[Destro]

But the attacks have mounted as Iraq became what Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. forces, calls "a 360-degree battlefield," with none of safer rear areas of conventional warfare. "They were not intended to be on the front lines," Dempsey said of the unarmored vehicles. "In a linear battlefield, Humvees always operated behind the front lines - in most cases even out of artillery range. Iraq isn't a linear battlefield. As we find ourselves in a low- to mid-intensity conflict, and we have all these vehicles designed for a linear battlefield, they come up short.'' The Army is trying to find every heavily armored Humvee "from every other place in the world," Dempsey told The Associated Press. "I saw an e-mail the other day that said there was one uparmored Humvee in Kosovo and they were tracking it coming here.''

[valkyrieanne]

It's just dawned on them that this is nonlinear, asymmetric warfare?

[Robe]

Old reliable !!!

[Darksheare]

My old artillery unit used the M1097 and 1098 version of the Humvee, with a few 998 versions thrown in for good measure.
What's interesting is the notion being fostered by a few, some in the press, that there is such a thing as 100% protection against explosions and projectiles.
The General touches on that and states specifically that notion is a fallacy. (Obviously paraphrased but the sentiment is the same. This line isn't for you Destro, but for the nitpickers that seem to like to pick these posts apart.)

During annual training at Drum, we were always told to put sandbags everywhere inside the vehicle, but we knew that the sandbags weren't going to stop much from coming through and dicing us up.
Especially since we had canvasback Humvees.

The 'uparmored' Humvee is a good idea, it does reduce the injuries.
So instead of being dead you're merely pretty badly hurt or mildly shaken depending on what happened.
The quote about teh Humvee never being intended for frontline use is accurate and spot on.
My artillery unit was viewed as a 'rear area occupancy' unit, meaning we weren't ever likely to see the other guy -ever.
(My nephews can see the holes in that idea..)
But Iraq has, as the article says, become a 360 battlefield.
(A surround sound event.)
and teh Humvees are ending up performing tasks under conditions they weren't designed for.
Seems the press doesn't understand this, can't understand this, or refuses to understand this.
And there's those who'd use teh current situation for political gain.
*sigh*

Again, thanks for finding the article!

[lepton]

HMMWVs aren't APCs. Treating it like one is silly.

The M113 is a pretty sad APC - though it does stop 7.62*39. It is vulnerable to a whole host of other things, and causes vulnerabilities like the "turtle" complex, and a lack of vision (relative to the HMMWV. After the first few dozen, we'd be better off with armored cars.