TRUCKS STILL THIN-​​SKINNED

The Hummers are pro­tected, mostly. It’s the trucks that are in trou­ble.
The AP is report­ing that “of more than 9,100 heavy mil­i­tary haulers in Iraq, Afghanistan and nearby coun­tries, just over 1,100 have received upgraded pro­tec­tion… By com­par­i­son, the mil­i­tary has decided it needs almost 22,000 armored Humvees in the war area. It has 15,334; an addi­tional 4,400 await armor add-​​ons and the rest have not been deliv­ered to the region.“
But get­ting those addi­tional Hummers could take a long, long time, if cur­rent pro­duc­tion plans hold. According to this Bloomberg arti­cle (via Sullivan), “Armor Holdings Inc., the sole sup­plier of pro­tec­tive plates for the Humvee mil­i­tary vehi­cles used in Iraq, said it could increase out­put by as much as 22 per­cent per month with no invest­ment and is await­ing an order from the Army.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yes­ter­day the Army was work­ing as fast as it can and sup­ply is dic­tated by “a mat­ter of physics, not a mat­ter of money.” A Pentagon spokes­woman declined com­ment.
Jacksonville, Florida-​​based Armor Holdings last month told the Army it could add armor to as many as 550 of the trucks a month, up from 450 vehi­cles now, Robert Mecredy, pres­i­dent of the company’s aero­space and defense group, said in an inter­view today.
“We’re pre­pared to build 50 to 100 vehi­cles more per month,” Mecredy said in the tele­phone inter­view. “I’ve told the cus­tomer that and I stand ready to do that.

Why the hold-​​up? My guess — and I’m checkng up on this now — is that money for armor (espe­cially truck armor) wasn’t even in the Pentagon’s bud­get in the first place. Rather, Rummy & Co. decided to put off fund­ing for such projects into a sec­ond, “sup­ple­men­tal” bill for Congress to pass.
Manehwile, the Times gangs up on the armor issue, and gives us some great color from Kuwait:

At the tran­sit camps in Kuwait, Army and Marine Corps dri­vers weld anti­shrap­nel col­lars onto the hoods of their trucks, to deflect explod­ing debris while main­tain­ing vis­i­bil­ity. Sandbags are laid on the floors of Humvees, trim­ming the skimpy legroom from econ­omy class to steer­age. On the bat­tle­field, there is an air of resigned acqui­es­cence about the lack of armor, rather than bit­ter com­plaints. Among units that lack armored Humvees, the mood 20 months into the war tends more to black jokes than to recrim­i­na­tion.
“If they i.e.d. you in this thing, there won’t be enough of you left to pack­age up and send home,” a Marine sergeant said ear­lier this week, as he showed embed­ded reporters to one of three open-​​backed Humvees assigned to a raid on a sus­pected rebel strong­hold raid south of Baghdad. Among troops in Iraq, i.e.d., for impro­vised explo­sive device, is short­hand for the road­side bombs that have killed about two-​​thirds of Americans who have died in com­bat.
At brief­ings, com­man­ders resort often to an old Marine adage, “Improvise, adjust, over­come,” and are dis­mis­sive of complaints. 

December 10th, 2004 | Armor, Ground Vehicles | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.