Marines to trade in vulnerable Humvees

Baltimore Sun via Seattle Times ^ | 15 February 2007 | David Wood

[A.A. Cunningham]

Marines to trade in vulnerable Humvees

By David Wood
The Baltimore Sun

WASHINGTON — Marines in heavily armored Humvees are being killed by powerful roadside bombs at such a rate that the Marine Corps intends to replace all its Humvees in Iraq with specialized, blast-resistant armored vehicles, according to senior Marine officers.

The Army will continue to rely primarily on armored Humvees, senior Army officers said Wednesday.

The decision to scrap the Marines' Humvees in Iraq, after years of trying to protect crews by adding armor plate, was made by Lt. Gen. James Mattis, commander of Marines forces in the Middle East.

It will cost an additional $2.8 billion for the V-hull armored vehicles called MRAPs, or Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, that are being delivered in small numbers to Iraq, and will take years to complete the replacement.

The Marines and the Army are buying MRAP vehicles and had planned to gradually add them into the fleets of Humvees in use in Iraq.

More than 700 Marines have been killed in Iraq since the war began almost four years ago. Almost two-thirds have been killed in Humvees, Marine officers said. In contrast, experience with the 65 MRAP vehicles the Marines have in Iraq shows that crews are four or five times more likely to survive a blast than those in armored Humvees.

[Son House]

Bush veto's all non-essential Government spending,
Troops not in Iraq,
stay in tents, due to Murtha's Military budget cuts.

[SampleMan]

Same color and # of wheels. After that, I don't see the resemblence.

[JB in Whitefish]

Now, THAT is what I call a proper huntin' rig....!!!

[brent1a]

From Globalsecurity.org: "The cost of acquiring a MRAP vehicle fleet will be significant. However, it is militarily and financially less expensive to acquire MRAP vehicles than to continue to suffer casualties in excess of Vietnam's historical loss rates. Protecting people is cheaper than replacing them in an all-volunteer service. Research by the Math and Statistics branch of the Naval Safety Center incicates that the financial costs associated to casualties should be adjusted upward no less than 250% from its current 1988 baseline to account for the real dollar costs of care and replacement. Adjusted enlisted casualties average $500,000 dollars while officers, depending upon their military occupation range from one to two million dollars each. This means the average light tactical vehicle with one officer and four enlisted personnel is protecting 2.5 million dollars of the DOD's budget. This $2.5 million is real O&M dollars. The argument that "we can't afford armored vehicles" is specious. The opposite is true, at 2.5 million dollars of precious cargo each, the Corps cannot afford UN-armored vehicles."

Makes sense to me.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

The cost is even higher because this assumes that there is an unlimited quantity of high quality people wo are willing to volunteer.

[Jeff Head]

Exactly...and that's the entire point. The fact that the Demos and RINOS want to deny these to our soldiers in the field, so they will fail, so these whoring politicians can use that point to get more votes is one of the sickest and most pathetic diplays I have ever seen. They need to be routed out, tarred and featherd, and run out of town on a rail.

We need a lot more of these in the field, we have discovered something that can withstand many of the IEDs and ballistic projectiles. V bottom to deflect the underneath blast and more armor on the sides to protect against ballistic blast.

However, that said, if the IED is one of the 155mm variety...there is very little, including an Abrams tank, that will be immune. Simply too big and powerful. But the numbers of those are limited as compared to these others and every life saved is absolutely critical.

[Tribune7]

"The cost of acquiring a MRAP vehicle fleet will be significant. However, it is militarily and financially less expensive to acquire MRAP vehicles than to continue to suffer casualties in excess of Vietnam's historical loss rates.

What are they using as the Humvee equivilant to Vietnam?

[SampleMan]

I was replying to #9

Looks a lot like a South African REVA

I think you misread my post to say that I didn't think it made sense to replace the Hummer.

Your info on taking the cost of casualties into account is very pertinent. I'm glad someone is using their brain. Unfortunely we're four+ years into the problem and we're only now moving. Why this couldn't be done inside of 9 months is beyond me.

[wildbill]

Despite all the Dem blathering about our troops being supplied with un-armored Humvees, the truth is that the Humvee was NEVER designed to be an armored troop carrier.

It was originally designed to be a utility vehicle to replace the WWII Jeep. Anyone ever see an armored jeep?

[buwaya]

I have seen armored jeeps. Some were made and used by the Philippine Army for a while.

Others were also made elsewhere - here is one

http://www.robertsarmory.com/jeep.htm

[wildbill]

Ok, Ok, there have been some armored jeeps--but you will admit that they were more like limited curiosities than standard production models for use by the US Army.

A Chevy, modified into one of those hoppin' street machines, is a Chevy but hardly a standard model.

Sheesh.

[junta]

But we need another aircraft carrier, lets get our priorities straight.