Article

2003-09-26 Iraq

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Posted by Rafael 2003-09-26 5:58:04 AM|| || Front Page|| [10 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Aren't those Hummers armored against bullets and rockets? Or are the RPG heat rockets able to penetrate a heavy armor, in which case also the armor of a Bradley vehicle is insufficient?

Posted by Murat 2003-9-26 6:07:24 AM|| 2003-9-26 6:07:24 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Humvees have armor, much like some civilian cars have armor. It's still a thin-skin vehicle.
Bradleys have reactive armor over armor plates. You have to hit it in the same place twice with an RPG to have much chance of penetrating.
Also, the armor itself is a lot heavier. The Bradley is an order of magnitude heavier, a lot of which is armor.

Posted by Dishman 2003-9-26 7:32:46 AM|| 2003-9-26 7:32:46 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Yes I agree, with reactive armor it should be very difficult for a RPG grenade to penetrate. I wonder why there is no such a thing as a reactive armor for thin-skin or light armored vehicles.

Posted by Murat 2003-9-26 7:44:31 AM|| 2003-9-26 7:44:31 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 The reactive armor would be almost as dangerous as the RPG in a thin skinned vehicle like a HV.

Posted by Shipman 2003-9-26 8:11:36 AM|| 2003-9-26 8:11:36 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 The Army's new Stryker Brigade should be arriving in Iraq soon.Stryker is not as heavy as the Bradly,but much better armored than the Hummer. It's overall size is smaller than the Bradly making it better for urban combat.
Stryker has a medievac version that is absolutly state of the art and will be a genuine life saver.It is rubber tired,wich means much less maintanence and less wear and tear on the roads.

For more info check out Military.com

Posted by Raptor 2003-9-26 8:26:09 AM|| 2003-9-26 8:26:09 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 Alright, gentlemen, I'm going to give yall a little hint from the inside.

Word in the Joe network has it that the vast majority of problems with convoy ambushes isn't so much the vehicles as it is the convoy practices.

I'm not going to get into detail here, but I will say that all the boys getting shot up are big army. Big army seems to have a hard time doing what we call a "map check" and changing their procedures accordingly. Apparently certain infantry divisions are having a hard time understanding that Iraq is not some FTX in a really big post.

Stupid mistakes, demanded by certain commanders.

I'll elaborate elsewhere.

-DS
"the horns hold up the halo."

Posted by DeviantSaint 2003-9-26 9:39:36 AM|| [www.livejournal.com/~deviantsaint] 2003-9-26 9:39:36 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 The Iraqis (like most people) have an objection to tanks in their cities. The Bradley looks rather like a tank. The humvee, on the other hand, tends to get mentally classified as an ugly SUV. I'm not sure how people will react to the Stryker.

Posted by Dishman 2003-9-26 9:43:58 AM|| 2003-9-26 9:43:58 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 Stryker being rubber tired is very quiet, unlike tracks. Think it'll be perceived as a big armored car.

Posted by Steve 2003-9-26 10:18:09 AM|| 2003-9-26 10:18:09 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 A 7.62 round can punch through the door/windshield & roof of a humvee. A .50 cal round can punch through a USMC LAV-25 (Corps' pseudo-Bradley) or Amtrack. Reactive armor is too expensive to put on each one of them. DeviantSaint is right about convoy ops procedures. I'm not privy if these are regular
Army folks or reservists catching fire.

Posted by Jarhead 2003-9-26 10:40:41 AM|| 2003-9-26 10:40:41 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 The 87bill request includes new Armored Hummers and better Flack Jackets. I believe most of the Armor is underside to improve roadside bomb/mine survival. Additional Note: Notice how you rarely hear of Marine supply units getting hit. It appears the Marine policy of everyman being a Infrantryman (meaning they get advanced infantry training) appears to help.

Posted by Patrick 2003-9-26 12:09:37 PM|| 2003-9-26 12:09:37 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 The last Marine unit left Iraq yesterday. This helps in the ambush thing. It is still true that
ambushing Marines tend to be harder (everything being equal).

Posted by JFM 2003-9-26 12:57:29 PM|| 2003-9-26 12:57:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Dishman >>

Although reactive armor was designed and tested for the Bradley, it was never fielded at least not from 1988-1998, nor during the first Gulf War. Most units had the M2A1's that had thinner armor and could be penetrated by 14.7mm at ranges of 600 meters (as well as RPG's). We did have these M2A2's, but only company commander's had those. The armor was much thicker and seemed to be some kind of composite armor. I was really surprised at all of the reports of Bradley's shrugging many of the RPG's off.

The M1's are amazing. One of our's (we were tasked forced) was hit in the turret from 400 meters away by a T-55 and all it did was burn off some paint and left a slight dent! That was in the last war. It's truly amazing to see how advanced the technology has become in such a short period of time.

Hummers are just like deuce and a halves. The extra armor seems to be mostly for small arms fire.

Posted by Paul 2003-9-26 1:24:07 PM|| 2003-9-26 1:24:07 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 There are many factors that could affect the numbers when comparing the marine and army figures. Smaller force, not in the Sunni Triangle, force drawing down, etc. I have been keeping up on all these attacks and it just seems to me that the marines have a better record than even the British in the south and the Army in the northern Mosul area. I have read articles from military personel crediting this to the additional infantry training all marines get. The army's policy of stopping at basic training for these support personel I believe is dangerous and is probably part of the problem.

Posted by Patrick 2003-9-26 2:45:52 PM|| 2003-9-26 2:45:52 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 There's more than just infantry training that's totally wrong. The Army needs to stop fighting World War II battles, and join the 21st century. There is no such thing as a "rear area" any more - troops can be targeted anywhere from the "front lines" (which really don't exist any more) to "garrison locations" either in the US or in Allied territory. The entire world is the "area of operations" for any future warfare, and must be accepted for that by all military organizations, including the Navy and the Air Force.

This is not something new, or just related to terror networks. We faced an indigent army in Vietnam that could strike from Da Nang to Saigon virtually at will, but we never gave up the idea of fixed front lines and zones of control. By the mid-1980's, we knew the Soviet Union had dozens of "deep penetration" units capable of reaching anywhere in Germany, and deep in to dozens of other countries. These people had several missions, but one that affected me personally was their intention of capturing the "compound" where I worked. The world takes on a totally different color when you know you're in the center of the cross-hairs.

Today's US military is under watchful eyes wherever in the world it happens to be deployed. That means EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of our military. They need to be trained to respond to the threat, whether they're in 29 Palms, or Ramstein, or Diego Garcia, or Yakuska, or the deserts of Iraq.

Posted by Old Patriot 2003-9-26 3:10:33 PM|| [http://users.codenet.net/mweather/default.htm] 2003-9-26 3:10:33 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 I recall hearing that no marines were killed post-war, partly due to their more aggressive tactics. Is this correct ?

Posted by eyeyeye 2003-9-26 4:58:17 PM|| 2003-9-26 4:58:17 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 The Kevlar vests the US wears seem to do a fairly good job. Why not put Kevlar in the side panels/roof/elsewhere on a Humvee? Know it won't stop an RPG grenade, but it should make it harder to penetrate with a .22. Kevlar's heavy, but not as heavy as armor plate. Dollar for dollar, I think putting some protection into Humvees is cheaper than replacing them - and the guys that died in them.

Posted by Old Patriot 2003-9-26 5:14:28 PM|| [http://users.codenet.net/mweather/default.htm] 2003-9-26 5:14:28 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 All Marines do go through additional infantry training after boot camp. It's called Marine Combat Training or MCT. Regardless of Military Occupational Specialty (MOS), all Marines receive an additional three weeks of infantry training. All Marine Officers after OCS go through 6 months of combined arms infantry training in Quantico. So the infantry mentality is well-bred throughout the Corps. Convoy ops is taken extremely serious and support units either have organic defense assets on their vehicles & mobile "grunt" units often provide flank security for them. There are SOPs and immediate action drills for dealing with an ambush depending on the type, size of enemy, and terrain situation.

Posted by Jarhead 2003-9-26 5:40:11 PM|| 2003-9-26 5:40:11 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 Jarhead? Does that include the urban warfare training here at Pendleton? Also, IIRC the Israelis were sending training programs to our troops for ops in hostile urban areas. Should be getting there right now

Posted by Frank G 2003-9-26 6:36:34 PM|| 2003-9-26 6:36:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 When I was in the ROK(Rep of Korea)I was station on a Hawk Missle Battery.Twice we had attempted penetration of our perimeter by NKOR sappers and this was in 1974-75.I have always thought that 6.8 weeks of Basic was not enough.After Basic I handled a -16 twice,both times with no ammo and never went to the range after basic.

Ahhhh,Korea:Land of slideing doors,heated floors, and slant-eyed whores.

Posted by Raptor 2003-9-26 7:23:21 PM|| 2003-9-26 7:23:21 PM|| Front Page Top

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