I don't think I've ever used either of them. They have TU and energy penalties and their resistance is not high enough to resist penetration by anything, so in my view, they're basically useless and actively impede your survival through TU/Energy penalties. Until you get armor that is impenetrable by the bulk of what enemies are using, the only useful defense is to hard break contact, otherwise you're dead.
At least that's how it is on JS, because enemies never miss there.