Mad Max Morning Ping! (And you have FReepmail....) ;o)
Posted on 08/23/2004 3:31:28 AM PDT by Cannoneer No. 4
Since March, 2003, army mechanics in Iraq and Kuwait have installed 8,000 armor kits, 2,000 aid conditioners and 4,500 bulletproof windshields in trucks and hummers. The units that do this work are sometimes called “Mad Max Shops” (after the armored vehicles in the Mel Gibson movie of the same name.) The mechanics also do all sorts of modifications, many of them experimental (some work, some don’t). The Mad Max Shops work at night, as the metal becomes too hot to pick up and handle by day. The preferred material for armoring vehicles is a Swedish steel/nickel/chromium alloy called Hardox 400. It costs $1,200 a (40x120 inch) sheet, but is popular because the 10mm thick steel is really good at stopping bullets and bomb blast fragments. There are also commercial armoring kits, and bullet and blast resistant stick-on material. But the Hardox 400 armor is preferred. This corrosion and wear resistant metal was developed for industrial uses, and not only is tough, but looks and feels tough. The Mad Max shops stay in business because they can do custom work, and basically solve protection problems that armored kits or stick-on materials cannot. This is especially the case with outsize vehicles, like heavy trucks and tank transporters. The Mad Max mechanics can cut Hardox steel to fit just about anything.
Other equipment mods are made in these shops as well. There are still several thousand vehicles equipped with BFT (Blue Force Tracker). This system, so useful during the initial invasion of Iraq, continues to save lives by allowing users to instantly know where other BFT equipped vehicles are, and to IM (Instant Message) them. The BFT equipment requires maintenance, and the installation of upgrades. But it is seen as a really useful, and often lifesaving, piece of equipment. When the radios don’t work, BFT usually will (because it uses a satellite phone link).
A lot of heat was generated over the Up Armored Humvees over the last year. Now that the shortage is being made up, those who were most vociferous in denouncing the chain of command are strangely silent.
ping
Those mechanics deserve a few free beers when they get back.
Way back when our crew intended to “acquire” a sheet of 1” armor plate at Da Nang. It seemed simple. No one was around - it was just stacked up in the open with no one around.
It was too heavy to lift!
You needed some co-conspirators with a Chinook.
When do you sleep bro, damn!!
Ya gotta understand, those who were complaining the most were taking delight in our problems. Now that the problems are being solved, they are just sitting in their corners, sucking their thumbs and sulking.
LOL!
Mad Max shops.
Love it!
Mad Max Morning Ping! (And you have FReepmail....) ;o)
Or at least a 20T RT Forklift.
They've got the sweat part covered. It's about 120 in Baghdad today.
Yep, ya gotta love the mental image that "Mad Max" gives.
Is it just me, or does every red-blooded man that ever saw Mad Max want a car with an electrically switched supercharger poking through the hood?
*chuckle*
Yeah, that did sound like a sweet idea.
Do you remember the Stryker threads? Those were a hoot.
Being one of those who vociferously denounced decisions by Army Bureaucrats to disallow these "madmax" shops from making such mods (and who denied units like the 1st Cav from purchasing armor kits not "approved" by armchair warriors at Aberdeen), and who voiced such denouncements in letters to the president and other elected officials (who seem to have listened and changed the policy of "no unnoficial modifications"), I feel perfectly justified.
My silence since then is due to the fact that the problem got solved because the policy got changed. It was changed not just because those in the field demanded it up the chain of command, but because people like me told our elected officials that they better listen to those field commanders if they wanted to remain in office. <P If they probalem wasn't being solved, and Army brass at Aberdeen was still trying to protect it's turf in alliance with the bean counters, I would still be bitching.
"I really hate bureaucrats and bean-counters!"
STILL IMAGES SHOW MILITIA MORTAR POSITION NEAR NAJAF SHRINE
See post # 11 for that.
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