullet, but it can protect the head from shrapnel.
If anyone is still in NS, can you ask your officers why you don't get body armour to protect yourselves?
U have failed to understand that the SAF is a big expensive wayang show, intended to impress the neighbours. If u analyse it logically, u will see that. U can see the SAF does alot of jungle training and amphibious training, where in my opinion, they should be doing FIBUA training 90% of the time. I mean we are an urban jungle, where are the defences for that? Where are the coastal guns? Where are the means to turn every HDB block into a fortress against attackers.
If you say that SAF is an offensive force, intended to be used as a preventive strike force, than u need generals good in offensive ops. Do we have them? Do we really have the means to invade someone else and the experience to maintain and supply a strike force far away? The answer is again no.
The reality is that the SAF does not seriously think that it will undertake a war, whether its offensive or defensive in nature. That is why there is no body armour issued, because it will not come to that. The main purpose for the issue of body armour is to prevent death and serious injury during live firing exercises. As u know, thru the decades the SAF has lost over a thousand soldiers, and I am sure that body armour would have saved some of them. This should be the main reason for body armour, not the possibility of war. BTW, if you must know, most of our potential enemies have standardised on the NATO 5.56mm round. Not the WarPac 7.6mm.