Now, I am not commenting on whether the conflict in Iraq is “Right” or “Wrong”… I personally support and care about our troops over there whether they should be there or not, and hope they all come home safely… soon. But please read the following and comment. Thanks
I read that some good folks down here in Alabama joined together to help their friends, neighbors, and family members that were being activated by the National Guard and shipped to Iraq. What they did was replace the thin sheetmetal floorboards and canvas doo panels on the unit’s Humvees with 1/4" sheetsteel… effectively creating home-made armour-cladding. Now, assuming that they did a fairly professional job, and it didn’t weigh ten tons… I fail to see the login in this. especially since, as the article says:
and:
It seems to be “The American Way”… banding together to help out and what-not… and could’ve been a P.R. coup, and morale booster… It apparrently got the whole neighborhood involved in supporting and helping the cause… and helping to protect service-men and women.
tell me what you think. I did not put this in the Pit, even though it makes me angry, because I really want to hear what you guys think… not just a bunch of trash-talk. If this needs to be moved, please do so, mod-brethren, whith my blessing, thanks and apologies.
I was wondering the same thing but after thinking about it for a few I think the army decided to take off the armor because of a few reasons. (someone correct me if I’m wrong in any assumptions)
If you get everyone deciding to band together and help our troops by fixing up government owned property you’ll have many variations (not all of which might help, regardless of the intentions) that are impossible to really inventory. If you owned a huge chain of stores you wouldn’t want your managers in each town changing around things much because the helpful changes will require A LOT of time (and money) to make sure everything is compatable with the new system.
So what does this have to do with armor added onto humvees?
Say these people did it right. They made it so it didn’t get in the way or cause any problems for the troops. Great.
But then you’ll get a few people thinking “Hey, that’s a great idea!” And you’ll get a guy with a blowtorch, no permission, and some high school shop education chopping up a humvee to make his own SUPER humvee (aka a chopped up humvee).
I know they had the best intentions but their efforts could hinder the troops and cause more deaths as we get a wide variety of homemade “Let’s see if this works” projects going on in some guy’s home garage.
Another thing to consider is that armor plate is more complex than just sheets of steel. If they got the wrong kind of steel or didn’t attach it right, it could cause more problems than it would solve- it might splinter, shatter or spall, which is pretty bad.
We don’t know how heavy this made the humvees- it might have slowed them down and made them have trouble keeping up with convoys, or caused undue wear on the engines.
Also, if it’s very obvious, it might point out which vehicles are escorts and which ones aren’t, making targeting easier for the insurgents.
I think the military’s displeasure comes not so much out of toes being stepped on (though that’s certainly part of it) but more that the civilians don’t really know what they’re doing. An idea that looks good on paper to an inexperienced individual may turn out to have severe and unintended downsides.
In addition to what bump mentions, consider the early test versions of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. It was supposed to be a troop carrier, but dozens of revisions added lots of bells and whistles until it was a weird hybrid with rocket launchers and tons of armor and hardly any room for the troops it was supposed to carry. And when somebody fired a rocket at it, the ordnance punched through into the interior compartment where the subsequent explosion was neatly contained so it could fry the passengers.
So while the civilians who added the plate steel thought they’d be doing a favor to the soldiers who didn’t want to get shot with regular bullets, I doubt they’ve considered the ramifications of an incendiary device being tossed into what is effectively a highly reinforced metal box, i.e. instant oven.
I think that both parties had the best of intentions, but from my experience the best intentions of the military are rarely correct. My husband has been in Iraq for the past 360 days, and they added steel plating to the few land vehicles in their unit. From my understanding, the steel plating is not an uncommon addition in Iraq…As a matter of fact, quite a few units are adding it themselves. It is possible that it was the improper type of steel that they used, but it is more likely that the military does not want any of their equipment going into Iraq to seem substandard (which would result in bad press). You would be suprised at how many lives could have been saved over the last year if the military would have taken just a few safety precautions and given the soldiers the means to upgrade their equipment. If you want any interesting stories to really get you boiling, I have some doozies!
Welcome to SDMB, Stick Buddy! I am honored you chose my thread for your first post. Your response eloquently expresses what I felt to be the underlying cause… I hope we are wrong.
More generally, those modifications to the Humvees, one gets the impression from reading the article, were neither authorized by the army, nor did they conform to current army regulations and policy regarding modifying Humvees. So basically, you had a bunch of people, not affiliated with the army, conducting unauthorized modifications to army equipment, without following the proper proceedures to make such modifications. Or, as the article puts it:
The U.S. Army is in fact addressing this problem. They are moving quickly to put extra protection on Humvees in the form of acrylic/carbon fiber/kevlar/vinyl door covers. These protectors are also going to be marketed for the Ford Crown Victoria that so many police departments have bought.
I know this because my roommate is the marketing director for the company that is building the prototype. They are already well into testing what layers of what give protection at what thicknesses, and the army has already sent out a rep to see their manufacturing partner/plant.
No, I’m not kidding at all with this, in case someone comes along to doubt me, and you will probably see them rolled out inside 6 months.
Oh, and I know you can’t see through Kevlar or carbon fiber. The clear material will just have to be thicker over the window section of the door.
Um, there’s the Department of Defense and the NIH (Not invented here) philosophy. Do some research on the reluctant adoption of the M-16 rifle in the 1960’s.
Polycarbonite
Proprietary sandwich of ceramic
Plate glass
Kevlar
Vinyl
The plate glass flattens the bullet to be better stopped as it goes in farther.
The DOD is so hot on this idea that the company’s biggest problem is not being already tuned up for manufacture. They need to convince the DOD that they can move quickly, because they’re being threatened with having the project put out for bid from other companies.
In addition to some of the arguments made here, one that popped to mind immediately involves the logistical requirements to move a company/division/battalion from Alabama to Iraq.
Assuming they are not going to drive there (haha), the vehicles will have to be flown or shipped as cargo to Iraq. Logistically, the military must account for the number of vehicles, and more importantly gross tonage, etc. to be shipped. If each Humvee is modified privately adding even an additional 100lbs per vehicle (very low estimate) without the military being aware of the modifications well… you can imagine the outrage if we begin having cargo planes crashing on take-off due to over-load conditions caused by good natured family.*
*This reminded me of the scene in Band of Brothers of the general who was killed because his jeep was overloaded with additional steel plate resulting in the glider being uncontrolable.
Nope, It is SPR. It’s when they find the rallying point, just before they start going through all of the dog tags and Tom Hanks has to talk to the deaf soldier who knows Ryan.
