Humvees No Match for Crude Bombs ( Report from the Humvee graveyard ~ Armor helps some )

Los Angeles Times ^ | December 11, 2004 | Bruce Wallace, Times Staff Writer

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq — This is a graveyard for Humvees, the final resting place for the hulking vehicles felled by insurgents' roadside bombs.

In a parking lot, the U.S. military's most common personnel carriers lie flattened with noses down in the mud. Their metal carcasses are barely recognizable. Tires have been splayed to the sides or blown away entirely. Shrapnel has burst holes in unprotected parts of the vehicles, as if they were tinfoil.

The nine mangled Humvees here have been destroyed by what the military calls improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

"Now this one here, you can see the IED tore the whole back end off the vehicle. It's just gone," said Sgt. Patrick Parchment of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which operates south of Baghdad.

"The front is sitting cock-eyed. And that's steel," he said, showing a visitor another severed vehicle.

The blasted remains do not inspire optimism about the fate of the Marines who had been riding in them. Sixteen Marines of the 24th have died since arriving here in July; 259 have been wounded. The majority of the casualties were caused by IEDs, as Marines must daily brave a gantlet of roadside bombs on highways and dirt roads that cut through farms.

The Marines and Army have almost 20,000 Humvees in Iraq, according to the Pentagon. But a quarter of the vehicles do not have proper armor.

The problem came into focus this week when a Tennessee National Guardsman told Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that troops had to forage for scrap metal to weld to their vehicles for protection. The confrontation, at a U.S. base in Kuwait, triggered an uproar and raised questions about whether the Pentagon was doing enough to provide safety equipment ..........

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for the respons....you clearly understand....but the media has me believing that a lot of parents that have no knowledge of the Military ( and it's dangers ) clearly do NOT...

The Media is on a campaign....

See this:

Defining Victory, As Chaos Mounts In Iraq, U.S. Army Rethinks Its Future [adapt, overcome]

[PokeyJoe]

Proper Armor is an Abrams tank, or Bradley AFV.

[JasonC]

Of course not. But IEDs do not directly hit HMMVs. They are exploded when a convoy passes near them. The nearest vehicle may be 10 yards away, and there are lots of others farther away. A 155 shell inflicts most of its casualties by fragements. Those follows a regular distribution of sizes and energies. The less there is between you and the shell when it goes off, the higher the number of fragments that can hurt you. If you are in an M-1, nothing is going to happen to you (unless you head is out of the hatch). If you are in a Brad, and you don't drive right over the thing, only the nearest vehicle is in any danger and only of damage and concussion, basically. In an armored HMMV, if you aren't right on top of it only the largest fragments are going to do anything and only if they hit someone once inside. In an open backed 6x6 truck, half the guys riding are going to take shrapnel.

There are 8,000 unarmored non-HMMV vehicles in - and 4,500 non-HMMV trucks with ad hoc uparmoring. It isn't just HMMVs. And armor helps, more armor helps more. IEDs were identified as the main threat in Iraq in August of 2003. This is not remotely a deployability issue, 15 months later. We've spent hundreds of billions on the war, and blood is much more expensive than steel. This is not remotely an expense issue. People on FR who have talked to men in the field have been talking about this for over a year - it is not remotely some MSM smear issue. We can simply do better, adapting to overcome the threat from IEDs.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

See the link at post #22!!!!!!!!!!!!

[sevry]

Might it not be possible, though? A heavy armor on the floorpan would make the range of the humvee much less, even with gascans. I wonder if a lightweight multi-layer steel/mesh armor could be used all around? Perhaps it could be further layered with lightweight welded plates. I don't know. The experts would know the behavior of such a large bomb. But I wonder if they know of a way to at least mitigate some of the effect?

It's not an open vehicle like a jeep. But it still seems to have large open windows in the side, which is a vulnerability even for small arms. Bulletproof glass might help. What if the enemy then launches an RPG their way? Would light armour and bulletproof glass make a difference for the men? Would they still be alive? Would they largely escape injury? Would they be dead either way?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

And please thank your son from all of us for his very brave service to his country...and thank you for your understanding support of our Military...

[sevry]

If you are in a Brad, and you don't drive right over the thing, only the nearest vehicle is in any danger

Is the Bradley really that invulnerable? If so, that would seem to be the answer, in exchange for humvees.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Rumsfeld has put the troops into such a bad position that they have to risk subordination to ask for help. We shouldn't try to diminish their voices or to keep quiet ourselves.

So you are buying the MEDIA's message?????

[Jeff Head]

Agreed...but with a 155mm shell, you better be 50 meters away. I do not believe we are going to uparmor HumVee's sufficiently to protect them in such an environment. Some of those HumVees in the graveyard are literally ripped apart. Uparmoring will not help that.

It will definitely help HumVees and the other vehicles in the convoy, further from the explosion, who are impacted by higher speed shrapnel. To that point you are spot on IMHO.

What we need is a better way of detecting and defusing the IEDs as we pass along. For those exploded by RF, it would seem easire to do. For those exploded by direcxt line, it is harder but still doable.

For mechanical actuated, it is probably the most difficult.

Anyhow...thanks for the comments.

[JasonC]

The Brad is a 30 ton armored vehicle, about as well protected as a Sherman tank was in WW II. They are not the answer for logistic units, but sure heavy divisions are better than light ones at all this stuff, for the warfighting elements. The IED vs. unarmored vehicle issue is not that infantry battalions aren't heavy enough, though more heavy stuff helps. It is, instead, that all the other components of the force require tens of thousands of soft skinned vehicles, and there are no lines they can shelter behind. IEDs can be anywhere, and resupply convoys need to go everywhere. They can't all be in fully armored, tracked vehicles. But the utility trucks they are in, can have minimal armor protection to reduce the lethality of small fragments. Enough to stop an AK bullet is also enough to stop most shrapnel from anything but direct hits by IEDs.

[gogeo]

At the rate of 450/month, they're supplying 5400 armored Humvees per year.

[JasonC]

If you get a direct hit, drive over an anti-tank mine, sure. But the near miss or second-third position in a convoy hit by a remote 155 detonation is going to happen ten times as often, so you can cut losses dramatically if you have enough to stop only that. As for distances, a standing man in the open isn't safe within 50m of a 155mm round, sure. But I've had a short round go off about that far away (on a Fort Sill firing range), and you better believe I was grateful I was inside an M109 at the time. Even though its sides are only half an inch, I felt perfectly safe inside it, didn't even flinch. Right outside, I would have needed new BDUs.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I would bet these new Armored Humvee's cost a cool $100,000 + .....

That totals up to 540,000,000. reduce the Raptor build by one airplane...............

[Jeff Head]

Check out Squantos analysis in post 15.

He was a long, long time EOD guy.

[fso301]

Many of the IED's are 155mm artillery shells. They will not be able to uparmor the HumVee enough to withstand a direct hit or very close explosion of that size without it no longer being a HumVee.

Agreed. 155's have knocked out passing M1 Abrahms.

[stuartcr]

There probably isn't any proper armor...but you go to war with the stuff you got.....

[fso301]

This is purely a psychological/political argument. If a modest amount of additional armor weights 1500 lbs and the vehicle has a cargo rating of 2 1/2 tons, the vehicles cargo rating just dropped to 1 3/4 tons before the first crate of cargo is loaded. So, a 30% reduction in cargo rating will require a 30% increase in supply missions thereby increasing the risk of encountering an IED or any other traffic hazard by 30%. Even with 1500 lbs of armour applied to a 2 1/2 ton truck, it will do nothing to protect the truck from a 155mm shell going off 20 feet away.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Please tell your son I said

Thank You for your service to our country.