Military Vehicles in Iraq Get Up-Armored by Feb. 15

American Forces Press Service ^ | Feb. 4, 2005 | Gerry J. Gilmore

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Insurgents will have a tougher time targeting U.S. troops riding in Humvees and other vehicles in Iraq come Feb. 15.

That's when, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told CNN interviewer Larry King Feb. 3, "there will not be a vehicle moving around in Iraq anywhere outside of a protected compound that does not have the appropriate armor."

Speaking to King from the Pentagon via a video hookup, Rumsfeld noted that specialists had been flown into Iraq in recent weeks to attach shipped-in supplemental armor to various U.S. military vehicles.

[Mark D]

Granted this will help, but armor isn't the end-all be-all answer so many think it is; as sll the bad-guys need to do is build bigger bombs to defeat the up-armored vehicles.

Anti-tank mines have been around for a long time; and they have demonstrated themselves to be very effective at destroying the most heavily armored vehicles man has ever built.

[Wiz]

Due to security concerns, I will not discuss it here but Department of Defense will engage in other methods to increase protection of vehicles within weeks.

Mines are not the major problem since they are passive (excluding certain issues which will not be discussed for security reasons as well). In urban areas, military vehicles use the same roads as civilian vehicles, which make it hard to get only military vehicles to hit the mine. The major problem is the improvise explosive device (IED). These are semi-active, and detonate by signals through cable or wireless device. Up armored vehicles allows more survivability against these IEDs.

[Mark D]

I was only using the AT mine example to illustrate that armor is not the savior that the media is making it out to be.

I am well aware that the IED's are employed differently than mines, however, the fact remains that the IED's will be getting bigger in the days, weeks, and months to come, and we may well continue to suffer casulaties from them. Lord willing, the larger devices will be easier to detect and avoid.