Democrat Urges Homemade Armor in Iraq

AP News Wires ^ | Dec ember 29, 2003 | DAVID A. LIEB

[SwinneySwitch]

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- The ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee urged the Army's top civilian official Monday to seriously consider allowing an Army Reserve unit to outfit its vehicles with homemade armor while serving in Iraq.

Army policy generally prohibits troops from using equipment that has not been tested and approved by the military.

But fearing roadside bombs and snipers, the 428th Transportation Company turned to local businessmen to fund and fabricate special steel plates for their five-ton trucks and Humvees, which have thin metal floorboards and, in some cases, a canvas covering for doors.

The Army has made no decision yet on whether the soldiers will be allowed to use the armor.

Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the House Armed Services Committee's senior Democrat, sent a letter Monday urging Acting Secretary of the Army Les Brownlee to encourage the Army to "give every consideration to the efforts of the 428th." "The Army should commend the soldiers of the 428th Transportation Company for their innovation and old fashioned American ingenuity," Skelton wrote.

Army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said policy prohibits the Army from commenting on letters between congressmen and senior Army leaders. But Smith added the Army has asked the steel fabricator to submit a sample of the armor for testing at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

Brownlee told the Senate Armed Services Committee in November that the Army was examining ways to add armor to vehicles, but he said it could take until summer 2005 to have armor on all the Humvees in Iraq.

A spokeswoman at Fort Riley, Kan., where the Missouri-based troops are preparing to depart for Iraq, said the unit will be able to take the steel with them, but that the Central Command will decide later whether it can be used.

[SwinneySwitch]

Keep the pressure on!

[optimistically_conservative]

HOW DARE THEY!! We can't have soldiers thinking for themselves like this! Next they'll be making decisions about what they'll allow the government pump into their blood or embed in their skin!

This ruins everything.

[dasboot]

This reminds me of the problen the US tanks had getting through the hedgerows of Normandy; the tankers welded big shovels or something to the fronts of the vehicles to keep the underbelly from raising into the air and exposing the underbelly to German machine gun fire.

Now, what: they'd have to get approval from Washington?

Dumassus Pentagonisus. Not only top-heavy, but full of self important fairy-hoppers?

[RAY]

Following Normandy invasion, the troops didn't wait on the brass to approve the tank hedge row plows. Doubt if they will now!

[sirchtruth]

...but full of self important fairy-hoppers?

ROTFLMAO!

What's that?

[dasboot]

Well, I just remembered the story of the general who had steel plate welded into his glider without the pilot's knowledge. Hit the ground like a rock when the teather lot-off.

Lesson: Trust the garage mechanics. Look for dirty fingernails on any guy with a degree and commission trying to tell you what to do.

[gatorbait]

Well, I just remembered the story of the general who had steel plate welded into his glider without the pilot's knowledge. Hit the ground like a rock when the tether lot-off.

That's apocryphal. Don Pratt was crushed to death when the jeep in his glider broke loose and smashed into him.

[dasboot]

Fairy-hoppers:

A unique, regional (Fall River, MA) term for sissies.

Properly pronounced, 'fahvee hoppah'.

[SwinneySwitch]

Is Fall River in Barney Frank's district?

[dasboot]

BINGO!!

Mt turn: ROTFLMAO

Yes, an exemplar.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

TOGA! TOGA! TOGA!

[vpintheak]

So let me get this straight, they bitch, moan, and do everything they possibly can to not approve the money Bush wanted earlier, and now this rat wants to spend more money apart from that amount to help the troops? Shows the duplicitiveness of the left doesn't it?

[SwinneySwitch]

The armor is already paid for!

From a 12/26 article by David A. Lieb:

The 72 vehicles operated by the 428th are not designed for battle. They have thin metal floorboards and, in some cases, a canvas covering for doors. Iraqi guerrilla groups have been targeting all types of military vehicles with homemade bombs and small-caliber weapons.

E-mails from soldiers already deployed in Iraq urged the Missouri reservists to get extra armor if possible, said 1st Sgt. Tim Beydler, a member of the 428th.

The soldiers persuaded a local funeral home director who is active in community affairs to pay the $4,000 tab for 13,000 pounds of quarter-inch steel. Industrial Enterprises Inc. donated the fabricating work, also valued at about $4,000, so the steel could be fitted under vehicle floorboards and on the inside of doors.

[Darksheare]

A DEM is pushing to approve armor for the Humvees?
Did I just read that right?

[NonValueAdded]

Let them send the 13,000 pounds of the stuff to the Iraqi proving grounds instead of Aberdeen. What are they afraid of, spoiling the gas mileage of the humvees and generating more profit for Haliburton?

[SwinneySwitch]

"Skelton's district is home to two military installations -- Fort Leonard Wood and Whiteman Air Force Base. Skelton was instrumental in bringing the Army Engineer School to Fort Leonard Wood and the B-2 Stealth bomber to Whiteman."

My guess is Ike's going to run again in '04!

[Darksheare]

Fort Lost in the Woods, and Whiteman AFB, home of the B-2 named 'Spirit of New York'.
Hmmm...
Maybe.
He's gotta toss his hat out there soon if he is..

[mvpel]

And what will Rep. Skelton say if the homemade armor under a certain assault scenario actually increases, rather than decreases, the harm to the users? For instance, with an unexpected ricochet pattern, or a suspension failure in the middle of a fight after the logistics guys used the stock weight capacities when loading the vehicle?

I have no objection to making our troops safer, but focus on streamlining the vetting and approval process, not on the fact that it has to be approved.

[JSteff]

Two thoughts. First in Viet Nam the troops put loads of sand bags on the floors of their APV's. The somewhat worked but burned out a bunch of transmissions (automatics) and left the APV's disabled or breaking down in the field.

Second. There are several companies who make relatively light weight ballistic panels that can be cut to shape. In fact there was an article on FR a year or two ago about a new one that was designed by one university or another. A company in Israel makes them also. Why not use that instead of steel?
I know there is a company that makes it in 4x8 sheets that can be installed in homes. What about that stuff?

Most of it already exists, why hasn't the army retrofitted some e of their vehicles them selves?

[mvpel]

Most of it already exists, why hasn't the army retrofitted some e of their vehicles them selves?

Because like any large governmental organization, the Army resembles a brontosaurus - due to its enormous size, and the limited speed of nerve impulses, it took about 9-10 seconds for this breed of dinosaur to notice that something was chewing on its tail, and another 9-10 seconds to move the tail to shake it off.

[mvpel]

According to this page: http://www.infinitycomposites.com/cgi-bin/infinitydb.pl?bllpnls

A SPECTRA ballistic panel sufficient to stop a 7.62x39 round, such as that from the AK-47s that litter the countryside in Iraq, costs $350.40 per square foot, and is just under 1.5 inches thick.

[First_Salute]

Bump.

[vpintheak]

Well that is good news, glad to hear it. I guess that the rat congressman is either showing support for it for political gain, or even maybe concern for the troops.

[Fixit]

UPDATE:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=710&e=1&u=/usatoday/20040129/pl_usatoday/hometowneffortstohelptroopshindered

Hometown efforts to help troops hindered
Thu Jan 29,10:42 AM ET

By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY

When the 700 men and women of an Alabama National Guard battalion were told last year that they were going to Iraq (news - web sites), they worried about the canvas doors and thin metal floors on their Humvees - and the hazards of duty overseas.


War was something new for the 711th Signal Battalion, which had last been mobilized during the Korean War. To better protect themselves, members of the battalion's Charlie Company, soldiers from the villages of Foley and Bay Minette, hit on a plan to put homemade armor on their vehicles.

The unauthorized work was done outside military channels with the help of family and friends. Shortly after they finished, Army officials had the steel plates removed, at least temporarily, from dozens of Humvees that had been modified.

"We felt - I'm not going to say betrayed - but you feel hurt that they would remove it," says Bobby Lay, 47, a Foley city superintendent who worked on the project and who has a brother, a son and a nephew in Charlie Company.

"Even though the people had good intentions, it wasn't the way the military goes about providing modified military vehicles," says Lt. Col Bob Horton of the Alabama National Guard.

The hometown effort was something Army officials say is understandable given the ongoing American casualties from roadside bombs and ambushes in Iraq. More than 80 soldiers have died in those attacks since the American-led invasion of Iraq, most of them while riding in Humvees.

"To be honest with you, we just did not expect this level of violence," Army Deputy Chief of Staff John Keane testified before members of Congress last September, explaining why the Army is short of armored Humvees.

The Army is trying to produce more than 4,000 heavily armored Humvees for duty in Iraq. The output of the O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt factory in Fairfield, Ohio, which makes the vehicles, has gone up from 80 per month to 220. Even so, Army officials say their goal won't be met until 2005.

To further meet demand, the Army has ordered 8,400 add-on "kits" that will provide armor-like protection to ordinary Humvees and can be installed in the field in about three hours. Officials expect to have all of the kits delivered before the end of this year.

On Jan. 16, the Pentagon (news - web sites) issued guidelines on what kind of material can be used if individual units want to put armor on their vehicles. And a number of Army units in Iraq have been contracting with local fabricators to build steel plates for the doors of Humvees.

Alabama has lost 14 people in Iraq so far, including one Guard member who died in October. At least two of the 14 were in convoys hit by roadside bombs.

When Charlie Company decided late last year on the do-it-yourself armor, the work began in Foley, a century-old Gulf Coast town of 10,500 and a base for shrimp boats.

Volunteers brought their own welding and cutting tools. Veterans and former members of the signal company worked weekends and nights in the city's transportation workshop and the local armory. They fashioned steel plates to protect the undercarriage of the Humvees: two slabs of steel, more than a quarter-of-an-inch thick, 2 by 8 feet. Each slab weighed about 150 pounds. Smaller sections were cut for the Humvee doorways.

They also built steel boxes to serve as mounts for .50-caliber machine guns on four Humvees.

Lay says a local businessman contributed more than $8,000 to pay for the steel used to modify at least two dozen Humvees.

"We are basically conservative, God-fearing people, and we believe in serving our country," says Tim Russell, 55, a Vietnam War veteran and mayor of Foley.

News of the work in Foley spread 30 miles north to Bay Minette, where other members of Charlie Company soldiers had their own fleet of Humvees.

Students at a local high school adopted the effort as a class project, drilling holes and bolting the plates onto the vehicles.

"They really got excited," shop teacher Keith Langham says. "It's just something about young men and military equipment. ... I'm not sure they really believed we were going to work on the real thing."

Julie Thomaston, a Bay Minette mother of two, including a 5-month-old boy, says her husband, Dan, a sergeant with Charlie Company, fired rifle shots at a piece of the armor to test its strength. "It just makes me feel a lot better," Thomaston says of the armor.

But when word filtered up to the state Guard headquarters in Montgomery, orders went out statewide banning such unauthorized modifications. Eventually, the steel plates on the Charlie Company vehicles were ordered removed.

For now, the 711th Signal Battalion is at Fort Stewart, Ga., preparing to go to Iraq.

Their homemade armor will also be shipped overseas, and much of it, if approved, may be reinstalled, says Lt. Col. Scott Gedling, battalion commander.

Last year, Army Reserve members of the 428th Transportation Company, based in Missouri, also had steel armor made for their Humvees and trucks.

The Army has tested the plates and has passed along guidance on how they can be used safely.

Bobby Lay says he knows right where his brother, Chuck Lay, and his son, Craig Lay, will be riding in the Humvees they worked so hard to safeguard. And he hopes the armor they built goes back on the Humvees. "If it just stops one stray bullet, it's done its work," Lay says.