Posted on 01/10/2004 6:47:23 AM PST by Cannoneer No. 4
FORWARD OPERATING BASE IRONHORSE, TIKRIT, Iraq — For soldiers conducting missions outside the walls of Forward Operating Base Ironhorse, Humvees, canvas-covered, or soft-back, may not be the best protection on the road.
In an effort to improve the protection of these soldiers, improvised armor kits are being assembled for four-passenger Humvees at FOB Ironhorse.
“As far as IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices), it’ll stop shrapnel,” said Master Sgt. Dana P. Watson, acting Sgt. Maj. for the 4th Infantry Division’s Engineer Office. “I think it’s pretty decent protection.”
Watson, a St. Johns, Mich., native, designed the modified-armor innovation that is being outfitted on Humvees here.
The original design that first began appearing on many civil affairs vehicles on base began as part of an initiative in Baghdad.
After reviewing the civil affairs’ model, Watson designed a similar prototype for the four-passenger Humvee with changes he thought would improve the design.
The armor plating, coupled with the small arms protection plates inserted inside a soldier’s tactical vest, will stop an AK-47 slug from 100 meters, Watson said. The armor plating isn’t guaranteed protection, but improves safety dramatically.
“In our line of work, there is no absolute,” Watson said.
Unlike the civil affairs model where the doors open downward, this model’s door opens outward allowing the doors to provide some cover when the vehicle is stopped.
Also, doors that open outward are easier to close. Instead of having to lift the steel doors, passengers swing them closed on reinforced hinges, designed to prevent the metal from sagging.
The bulk of the upgrade changed the cargo area. Watson added steel panels to the cargo floor, thus adding further protection from IEDs while giving the vehicle a lower center of gravity.
The armored cargo area also features a gap large enough for the gunner to kick a grenade out of the back of the vehicle. Also, another larger break in the armor between the cab and the cargo area allows passengers to reach the gunner in case of injury.
The kit features gun mounts for larger crew-served weapons, plus small divots allowing M-16 riflemen to cover the sides.
Future changes include floor plates for inside the cab as well as a two-passenger Humvee armor kit that is in the planning stage.
Kirkuk-based Peerot Co. Ltd, which was awarded a contract for 200 Humvees, assembles the armor kits. The steel plates were cut and shipped from Kirkuk to FOB Ironhorse.
Up-armoring each vehicle was no easy task. Workers began welding, cutting, and grinding early in the morning and worked late into the night. So far, the company has been able to outfit about five Humvees per day since work began Dec. 10.
Watson said that giving the troops a sense of safety is vital. It allows them to stay focused on their job.
Each kit comes at the cost of $1,500 each.
“They’ll pay for themselves a hundred times over,” Watson said. “It’s all about force protection. As long as we protect the soldiers, it’s worth it.
I have seen it. You have not. Your opinion is not worthy of any respect.
What exactly have you seen?
How the hell do you know what I have or have not seen?
I seem to have hit a nerve with you, Iris. So what do we do now, Iris, start with the war stories? Exchange DD-214's? Post pics of our dicks?
You still haven't anwered the question.
Where am I wrong?
Easier to attack me personally and challenge my right to speak, I guess.
Those lads are not things, but soldiers trying their best to protect you and your family. Agreed.
You want them exposed to avoidable danger because this tickles your fancy, as if they were your toys.
You, sir, are a damn liar, and if you ever cross my path in person I will slap you jaws and force you to resent it.
It doesn't seem like it. However, since they can be used as involuntary guinia pigs for experimental Anthrax vaccines, which even enemy POWs or convectid felons can refuse- and it's a war crime to force such experimental materials upon them- it seems they can also be ordered tro remove their body armor, to be killed by enemy small arms fire that otherwise might only have injured them.
Just as the US government has pretty thoroughly squandered the patriotism and national unity that appeared in the aftermath of the 09/11 attacks, using it as an opportunity to pass more internal security laws aimed at control of Americans rather than enemy terrorists, it seems likely too that some of the DOD leadership is squandering the lives of American soldiers for public relations purposes.
That comes mighty close to directly furnishing aid and comfort to the enemy. And you know where the buck stops.
-archy-/-
That when employed with the individuals personal body armor should hopefully reduce fatal wounds.
When we took our 113's into known submunition or mine fields we layered. We built exterior racks from PSP that used local 2 ltr water bottles. Spare track was layed on the floor with a layer of sandbags and a heavy duty bomb blanket covering that. The blankets were also hung from the sides . Lots of hits from submunitions and small arms but no one was ever injured. As the 2 ltr bottles were hit we just had to replace that individual bottle/s
Just how we "engineered or rigged" it. poor boy adaptive reasoning with what we had available.
Stay Safe !
Force Protection
That commanders have a legal duty to protect and ensure the health and welfare of their subordinates during peacetime as well as wartime is incontrovertible. Whether that duty is a moral one is a slightly more open question. Of interest here is not an evaluation of the many plausible arguments that might support such a claim, but the stringency of the moral requirement given that it does exist. This stringency rests upon the resolution of an apparent tension of what has priority for the commander: his mission or his people. Vacuous aphorisms, such as “mission first, people always,” proffered throughout the military, offer no solid counsel. Instead, the answer lies in the analysis of soldiers and their rights.
Soldiers serve in the military fully knowing their lives can be subject to greater risk than their fellow citizens, which might seem obvious in a time of war. Even in peacetime, training with any semblance of realism can, and unfortunately sometimes does, result in harm for those involved. But with the onset of hostilities, soldiers become combatants and are thus imbued with a fundamentally different moral status than noncombatants. The reason for the difference involves an exchange of rights between combatants--namely the rights to kill and to be killed.
It might seem that the discussion of a soldier gaining “combatant rights” (like the right to kill other combatants) speaks past the commander’s moral obligation to protect his force. However, it has immediate relevance because obtaining combatant rights necessitates the commensurate reduction in the stringency of the combatant’s right to life. In other words, the soldier no longer has a stringent claim that he not be killed. After all, combatants have the right to kill their foe, but their foes concurrently have the right to kill them. Thus, these two rights are mutually dependent.
This loss of stringency regarding the combatant’s right to life also entails that a combatant is not safeguarded by an absolute prohibition against a commander’s decision to jeopardize his life for mission accomplishment. It certainly might be the case that training missions or missions in conflicts concerning non-vital national interests are not worth sacrificing soldiers’ lives. However, when the vital interests of a nation are jeopardized and a war is worth engaging in, the mission of preserving these national interests and associated values must logically trump any claim combatants might have regarding their personal safety. Soldiers, especially in the case of a volunteer military, realize this and realize that the sacrifice of their lives might be required--else they would not become soldiers.
Commanders ordinarily ought to do as much as morality permits to reduce risk and prevent their soldiers from dying unnecessarily. However, sometimes soldiers will die. Commanders whose decisions result in the loss of their subordinates’ lives, even excessive loss, are not by rule considered immoral but perhaps only ineffective or unfortunate. Furthermore, combatants ordered to perform missions with the gravest danger are not at liberty to refuse based on concerns of self-preservation. Danger is not a mitigating or exempting circumstance. Such actions are punishable offenses as evidenced by Article 99, “Misbehavior Before the Enemy,” in the Manual for Courts-Martial, United States.[8] Thus, the commander’s duty to minimize the harm that comes to his soldiers in combat is of tremendous pragmatic import, but it is not a stringent moral obligation. Ultimately, mission must come first, and the safety of each individual soldier comes second.
Under normal circumstances I would thank you for your service to our country and express concern for upsetting you, but not now. You have forefeiting any deference from me, assuming any was due. Lots of people can be Vietnam veterans on the internet. I won't be silenced and and won't be run off. Take your blood pressure pills and stay off my threads.
Living history can be an enjoyable, satisying and fun hobby. You got a problem with that? Too damn bad.
I am not ready to throw away our soldier's lives. You are a liar to imply that I am. Neither am I ready to promise soldiers a level of protection that cannot always and often should not be provided. What better way to bring a war to a screeching halt than to convince the troops and their mothers that they have a right to a level of protection that cannot be provided. It is not cruel and unusual punishment to require soldiers to do their duty in unarmored vehicles, and if we allow that notion to take hold we cannot prosecute the war.
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