Army could have bought more armored Humvees

May 7, 2004 | Ted Evanoff

[JasonC]

When men on the ground do not fight the way their training dictates, they are following their experience instead, and usually something is wrong with the training. Spec 4s rummaging through Iraqi junk yards for sheet metal are a clear sign the boys back at the Pentagon who decided nobody would need a Bradley let alone an M-1 were just flat wrong.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

To expect that every single grunt will ride to the fight in an armored vehicle thats up to the threat is foolishness.

Exactly. I have been trying to make that point for months, but there is so much emotionalism involved. So many people seem to feel it is criminal negligence not to give the 18 through 25 year olds whatever they ask for, but have no idea what a Modified Table Of Equipment is, or a Basis of Issue Plan, or a Fielding Initiative, or New Equipment Training. In my humble opinion neither privates nor Senators should be deciding force structure and hardware issues. It is a sad commentary on the state of affairs that people like Teddy Kennedy and John Kerry and Robert Byrd and Evan Bayh and Hillary Clinton are thought by some to know what is best for the Army better than the Army itself does.

[R. Scott]

Yep.

[RightWhale]

Jeeps are for carrying officers and orders from HQ to field positions and back. They are expendible.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

One of the neat things about a Military Utility Tactical Truck is all the different things you can do with it.

Variants included the M107 and M108 communications vehicles, the M718 and M718A1 ambulance versions, the M151A1C 106-mm Recoilless Rifle Carrier which was replaced by the M825, which had the M40 106-mm recoilless rifle mounted in the rear, which was itself replaced by a similar vehicle mounting the Hughes TOW ATGW.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

I consider the worry expressed by the thread in some respects legitimate - it is indeed crazy to expect zero casualties - but in the end it is a straw man argument.

In order for this to be a straw man argument, one of the arguers must have distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented the other arguers true position. Have you any examples of such misrepresentation?

No Spec 4s prowled Iraqi junkyards for sheet metal.

[Ranger]

A few important points are being overlooked in this thread. First, this is the first (and only that I'm aware of) successful bi-partisan (that is the only kind that is working) action on increased defense spending in 2004. Second, this is in parallel with a $25 billion funding boost that Rumsfeld has finally and wisely decided to ask for before the elections. It is critical as he didn't ask for funds in February and thought he'd poor boy the Army for an extra six months until he got past the elections. This will avert a funding crisis in the third quarter because we are burning billions per month more than we budgeted. The funding crisis is already occurring over spare-parts and extra troops so resolving it now makes sense for our troops on the third rotation as well as the administration. I'm speculating, but I think the reason the 700 M113s in Kuwait aren't in Iraq is that they didn't get maintenance or parts but I can't prove it. That is why the supplemental is important among other things. Third, this initiative is likely to be successful at a time when Rumsfeld couldn't sell bread to his family, much less as a new appropriation from congress. He lost their trust and they won't give him a blank check again. He shouldn't resign in the face of the prison events because it sends the wrong message to our enemies, but he should consider stepping out for health reasons later this summer. It will help Bush in the polls, come November IMHO. We need to singularly focus on getting the troops the equipment they need wherever it comes from and by whatever means.

[Travis McGee]

Is archy banned for good from FR? What happened?

What a loss to this forum. Feels like an amputation.

[Squantos]

If Archy is banned then why can I still post to him ??

Will FR Guru's , chief cooks and bottle washers please give us a bit of data as to why no such name pops up when we try to find his homepage ?

Thank Yew ........ Stay Safe !

[Travis McGee]

Beats me. Usually "banned" freepers can still get pings, they just can't post.

It's a shame, because he was FR's leading authority on weapons, armor, and many other military subjects.

[Southack]

"Rummy is a national treasure, but on this subject he has naturally followed the bulk of the expert advice he received. ... And we have units fighting each other to get hold of uparmored rather than plain Hummers..."

Rumsfeld is doing fine. Our war victory was fine, and our occupation is fine.

And HMMVW's, by the way, are just Jeeps. They aren't meant for armored patrols. They are soft vehicles designed to use a *minimum* of fuel at a minimum cost to transport small groups of troops and tiny amounts of supplies to typical miscellaneous rear echelon locations.

The problems, however, are perception and ignorance. People who are demanding uparmored HMMVW's are trying to forcefit a square peg into a round hole. Armored patrols are supposed to be performed by Bradleys, M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks, or even weakling little Strykers...NOT performed by soft vehicles like Jeeps (ooops, Hummers).

Likewise, the people who think that our war victory was wrong have problems understanding Hussein's financing of destabilization efforts (e.g. paying off the families of suicide bombers in Israel/Palestine, manipulating Kurds against Turks and Iranians, joint cooperation with Al Qaeda and Ansar Al-Islam, etc.), his violations of his 1991 surrender treaty (e.g. failure to demonstrate that he dismantled his 1991-declared WMD's, firing at U.S. fighters patroling the UN "no fly zones", etc.), and that having a U.S. army on both sides of Iran (e.g. in Afghanistan and Iraq) was important.

The people who think that our occupation is going badly because 130 Americans were killed in our worst month there are the same people who glibly ignore 3,000 people killed on 9/11/2001, ignore the over 3,000 Americans killed each *month* on our own highways, and don't even know that Hitler's Nazi "werewolves" started bombing Americans in 1946, a full *year* after we conquered and occupied Germany after WW2. In Iraq we have 24 to 25 million people, most of whom are peacefully going about their daily lives. Roughly 4,000 fighters oppose us in that country, a statistical flyspeck on a graph versus 24 million people, yet there are opportunistic people here who would gleefully declare Iraq to be an "unwinnable" disaster that we should promptly flee from.

And people who want to forcefit HMMVW's into the armored patrol roles of Bradley's and M1A1's likewise seem to miss the realities of this conflict.

Use the right tool for the right job. Don't weigh down your light, efficient, soft vehicles...and don't try to use soft vehicles for armored patrols.

Nor does every piece of "heavy" armor have to be able to shrug off 120mm artillery blasts. Frankly, light bars extended a yard from the core of most medium-armored vehicles will provide the screening protection needed for armored patrols in Iraq and Afghanistan because the key weapon to defend against is the RPG...which shoots a stream of molten metal but has a comparitively weak overall blast.

And as for Rumsfeld, he has killed the useless boondoggles (e.g. Crusader long range dumb artillery) that provide *nothing* in the way of helping us improve our armored patrols down RPG alleys. Rumsfeld is shaping our military into an even more incredible power, a power for the future...a power that can also handle the brute force attacks of more primitive populations, too.

[Travis McGee]

BTTT!

[Squantos]

At least one that could "talk"...........:o)

Too bad for FR if he did get the boot !

Stay Safe !

[JasonC]

You and others on your side have been arguing against the following positions, which I consider to be entirely straw man arguments - that is, directed against a deliberately weaker opponent case than the one actually in front of you.

"100% invulnerable military force" "entitled to an armored vehicle" "if we let that notion take hold we can't fight wars anymore. I think that is what some people have in mind." "people seem to feel it is criminal negligence not to give the 18 through 25 year olds whatever they ask for" "people like Teddy Kennedy and John Kerry and Robert Byrd and Evan Bayh and Hillary Clinton are thought by some to know what is best for the Army"

When the actual argument on the other side was and is - "Latest word from the field is that the armored hummers are not effective against the RPGs and bombs that are killing them. We need bradleys, tanks, strykers, and old apcs...The israelis sent the correct answer. Use real armor first". And "a wise commander wants some of everything: light, middle, heavy. There are different uses for each. The idea to streamline and go totally light and middle is unrealistic."

The actual argument the other side is making in this debate is much more reasonable than the position you have directed your comments again. That is exactly what the straw man fallacy is.

As for ad hoc up-armoring, I hear it told differently. Some examples -

"Their Humvee was a regular, soft skin vehicle that had been modified by local contractors with steel plate, known to the troops as a 'Hadji Hardshell.' You see a lot of them around, with boiler plate bolted or welded on in a hodge-podge of different styles and configurations. All of them emergency field modifications concocted as things turned hostile over the last year. The protection they provide is dubious at best..."

And "Over the last couple months, as the Iraqi resistance has gotten much more dangerous, the US military has been frantically trying to armor up all of their vehicles. So you can see what were once olive-drab army vehicles turned into these multi-colored monstrosities. As their APC’s and tanks keep getting blown up, the Americans have to take any face-hardened steel plating available and start welding...Now you see these improvised fighting machines all over Iraq. Once painted with that solid olive drab color, they are now patchworks of red, black and green, with random pieces of metal sticking off everywhere, bristling with guns. They look incredibly bizarre. I call it the Mad Max Rolling Sideshow."

Some of it is still being done stateside "The Army has been scrambling to put armor on its Humvees in Iraq, but (U.S. Rep.) Simmons has also been pushing for action on the trucks as well, which are used to transport large numbers of troops. Hunter said after Simmons demanded action on the armor shortage the Army realized it could take leftover 3/16th inch armor from its Stryker armored vehicle program and modify it for the trucks. The armor is being cut and drilled into kits that can be assembled inside the trucks, with a 6-inch space between the outer skin of the truck that can be filled with sand."

"Fearing roadside bombs and sniper bullets, members of the U.S. Army Reserve's 428th Transportation Company turned to a local steel fabricator to fashion extra armor for their five-ton trucks and Humvees before beginning their journey to Iraq earlier this month. But their armor might not make it into the war, because the soldiers did not obtain Pentagon approval for their homemade protection...The 72 vehicles operated by the 428th are not designed for battle. They have thin metal floorboards and, in some cases, a canvas covering for doors. Iraqi guerrilla groups have been targeting all types of military vehicles with homemade bombs and small-caliber weapons. E-mails from soldiers already deployed in Iraq urged the Missouri reservists to get extra armor if possible, said 1st Sgt. Tim Beydler, a member of the 428th."

Nah, nothing ad hoc going on here. All regular channels.

[JasonC]

Use the right tools, yes. We aren't because people against the heavy army want to prove the wrong ones can do the job of the right ones, and they can't. Rummy is indeed fine and so in the war, which we are winning. But we can do better and this ad hoc armoring scramble is a fiasco. That fiasco is not merely a matter of perception. It is a matter of our force planning putting too much emphasis on light wheeled stuff and not enough on real armor (Brads etc).

[JasonC]

And incidentally, the main threat that armor is wanted against is not the RPG, it is the IED. Daisy chained artillery shells, remote detonated AT mines, car bombs, etc. And plain old small arms.

[Southack]

Extra armor is good, but it comes at a price (keep mind the law of "Diminishing Returns").

Armor adds weight. Weight slows you down *AND* weight increases your fuel consumption.

Increased fuel consupmtion means a greater demand for more convoys of supplies, providing your insurgent opponents more opportunities to hit your unarmored psuedo-civilian supply vehicles.

Slower speeds mean less ground patrolled each day, leaving more areas and times for insurgents to operate.

So you have to weigh (pun intended) these and other factors when deciding upon your mix of forces.

[Southack]

"And incidentally, the main threat that armor is wanted against is not the RPG, it is the IED."

Color me skeptical. I'm unconvinced. In fact, I'd bet money that RPG's are the "driving" force behind our recent uparmoring.

[JasonC]

The stuff being done won't remotely stop an RPG.

Of course armor has a trade off. But the main rationale against it was deployability. We went with specs that required deployment in 72 hours by C-130. As a fact, we had nearly a year of diplomatic run up and are still there a year after the outbreak. The deployment specs had everything to do with forcing a lighter result and nothing to do with actual typical war conditions. And we are paying for it. Heavy armor has done everything asked of it in Iraq and we have succeeded at trivial cost every time it has been used. We aren't using more of it, more often, because budgeters don't want pay for the next generation of it, not because we can't operate it in Iraq day to day. In fact, uparmored HMMWVs have less off road ability and will break down more. And meanwhile, we are running scores of combat forces - not just supply people - around in open trucks. The Marines have 403 tanks on strength, force-wide. When they rotated into Iraq they brought 16.

[Southack]

Troops install cagelike armor to fend off attacks
MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune

CAMP UDAIRI, Kuwait - Pfc. Gerard Minnitto normally packs a light machine gun, but these days the Stryker brigade infantryman from Tacoma is turning a wrench.

He's among the soldiers and General Dynamics contractors working around the clock to bolt slat armor onto the brigade's fleet of more than 300 Strykers before they move up into Iraq.


The armor - each looking like a great green cage - is meant to protect the $2 million vehicles and the soldiers inside from rocket-propelled grenades. The inexpensive shoulder-fired RPGs are ubiquitous in Iraq and have killed dozens of U.S. troops.


Naturally, Minnitto and his buddies hope the awkward-looking steel contraptions will do the trick, absorbing the worst of the RPGs like a catcher's mask does a baseball. They're optimistic, although a bit skeptical.


And when you get right down to it, there's only one way to find out for sure.


"When I see the first time an RPG hits it," the Mount Tahoma High School graduate said, "then I'll know whether it works."


The idea behind the cage armor goes back at least to his days in Vietnam, said John Funk, the General Dynamics logistics support manager. Troops in that war improvised with chicken wire and other means to counter the RPG threat.


The idea is to detonate the grenade away from the vehicle and prevent its hot chemical reaction from boring through and causing burns, shock and shrapnel wounds.


The Army is working with General Dynamics, the Stryker manufacturer, on a kind of plate armor that will defeat RPGs. But that's not due until the Army develops the third of its six planned Stryker brigades in 2005.


The Army and the contractor have been working on the interim slat armor solution for about nine months, said Maj. Todd Thomas from the Stryker program management office at the U.S. Army Tank and Automotive Command in Warren, Mich.


Thomas has deployed to Kuwait with the brigade and will go north with it to Iraq, where he will work out of a repair and maintenance yard.


So will about 50 of the 100 or so General Dynamics mechanics who are working with about 50 Stryker soldiers to prepare the vehicles for combat duty. For now, they're set up in two new "sprung shelters" - big bubble hangars with room to comfortably fit eight Strykers each.


The work, which began last week, ought to take about 14 days, Thomas said. He doesn't know how much the additional armor cost to develop and install.


The soldiers are mostly infantrymen like Minnitto, temporarily assigned to the slat armor detail.


"It sounds good to me," said Pfc. Gabriel Deroo, a light machine gunner from Paw Paw, Mich. "I mean, any extra armor is good."


Spc. Rod "Buster" Potter, a Stryker vehicle commander from Caldwell, Idaho, said he gets the concept behind the armor. But he said he'd feel better if he'd seen a live test demonstration or a video of the slats in action.


Thomas said the armor has been tested.


"They did test it, and it did very well in testing," he said. "We have a high sense of confidence."


The extra armor weighs about 5,200 pounds, about 3,000 pounds lighter than the add-on anti-RPG armor that's under development for later Stryker brigades, said Howard Warner, another official with the General Dynamics logistics support team.


Soldiers said they figure the heavy armor cages, sticking a foot and a half off the front, rear and sides, may cut into the Stryker's speed and maneuverability.


But they recounted an incident from their last training exercise before they left Fort Lewis in which a Stryker hit a ditch and was saved from rolling over by the bulky slat cage.


And while some think the cage is ugly, Potter said he thinks it might help discourage adversaries in Iraq.


"I think it looks intimidating," he said.


Ugly. Intimidating. Whatever.


"I don't care what it looks like," said Pvt. Joshua Blankenship, "as long as it keeps us safe."


Michael Gilbert: mjgilbert41@yahoo.com