[PhilDragoo]

This is good news. I hope they can make them faster.

$1500? Current owners spent that on new faucets for their master vanity.

Reading Richard Miniter, Losing bin Laden, October 1993 having hordes of Somalis hacking Rangers to bits--

--because traitorrapist42 pulled the Marines, denied armor, left it all in the UN's hands.

If our Coalition fighters are regularly traveling past Improvised Explosive Devices and are shot at with AK-47s and RPGs--

--am I to deny them some steel?

Some steel they'll weld on the vehicles themselves?

As I go about in a thin-skinned truck where the most thrown my way is the odd angry digit?

Hand the rod and hood and gloves over and I'll put in the overtime.

[Darksheare]

I agree.
Give us the Humvees, the steel, and teh welder's tools and we'll do it.

[SAMWolf]

Yep! It's called "Field improvision". No one is better at it than American troops.

We used sand bags in our jeeps, which I preferred to the Humvee, cuz I wan't to get out quick if I had to. We welded PSP to Duece and a halves and added more firepower. It's the American way. :-)

[Iris7]

I have been trying to talk sense to this guy forever on this thread. Look at my posts. He needs an attitude adjustment. Thanks for dropping by.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

An Iraqi worker of the Peerot Co. Ltd. arc welds a steel plate; a piece of the new armor kits for Humvees offered to units with soldiers constantly on the road in soft-back vehicles. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Samuel A. Soza

I have advocated on other threads alternatives to the M1114 Armored HMMWV, including improvised armor. We are finally seeing evidence of something they should have been doing since May. I am not opposed to it. But like cannibilization, improvised field modifications have to be controlled. Many of these modified vehicles will never be returned to their original configurations. Few will ever leave Iraq. They won't have the speed, mobility, payload capacity, fuel economy and reliability they had before the improvised armor was applied. Blackhawks may not be able to slingload them anymore, and they are now too heavy to airdrop. The commander who authorized the modifications had to take all this into consideration. In this case he decided improvised armor was worth it. There may be other situations in the future in which a commander decides othewise.

What concerns me is this building pressure to armor every vehicle.

The shortage of M1114's is being turned into a political issue by people with agendas I do not trust.

Lack of armor protection is being blamed for each soldier's death. I always thought the enemy had something to do with it.