Damn You For Adding Armor, Chimpy!
You’ve made the Humvees more dangerous:
DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — Thousands of pounds of armor added to military Humvees, intended to protect U.S. troops, have made the vehicles more likely to roll over, killing and injuring soldiers in Iraq, a newspaper reported.
“I believe the up-armoring has caused more deaths than it has saved,” said Scott Badenoch, a former Delphi Corp. vehicle dynamics expert told the Dayton Daily News for Sunday editions.
The numbers don’t lie:
An analysis of the Army’s ground accident database, which includes records from March 2003 through November 2005, found that 60 of the 85 soldiers who died in Humvee accidents in Iraq — or 70 percent — were killed when the vehicle rolled, the newspaper reported.
What will folks say about the “humvee armor scandal” now?
Update: Cullen has an insider’s view.
World Stuff | Mr. Bingley | 
June 12, 2006 7:49 am
Subscribe
Tried to send a trackback, but Haloscan wouldn’t recognize the trackback URL.
So, here’s my manual trackback.
I will say that they have the numbers screwed up in the story. Or rather, the presentation of the numbers is screwey.
Argh MT. Thanks Cullen!
They should have used Javelins. They could get airborne safely, take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’. Never flipped over once.
And all that clay armor it carried, too.
Let’s face it, if you’re stupid, you can roll the vehicle.
I think they did a great job providing all new up armored vehicles while I was out there. The problem is that the money was spent on making a silk purse out of the sow’s ear.
I appreciate the up armor, but what is really needed is a better vehicle. The hummer was designed to be a bigger version of a light utility vehicle. It is not supposed to be an armored vehicle. As assault vehicles they are terrible.
It is awkward to move around when the Marines are all armored and encumbered with ammo, water bottles, rifles, etc. With the hummer, this awkwardness is magnified a hundred times. THere is no way to get in and out easily.
It is well designed for shrapnel with the new up armor, but bottom strikes are deadly to occupants. Vehicles with V-bottoms are needed.
And they’re dog slow. The muj often got away because our hummers could not keep up with four cylinder mini pickups.
It’s time to begin replacing them with an entirely different vehicle.
I’m with Mike. The up armored HUMMVW is a compromise. It works, but the original design didn’t include this specific function. Another problem is that the suspension in the UAHs falls apart sooner, thanks to the extra load, especially in the retrofitted vehicles.
The Bradley won’t work in this role. The older M113 APC might have been a possible candidate, since it was designed (in part) as a mobile shooting platform, except it’s armor is way too light (and suffers from the same vulnerability to buried mines). Something in between is needed. There are a few commercial candidates available, if DoD is willing to look outside the box.