Posted on 12/16/2004 7:17:19 AM PST by thebiggestdog
December 15, 2004 - The battle over armor.
After the televised bitch slap of Don Rumsfeld last week over the lack of armor for Humvees, I have been thinking about what that soldier said. Lets face it, the Army, like all government agencies is a bureaucracy. This is not to say the everyone at the DoD isn't taking their job seriously, but change is not made on the fly, and the Army thoroughly studies, tests, re-tests and summarized before doing anything. We cannot expect new armor that will protect against the variety of roadside bombs to be finalized in a day.
The situation is that the insurgents have switched gears, and are now prefering to attacks units in the rear because they can't go head to head with our front line troops. They have done this since the start of the war, but in my opinion they are looking to increase the number of Americans they kill, while sustainging few, if any casualties. Unfortunately we lost many soldiers in Fallujah, but the enemy lost twenty time the number we did. Attacking Humvees seems a better option than taking on a group of Marines.
I am not a military historian, but the Humvee was designed to be rugged enough to handle any terrain or weather, and handle a variety of different duties on a common platform. It was not however designed to be an armored personnel carrier. The IED's and RPG's the enemy is using are crude, but they are deadly. The question is, is there any body modifications that will in essence make the Humvee into an armored personnel carrier?
the Army has stated that by the end of August 2005 they will have spent over four billion dollars to either add armor to existing vehicles or bring in new vehicles with factory installed armor, but once again will this armor be enought to stop the latest and greatest IED's from the insurgents? Many in this country, including myself have a hard time understanding why we continue to have people in vehicles killed by roadside bombs or RPG's.
Unfortunately, this is war, and as much as I support what we are doing, it is still frustrating to read the notifications from the DoD of soldiers who have been killed in their vehicles. Maybe we need to realize that in the war on terror there is no safe area where we can operate without the risk of attack. Regardless, I hope the Army has the drawing board warmed up and is designing the next generation Humvee that can stop anything our enemies have in their arsenal.
There ain't no stinkin way to get a hummer armored enough to stop a bomb from blowing it up. I seen what was then known as command detonated mine (Nam) blow a 60'000 pound M-60 tank inside out.
The defense is destroy anything or anybody close to or remotely related to the bomb when it happens..
Kill enough perps and sympathizers and the price will be too high to play the game!
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