Hillbilly armor?

[icarus]

The things you learn living with a military analyst:

That "hillbilly armor" on the Humvees?

The U.S. has over 10,000 M-113 tracked armored personnel carriers stored in Kuwait. They are designed to roll anywhere (not just roads) in desert conditions, and solidly protect our troops.

There.

Right now.

They don't even have to be shipped to the region.

But instead of using them, we're ordering more expensive, easy-to-blow-up Humvees (which are just glorified jeeps) with a little more armor on them.

Trouble is, unlike the M-113, Humvees still have an undercarriage that focuses any mine-blast up into the vehicle. The new Humvee armor only provides better protection against bullets, not mines, and not the ever-present I.E.Ds (Improvised Explosive Devices).

They are using Humvees instead of these carriers because, politically, we wanted to present a softer "less intimidating image" to the people of Iraq.

They're also slower, but how fast do you have to go to outrun a mine?

Ask any soldier: would he rather roll around at 30 mph off-road on one of these, or be stuck driving on mined roads with the military's new jeep?

Comments

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

@#$^&!!!! Money-wasting, troop-killing, my-tax-dollars-down-the-toilet, blinkered IDIOTS!

ARGH!

Thanks for the notification, even if the news isn't good. Better to be informed than not.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

No kidding. I wish we could have pushed for those to be put into play, but I think the Bush administration doesn't want to acknowledge that the insurgency is so strong.

Icarus