You'll naver make it in Special Forces by shooting off your mouth before you look for answers. All of our M113A3s in Iraq have reactive armor, sometimes called applique armor, that stops .50 caliber bullets.
A slow M113 (45 mph) will still be running while the rubber tired humvee and Stryker burns for hours with those rubber tires on fire.
The only cure I know to stop RPGs is to kill the guy with the launcher. Getting an RPG hit on an M113 costs us $400,000 on an M113 and $3.3 Million on a Stryker. However, getting a 90 degree hit on an M113 is just a lucky shot. Anything less is deflected away.
BTW kid, I worked with M113s in Vietnam before the three block upgrades. Back then they had a gasoline engine that would not pull the sheets off the bed and the troops always lined the floors with sandbags to protect against mines. They did a good job for a cheap price. Once we learend to put gunshields on the mounting rings, we got protecton for the gunner.
The walls of every 113 I've ever seen are at least half the thickness of a Bradley, and I've had Bradley Master Gunners tell me that the M2 most likely would not survive an RPG. If a Bradley couldn't take it, then I highly doubt a 113 could. Bradleys also have reactive armor, and it can also stop .50-cal rounds, however, RPGs have just a little more bang for their buck, so to speak, and thost same Master Gunners were talking about the newer reactive armor-plated M2s (the Operation Desert Storm models with the original armor and brackets for adding reactive armor plates).
Now, obviously, you are correct about killing the guy first, and in any vehicle, 113 or Bradley, with thermals, our guys have the advantage, but look at the environment in which they're fighting. It's not the jungle, it's not the open desert, it's in the middle of a city. Add that level of complexity to the fact that we're trying to kill these terrorist scumbags while simultaneously trying to win the heats and minds of the populace. Our guys don't have the freedom to kill anything that moves, unfortunately.
When it comes down to it, our best weapon is the fact that theirs suck. The past several conflicts we've had, RPGs have shown to be infested with duds and their operators can't shoot for sh*t. Once they lose the element of surprise, they're ours. I'm just worried about when they're able to hit us the first time. Unless they're in an M1, the armor of any vehicle in the Army can't come close to guaranteeing the occupants will be all right.