As everyone in the USA knows by now, a National Guardsman's questioning of Secretary Rumsfeld during a news conference about having to scrounge in dumps to find armor plating for Humvees has set off a firestorm in the media lately. Problem is, with so many media sources with liberal or conservative biases it's very hard to get a balanced picture of how serious the problem really is. I was wondering if anyone who has direct knowledge of what is really happening in Iraq can shead some light on the question.

Well I can only inform you based on information provided by the very people who imply it's a problem.... the mainstream press. In two AP articles from Dec 11th. The army had ordered 8105 of the purpose built amored Humvees (M1114) of that order 5910 have been built and are in Iraq, Afghanistan and nearby countries (thats approx. 70% of the total order). The company making them Armor Holding Inc. says the current production is 450 vehicles a month and that they recently performed an in house analysis after the Marine Corps approached them to see if they could make 50-100 vehicles armored vehicles each month. Company spokeman Michael Fox said "We determined it was doable". But Armor Holdings is not immediately capable of boosting output, but could increase production in February or March of 2005. Armor Holdings is expecting to produce 4000 vehicles this year compared to 850 in 2003.
In addition 10000 add on armor kits have been provided for humvees in theater and as we have seen from Armorama member Iraqarmy88 an excellent photo story of the troops improvising in the field with material on hand to protect vehicle/crews.
On a personal note I would add that America has never been prepared for any war as it should (both Democrats and Republicans have failed in this) and when we finish a war were quick to disband and return to normal. So we always play catch up in the beginning but we do move forward and recover every time. Check out this link for the opinions of several US Marines on this matter.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ_ARMOR?SITE=WILAC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

This is a trick question, right? Answer is : ALL OF EM"

Just my opinion but, Humvees are the modern day Jeep...never meant for carrying armor plate for protection....never should have sold and or given away all our M113's. Need to increase the Strykersproduction and keep the Humvees inside the camp confinds. Hell a Brinks Truck would be safer than the Humvee.

and another thing.., i've heard rumors that the soldier was handed the question to ask "Rummy" by a reporter...so what? Big Deal...It still don't change the fact that our guys are ill equipted to fight an urban war. Besides that, we're in the WRONG country anyway..I don't recall hearing that ANY Iraqui's were onboard the flights that fateful day in ahieday in Sept.

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Agreed, although they added armor to the hardtops originally, they are trying to use them as you would armored cars.
We never gave away all the M113s. Our army still has tons of units equipped with the M113A2 or M113A3 (or variants thereof). It amazes me that people during the opening stages of OIF were surprised to see the M113 FOV (family of vehicles) still on the battlefield. After the Abrams and Bradley, the M113A2/A3 is the most numerous tracked vehicle in our Army.

Personally I can agree to the guys over there worried about getting shot up in a Humvee but on the other hand the humvee was never designed to act as an armored vehicle.

to me the press has blown the lack of armor on humvess all out of proportion and might be contributing to the attempt by the military to armor the ones they have instead of trying to regulate them to the purpose they were designed and get more purpose built armor over there to perform the roles they are trying to shove the humvee's into...

just my 2 cent rant.... laters.

I have heard that of the 30,000 US vehicles in Iraq, 22,500 have some sort of additional armor plating. I wonder if that total included tanks and AFV's? Either way, the problem has been overblown. It is being addressed, production has been increased.

Melon

The problem is most of the U.S. compounds in most Iraqi cities and towns are widely separated. For example; the last 5 months I was in Iraq I was in Mosul. Mosul has two U.S. compunds, one D-Main was where my unit (a signal Unit) lived and worked. The other D-Rear was all the way across town on the city's airport. All the supply and support units were at the D-Rear. As an active unit we had to go from one compound to the other on a daily basis. Since we were a commo unit we didn't have any organic armored vehicles, just our self-uparmored HMMVWs and deuce and a halfs.This is a common problem for all support type units. They don't fight, unless there is no choice so they don't have AFVs or tanks, just trucks. As for the armor situation, there needs to be more, but the kits were coming in job lots when we were there,and most of the HMMVWs I saw had at least improvised armor by the time we left last May.

I have a cousin and two good friends over there right now, all of them in maintenance of some sort (one friend is a AVLB driver who has been retrained into a light wheeled vehicle mechanic; other friend is a M113 mechanic; my cousin is both a light wheeled vehicle mechanic and a water purification specialist)

Ok, now tha I have your attention. :-)

The main problem they are having is what to armor against. The chassis of the Hummer can only take so much weight, same with all those cargo trucks. There are two distinct, seperate, yet sometiems used together threats: RPG's and IED's.

For RPG's, you obviously want to have the outside shell of the vehicle armoured to some degree, not so much to defeat the incoming round, but to blunt its lethality...it would take too much armour and overload the chassis of the vehicles to make them RPG proof.

However, IED and landmines require armouring the floors of said vehcile. This can be as simple as putting sandbags on the floor to welding on heavy steel plate. Again, the idea is to blunt the lethality...making a vehicle proof against these things would be near impossible...even M1's are occasionally knocked out by them.

Also, ballistic, or "bullet-proof" (really bullet/fragment resistant ) glass could/should be mounted, but it equals more weight...etc...

Another part of the problem is how it looks on TV, regardless of what spin you put on it. If you uparmour the Hummer/Truck , at fair expense, and you then see it burning on TV and hear about the driver who lost a leg, etc...you may not think to well of it. On the other hand, the driver will now live when he/she would have almost certainly died before. But that argument gets very little airtime from ANYONE.

Also, remember, those NG and Reserve units are getting the hand-me-downs from the active units. Even if they are using Pre-po'd stuff, the well used stuff is being handed out to these guys rather than new or near new issue. This is a issue that needs to be addressed as well.

Finally, in a funny way, there has been resisitance to uparmour the carge haulers because it makes a fair dent in fuel consumption of said vehicles, and yes, in the land of abundant oil people are keeping an eye on fuel consumption.

hmmm...isn't oil the real reason we're over there?
not what happened on 9/11...don't remember any Iraquis on the planes...

Lets not get this started all over again. This topic is on its way to hijacking (complete - usually controversially - change of subject) and I don't want it to be deleted as I also want to hear the servicemen's point of view on needs for armor.

Jeff

Polictical ranting on this message board isn't premitted.

Back to topic...the M113 isn't a cure all. Running tracked vechicles costs alot more then running wheeled vechicles. Replacing all the Humvees with M113 isn't a cure all, it just leads to to having a bigger/slower target for an RPG gunner to shoot at, and offers margenal increase in protection over an up armored Hummer.

Is there any platform that is a blend of say...an LAV and a Humvee? Is there going to be a non-combat/cargo varient of the Stryker? An armored M978? Seems to me there are plenty of platforms to build from. I agree with the above poster who stated that the Humvee isnt manufactured to be loaded down with heavy armor plates. But a question that keeps coming to my mind, is do you invest in equipment that in a couple of years may not be needed, assuming Iraq settles down after an election?

Let us remember that even an M1 Abrams tank can be blown up if the bad guys used enough explosives. And in Iraq M1s have been lost and will be lost to IED's because there was enough explosives used.

Also, let us remember that since the time man went to war in vehicles, man has tried to make that vehicle safer by adding on what was available. Sherman Tanks with sandbags, logs, timbers, concrete, added on armor were all common sights in WWII. Jeeps with bullet shields, wire bars were common.

In Iraq there is a unique situation where warfare has been taken to the level of ambush and mines to an extreme level. The ONLY effective way of preventing these types of attacks and IED's is to take out the bad guys (you use your imagination on how this is to be accomplished). No bad guys - no more IEDs.

Nuff Said-

Howdy fellas,

Jacques, as usual, brings up a very good point.

".....The main problem they are having is what to armor against. The chassis of the Hummer can only take so much weight, same with all those cargo trucks. There are two distinct, seperate, yet sometiems used together threats: RPG's and IED's...."

My thought would be that they would have to address both of these concerns at least in some degree.....
On the RPG issue:
"...For RPG's, you obviously want to have the outside shell of the vehicle armoured to some degree, not so much to defeat the incoming round, but to blunt its lethality...it would take too much armour and overload the chassis of the vehicles to make them RPG proof...."

On this, I will just go back to my earlier (on another thread) suggestion of once again referring back to a 'Nam era method of protection that worked very well, and that is 'stand-off' armour, or 'bar-armour'. Why couldn't this type of applique protection be utilized on the upper, or vertical surfaces of the vehicle in conjunction with a much thinner or more lightweight (aluminum?) plating? It is quite a bit lighter than any type of proper sheet armour, and allows a MUCH better field of vision around the perimeter of the Humvee while in tight or congested quarters (city streets for ex.)

Our good Jacques goes on to say......

"...IED and landmines require armouring the floors of said vehcile. This can be as simple as putting sandbags on the floor to welding on heavy steel plate...."

With the significant reduction in additional weight being carried by the Hummers by using 'bar-armour' insteads of sheet steel, the proper installation of undercarriage 'chicken' plates could be implemented. Thereby addressing the issue of " blunting the lethality ".

Now these are just observations by my Humble Self.......and possible suggestions......that is all. But, I am still awaiting all 'cons' on the subject................

Tread.

as for the "change of subject" comment, sorry if i broke a rule. Although the comment before mine did bring up the irony of the worries about fuel consumption in a land with oil as it's number 1 export. I may have crossed the lineand I take will take it back.
Now, as for the "marginal increase" in protection that the M113 class vehicle would offer...I think this soldier would have preferred to have been given the option... Pfc. Alan Jermaine Lewis, 23, a machine-gunner, 3rd Infantry Division was wounded July 16, 2003 on Highway 8 in Baghdad when the Humvee he was driving hit a land mine blowing off both legs, burning his face, and breaking his left arm in 6 places. He was delivering ice to other soldiers at the time. Photographed at home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, November 23, 2003.

hmmm....delivering ice in a Humvee...i bet the Officer's Club had to go with room temperture drinks for a day because of that...

OK bear with me as I make my point...

The lack of armor doesn't bother me. In any war, our jeeps and truck come under ambush by the enemy and our convoys always needed protection from badguys.

What does bother me is that the lack of armor comes not from a shortage of wartime equipment but from financial reasons. During WW2 everyone was cranking out supplies and there still wasn't enough. Today it seems that we are trying to run a war according to budget (this include politics as well)rather than run a war using war tactics.

We are putting our troops at risk because we might spend too much or because we might get some bad publicity if we blow up a few landmarks trying to get a badguy or we might insult another country because they don't like us being there????

If the Humvee is the proper vehicle to do the job (despite the possibility of being destroyed by enemy action) then so be it. Humvees are used for transport and communications and whatever. I certainly wouldn't expect them to use M1s to transport some paperwork across town just like I wouldn't expect Humvees to be sprearhead an attack against an enemy armored column.

I'll weigh in on this as well.

The fact of the matter is, this sort of thing has been debated for at least the last five years. It all began with the discussion over the switch from MBTs to LAVs. What is happening in Iraq is not a new developement by any means. I do believe this was experienced in Vietnam with light skinned vehicles. Did we learn nothing? In my humble opinion, if they anticipated a reliance on Humvees to be the basic patrol vehicle, (and they had to anticipate some level of insurgency) then the uparmor kits should have been available before they crossed the border.



Nothing makes the enemy wet its pants faster than the sight of a tank.

I am insulted by responses such as this. Anyone who would make such an accusation obviously knows little to nothing about operations in the field. Sounds like a journalist trying to trivialize that soldier's mission and the reasons for his injuries.

The primary use for ice in theater is normally for food storage. Most units do not have refridgeration capabilities of any kind. Ice is sent out so that the field units can have fairly fresh food. Ever thought about having to transport items like uncooked meat and produce out to the front line troops? That stuff gets brought out to the remote locations in 2½ ton and 5 ton cargo trucks. Or perhaps you'd want to feed the troops MREs and other field rations 3 meals a day every day?

Yes, they try to get extra ice to the troops so they have something cold to drink. Having had to drink warm to hot water for months at a time, I can tell you that occasionally getting ice to add to water, Kool-aid or the occasional soda is a morale booster.

To insinuate that the soldier suffered such serious injuries so that his superiors could enjoy cold drinks at the club is nothing more than yellow journalism spewed out by a liberal media type.

I guess i hit a nerve.. My closing comment was a jab at officers in general (no pun intended) not you personally.

I realize this is a model builder's site...but geeze, its centered on the militay vehicles of the past present and future. And as such, it hard for me, a politically charged individual, not to throw a comment about the war in the mix when we're talking about the vehicles that our troops are being blown up and killed in because their the wrong vehicles being used in the wrong manner.

Life is too short...and your too damn nice a guy to be upset with...so I apologize to you for my making the comment...and i would like to take back from you and anyother officers in the military that felt insulted by it.
It was wrong to throw it in at the last as a parting shot...please except my humble apology.

Kevin Glackmeyer