[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

---

Wallace was recently on assignment with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Iraq.

[heylady]

"Now this one here, you can see the IED tore the whole back end off the vehicle. It's just gone"

Great I asked my son where he sits and he said in the back! Unfortunately they don't even stay in the Humvees but often go out on foot patrol. I pray a lot.

[the invisib1e hand]

it's not possible for every piece of rolling stock to be a tank, is it?

[Jack Deth]

The problem isn't armor.
The problem isn't the HumVees. Which were never meant to be armored, anyway.

The problem is the wong vehicle!

Ship all of those M-113 Armored Personnel Carriers (That were thought to be obsolete and outdated during Vietnam, yet used in Desert Storm and Enduring Freedom) BACK to Iraq!

To take over riding herd on convoys!

Jack.

[ManHunter]

As noted above, many of the so-called IEDs are 155 mm (US/NATO) or 152 mm (Soviet/Russian) artillery shells and are only "improvised" because they are being used in a manner for which they were not intended, that is, to be fired out of the barrel of an artillery piece. The most vulnerable point on any vehicle - tanks included - is the belly. Detonate a 155 mm HE (high-explosive round) under an M113 (an armored - but not much - personnel carrier) and it is going to be destroyed. Combat - whether "low" or "high intensity" - is dangerous, even in armored vehicles. It is much more so dismounted (on foot) in an urban environment; such is the nature of so-called Fourth Generation Warfare.

[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.

[ABN 505]

I believe that an Israeli Merkava Tank [70+ tons]was disabled by an IED last year and that is one of the most heavily armoured Tanks in the world.

[gatorbait]

A 155 or 152 will damage ,if not destroy, almost anything in the inventory. Big bullets with lots of filler . A HMMMV is a light truck, ergo, not a tank. An RPG , which is designed to nail a tank ,will detroy any HMMMV. The armor issue is a distraction.

[mlmr]

It's a freaking jeep, not a tank.