[JoeSchem]

Does anyone seriously think that ANY vehicle is safe driving down the streets of Baghdad?

Note I'm not giving points for weasel words like 'relatively safe' or 'much safer.' The plain truth is that if an Iraqi insurgent fires an RPG at ANYTHING we can drive down a Baghdad street, the soldiers inside are going to die.

Ambush a US vehicle with an RPG, dissolve into the side streets and alleys. I remember learning in school about the British Red Coats who marched in the open fields while the Revolutionaries shot at them from the trees. I thought, "Who could be so stupid?" Well . . . .

[archy]

Does anyone seriously think that ANY vehicle is safe driving down the streets of Baghdad?

I wonder how many Iraqi RPG gunners would wing a shot of at this little porker:

[lepton]

The plain truth is that if an Iraqi insurgent fires an RPG at ANYTHING we can drive down a Baghdad street, the soldiers inside are going to die.

No. If they squarely HIT anything we can drive down the streets with an RPG, the soldiers inside are going to die (or be seriously wounded). So M113s are not likely to be seriously better...except to the extent that the big hollow area inside allows the blast to disperse a bit. There are a lot of reasons why the M113s would be worse, such as size, slow speed, anti-stealth (noise, mostly), inability to get out anywhere near as quickly, lack of field of view, and increase of targets in one place.