Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles

[Dr. Shane]

Army seeks $20B for protected vehicles

Quote:

Gates and other Pentagon leaders like the MRAP because its raised chassis and V-shaped hull of the vehicles help protect troops from roadside bombs, which are also called improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Roadside bombs cause 70% of U.S. casualties in Iraq.

Gates told all services on May 2 to determine how many MRAPs they need. The Army, until the May 15 memo, had sought 2,500 MRAPs. Senior Army officials said commanders in the field valued the maneuverability of the Humvee, the military's longtime workhorse vehicle, saying the MRAPs were often too large and unwieldy.

The number of MRAPs in Geren's memo matches the number of armored Humvees the Army operates in Iraq. The Marine Corps has already announced its intent to replace all its Humvees with MRAPs, saying the new armored vehicles are as much as four times safer.

Eight companies are competing for the contracts to build the vehicles, said Capt. Jeff Landis, a Marine Corps spokesman. The Marines are leading the Pentagon's development of the MRAPs, which are now being tested at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland.

Testing should be done by early June, said Brig. Gen. Charles Anderson, the Army's director of force development. "It's round the clock," Anderson said of the testing. "It shows the sense of urgency."

Posted 54d ago

Most soldiers killed in Iraq are killed by IEDs. This vehicle could well give the US what it needs to survive in the long term there.

[Neil D]

Seems to me that I read that these vehicles were being manufactured at a very slow rate. They are currently being produced at a rate of 2 or 3 per month [?]...I am not sure. And they have been needed for the last 6 years ....

Quote:

Testing should be done by early June, said Brig. Gen. Charles Anderson, the Army's director of force development. "It's round the clock," Anderson said of the testing. "It shows the sense of urgency."

*cough* THAT'S urgent?????

That's incompentant...

[Dr. Shane]

A lot of engineering and testing go into research and development and production levels are never high until there is funding for production. Sorry if I a stating the obvious. What would be considered incompetent is putting something into full production before it is completely tested and proven.

It is kind of like the jet airplane that was put into product at the end of WW2.

[Neil D]

Quote:

A lot of engineering and testing go into research and development and production levels are never high until there is funding for production. Sorry if I a stating the obvious. What would be considered incompetent is putting something into full production before it is completely tested and proven.

There were reports early on the war that the vehicles were not able to with stand the IEDs and that army personel were searching the scrap iron heaps for extra iron for protection. In fact, there were companys that were manufactering extra plating so that the guys could weld the plating on for protection. These companys were providing it themselves, at thier costs, because they had men over there. It is stupid to send men without proper protection into combat. It is nothing more than asking a man to play russian roulette with a revolver with one loaded chamber.

[olger]

I would think that a tank would make a natural mine-resistant vehicle too. Maybe the tracks are too hard on the roads?

og

[Neil D]

I would think that a tank would make a natural mine-resistant vehicle too. Maybe the tracks are too hard on the roads?

og

I would agree that tanks could be a natural mine resistant vehicle...but they don't carry a large load, and trucks do...trucks are more moble, move in small alleys at lot easier than a wide tank...

And some of the IED are set off by laser or radio controled. So, it is not the first vehicle that gets the explosion, it might be the 2nd or 3rd or 4th vehicles that recieve the explosion, thus maximizing the effects of the blast.

[bevin]

There are two basic ways to penetrate armor

(a) a high speed sharp spike doing very local damage and punching right through, and

( a broad explosive wave that propagates a shock wave through the armour and breaks off the internal surface

You can get these effects by three basic approaches

(a) explode a shaped charge close to the armor

( squash an explosive against the armor then detonate it

© shoot a high-speed projectile a long way

(a) and ( do NOT require a big barrel, and hence can be built into one-man-portable devices. However reactive armor and screens some distance out from the armour can defeat them

Currently there is no good defense against © done well. In the past this has required a long barrel, but - enter the EFP.

With the invention of the EFP, a copper disk is explosively formed into a high-speed accurate spike. It is the ideal insurgent anti-armor weapon. Once you have the plans you can build it in a 3rd world workshop out of a few dollars worth of components and use it to destroy vehicles costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

If you use them as mines, then the entire bottom of the vehicle is vulnerable - and the weight of armor to stop them prohibitive...

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

It is stupid to send men without proper protection into combat.

Donald Rumsfield said a lot of stupid things but his response to this criticism was sound and made a lot of sense. He said, we don't go to war with the Army we want to have. We go to war with the Army we have.

The men that fought in the American Civil War didn't have proper protection for sure. But we didn't wait for R&D to catch up before going to war to free the slaves.

Our soldiers in this war do have a lot more protection than those that have fought in previous wars which is why we see the kill:wounded ration so much different. We have a lot more wounded men per killed mad in this war than previous wars because a lot of soldiers are surviving injuries that would have been fatal in previous wars.

There are IEDs that are destroying M-1 Abrams and Bradly tanks. This new vehicle has a V hull which helps deflect the impact of the blast. I have seen demonstrations and it is pretty impressive.

Of course, the US needs to enter into talks with Syria and Iran as they are most likely the ones giving the insurgents high-tech weapons.

[bevin]

Yes, Rumsfeld was right on with that statement.

The Adminstration is lying when it describes the IED's and EFP's as "high-tech weapons". They can be made in any 3rd world kitchen and trademan's store.

An EFP is

(a) a triggering sensor - often just 100 feet of wire going to either a human holding a switch, or a pressure-operated switch

( a battery

© a detonator

(d) a metal can filled with explosive

(e) one end of the can is a concave lens-like copper disk

The explosive can be any one of the easily molded/shaped ones, and could even be a liquid.

The exact shape of the lens is important - but

(a) it is easily found by experimentation

( is described by a simple cross-section plan, since all the cross-sections are the same

© is easily reproduced in a mold

The Administration is lying about how hard they are to make, because they want the USA population to believe the Iraqi's can't be making their own, so they blame Syria and Iran for the Administration's failure

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

There is a lot the Administration knows that it is not making public. So none of us discussing the issue knows all the facts. That said, I think it is pretty well accepted that Iran is supporting the insurgents and possibly Syria too - although they two countries may be supporting two different factions.

From where I sit (and I may be wrong) it seems Iran and Syria both have good reasons to support the insurgents. Both of them support terrorism and are possible targets of the US. Should the US be successful in Iraq, it may move onto either of those two next. If Iran or Syria can either defeat the US in Iraq or just keep them tied up, they do not need to worry about the US attacking them. That seems to set the stage for diplomacy between the US and these countries. If we can make them feel that we are not a threat to them, perhaps we can get them to stop supporting the insurgents.

For whatever reason, the Bush Administration is not going that direction. I cannot say I support or criticize the Administration because I am assuming they have facts that are not public. However from the facts I have, it doesn't seem they are taking the right approach.

This new vehicle is designed to withstand the blasts from these improvised explosives. However if the insurgents are back by either Iran or Syria, they will have the means to destroy these too within a short period of time.

[bevin]

Couldn't possibly be that Iraqi's don't like the government we are trying to impose on them, could it?

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

Well, since they voted in the government themselves, I think we can safely rule out that they don't want it. Let's not forget that the interim president that was appointed by the US ran for the position and did not win. That is the US choose a person for the job but the Iraqis chose someone else. And we know that the person the Iraqis voted for is now in charge - not the one the US appointed.

In fact I believe we appointed a president but after they wrote their own constitution they ended up with a prime minister. Definitely their own government chosen by them.

[bevin]

Definitely - and the Iraqi's obviously all back it, and it is obviously capable of making decisions that are acceptable to a vast majority of the Iraqi's.

Glad we have that sorted out.

/Bevin

[Neil D]

Deadly penny-pinching

Palm Beach Post Editorial

Thursday, July 19, 2007

On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Pentagon officials made an urgent request to Congress. They want $1.3 billion as soon as possible to speed up the purchase of bomb-resistant vehicles for troops in Iraq.

Where was all this urgency 31/2 years ago? Where was the Pentagon brass when commanders in Iraq first requested Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs) to help soldiers deal with the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that were causing so many U.S. casualties?

These are questions Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Kit Bond, R-Mo., want answered, according to a report in USA Today. Hardly political allies on most matters, the two have sent a letter to Mr. Gates in which they estimate that the Pentagon's delays in delivering the MRAPs have cost between 621 and 742 American lives. But the senators admit that their estimate is low, because they started counting casualties only in February 2005, when the Marines asked for 1,200 of the vehicles. That urgent request also was ignored until this week.

The Bush administration has known about the vulnerability of U.S. Humvees to roadside bombs since the early days of the insurgency. The administration also has known that the heavily armored MRAPs save lives. But at nearly $1 million per vehicle, the Pentagon and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld balked at the cost of ordering heavier, slower Humvees for a military supposedly becoming lighter and swifter.

Hundreds of American soldiers are dead today because the Bush administration failed them. Beyond two senators, the entire Congress and nation should want to know how this could have happened.

[bevin]

Putting the soldiers into heavily armoured vehicles just further isolates them from the community, further weakening their hearts-and-minds campaign, and further dehumanizing them.

The nett effect would be more community support for attacks and hence more violent attacks

It is not about armour. It is about hearts and minds. And we have lost. You can't defeat the insurgency with F16's dropping lazer-guided bombs from 40,000 feet - but that is what we are trying.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

I would wait to to see the Pentagon's response before jumping on a bandwagon. If R&D was still taking place on these vehicles at the time, that with probably why we didn't see a request to mass produce them until now.

Putting more armor on HUMVEEs was not enough. And yet that was being done, just not at the rate that some of wanted to see it.

If there is some kind of conspiracy or corruption involved, I would be surprised if the White House is involved directly but there is always the slight chance that they were.