LMTV

[mudguppy]

Sorry, I don't think that cab can withstand much in the way of an RPG rocket.

So it's still retarded.

If you want protection, ride a track. ...

my man, you have NO IDEA how powerful some of the IEDs are. you also have no understanding of the armor systems currently being used.

the bolt-on kit, made by Raytheon, was a quick-response action to get vehicles armored as fast as possible. and IT WORKS. it works very well. it was utilized to simply "bridge the gap" while the LSAC cabs were being produced. and it did that well.

the LSACs (i don't remember what it stands for) are amazing. they actually weigh a bit more than the add-on kits, but are much more affective. it only takes 40 man-hours to completely replace the cab, mod the suspension, plumb the A/C, and add the other components to the FMTVs. it's a fabulous design.

the year i was there (my BN running LOGpacks for the Division and my CO providing convoy security) we put well over 1 million miles on the road and had 5 fatalities and 3 other injuries. none of these casualties (injury or fatality) were in an FMTV (bolt-on or LSAC). they were all 1114s, 1 PLS, and 2 HETs. call it "retarded" but it works and the soldiers are thankful for them. but that's basically luck that none were hurt in an FMTV.

as to your track "theory", it's already been pointed out how ludicrous that is in the real world. besides the fact that the tracks don't last any longer than the wheeled vehicles against the IEDs.

trust me, i ran the consolidation yard. that's were all vehicles involved with a fatality were staged until they could be transported out. i've seen many of the 113 family blown in half, as well as bradleys and Abrams. yep, the abrams, too. the first day i arrived in Taji was the first day i've seen an Abrams come in in pieces. when you look at it like that, there isn't anything that can survive some of these weapons over there.

i lost a good buddy of mine on Christmas day last year. He was out on a patrol. He was the driver. He was killed by an IED. He was the only one killed. The rest of his crew didn't have a scratch on them. Oh, and he was driving an M1 Abrams.

We don't need more or better armor. We need to give the support needed to get the job done so we can get out of there.

Later,

 

[rmgill]

The other issue with remote detonated IED's on the road or just off of it, is that they're most effective when it goes off right below you or just beside you. 152mm 3 or 4 bangers (several 152mm HE shells daisey chained together) can really ruin the day of any tracked or wheeled armored vehicle unless you're in an MBT, even then it can really cause some serious problems.

The speed isssue anyhow means that if you're going faster when you pass the IED, Mr Mad Hajii bomber has to more accurately set off the device at the right time to get maximum effect. If you're in a vehicle that won't survive a blast that it's right on top of because of the size of the HE package, you could still survive a the blast with some more standoff range. Higher speed helps this because you might be 10 feet away or 10 feet past the Bomb when it goes off. Thus, the higher speed makes it harder for the trigger man to get the right moment. This is one of those instances where "speed is life(1)" really holds true.


1. Speed is Life is the basic idea behind the battle cruiser concept in the Pre-WWI and later naval warfare. Battlecruisers had battleship armament but cruiser level armor and cruiser level speed (faster than the bigger slower battleships). They eventually evolved into the fast battleship (the Iowa type BBs) in US form, with the Germans going for pocket battleships (which lived in fear of 6" and 8" armed light cruisers) and British Battlecruisers which were invariably tucked into the battle line with their bigger brothers and used as battleships much to their detriment (Jutland). The British Hood was the final British Battleship.

 

[Adamlee]

big bad boomers

If you've ever had the chance to witness live fire of heavy artillery, via military experience, or however, it is pretty tough to imagine anything surviving a "daisy chained" 152mm artillery round....cuz that means, 3 or more 152mm's together, simultaneously!

We are talking about big holes in the ground. the kind that swallow trucks.....

Light aluminum armored vehicles and heavy-upped trucks are pretty much equally destroyed in such an event...unless they have the chance to speed over & past the IED...no matter what, the IED as a weapon has proven itself a formidable force to be reckoned with, as much as the RPG's of old and the random mortar attacks a-la Tel Aviv and Jerusalem....

just an opinion....

 

[KaiserJeep715]

RE: big bad boomers

i have seen the turret blown off an abrams by a couple of 155 rounds buried in the middle of the road, its no joke over here. we aren't fighting idiots...they are extremely smart

 

[emmado22]

RE: big bad boomers

Was that the one from 1/67AR from 4ID's first deployment?

 

[KaiserJeep715]

RE: big bad boomers

hmm not sure...we had to watch a bunch of IED videos for our inbrief last year...that one had always stuck out as i always thought tanks were indestructable

 

[rmgill]

RE: big bad boomers

What will save you is not being _NEXT_ to or OVER the IED. Culvert mines are the worst. Jungle Dragoon (one of my favorite books) has the author talking about M48s driving over command detonated 500 lb bombs buried in the road. Often times the only thing saving the crew is that they're literally blown out of the hatch (the TC usually) with everyone else inside dying instantly. They had one instance where they found a 500 lb bomb in the road and it turned out the Dozer they were escorting had ripped up the wires to set off the mine.

Still, even then many M113 crews rode outside their tracks with the poor driver stuck inside. The newest generation of RPG will even get inside the armor envelope of an Abrams from the side if you hit the right spot. :-/ Nothing is perfect, but it's a matter of what protection you have and making the most of it.

 

[mudguppy]

rmgill,

actually, the 155 rounds are some of the less effective IEDs now. no joke. as long as you are not directly over them, most armored vehicles (wheels and tracks) have a decent chance of survival. soft (no armor) vehicles don't have a chance.

what we are up against now are manufactured shape charges and platter charges. these are coming in across the Syrian border. the design is simple. the effect is devistating.

they use a 15" piece of pipe, pack it w/ comp B or equal, then layer the opening w/ a soft metal in a concave shape, usually copper. the comp B heats and compresses the copper into a molten rod of metal that pierces [fill in the blank]. it doesn't blow anything up - it punches a hole through it. these will go clear through both sides of an M1114. i've seen that happen twice.

now, here's where it gets worse: they were using electronic eyes to trigger. set the beam however far in front of the IED, so when a chosen vehicle breaks the beam it detonates, aiming for the cabin. so what we did was put a long pole with a piece of sheet metal on it (like a big fin or something) to trip the beam and detonate early. that worked, for a while.

then they started using infared to detect engine heat, set to about 220°. so we would add a heat exchanger fed with engine coolant to the front of the pole. that worked, for a while.

now, here's where it get even worse: by the time i left over there, they were daisy chaining the shape charged IEDs. the last hit we took (that killed two of mine) there were 8 shaped charges daisy chained together. so now it doesn't matter how long your vehicle is or how far out you trigger or even how fast you are going.

as previously stated, we're not up against idiots. anything we can think of over here sitting behind our computers they've already thought of and tried. these things i've shared were from almost a year ago, so i can't even imagine what they're doing now. every week there was something new and we would react as best as we could. and when we did, something else came along. and so on and so forth.

not trying to present doom and gloom, but sharing the reality not everyone knows about.

 

[rmgill]

Last I'd heard the platter charges were kinda scarce. Oh, the bloody syrians. They were supplying those platter charges to Hezballah in their shenanigans against Israel. Them and Iran, I think they're looking for a little tussel with the USAF and USN.

You guys using the Buffalo that Force Protection Inc makes? I've heard they're excellent at disabling the IEDs. Gotta find em first though. :-/

 

[KaiserJeep715]

another dirty trick we are seeing now is, they are placing some sort of device on the tops of telephone poles for our helicopters...i'm not sure how it works but when we fly over it shoots a projectile up through the bird...

 

[mudguppy]

yep, they had a whole herd of buffalo when i left. they are pretty good, pretty tough. extremely slow moving and turns like a drunken cow. but, their purpose was not to be a road racer. i have heard of them referred to as an RPG magnet. they are a maintenance nightmare, though. all the cameras and hydraulics constantly have to be replaced. for a while, it seemed they triggered every IED they found. but, that's there job, i guess. we did have two of them get blown in half. we had one that was stripped to the hull and rebuilt 4 different times.

the real money makers were the vehicles that can detect the IEDs that are buried. we had the Huskeys and one Meerkat. also a maintenance nightmare, but much better at finding and marking IEDs than the buffalo (uses sight identification only).

all these vehicles are extremely high visibility (to the big brass, that is). several times a day a route had to be cleared by one of these types of vehicles before convoys and patrols could pass.

iteresting equipment. they are sparing no expense for purchasing new technology. but it's understandable because that's what's needed and what's important.

Later,

 

[rdixiemiller]

The eternal struggle of armor vs. penentrator. A big enough shaped charge can penentrate just about any thickness of armor. Unless they start clearing a 200 foot right of way and covering it with 2' of concrete, the danger to our vehicles and men will be very real. These people are getting help from the militaries of a couple of countries that hate us. There will always be people working on methods to automatically attack vehicles, so they are getting some real world testing.
Look at history, The Spanish Civil War was the testing area for a lot of WW2 equipment. Viet Nam was the testing area for Soviet missiles and radar controlled guns against USAF aircrews. Anyone see the parallells?

 

[rmgill]

The Huskeys and Meerkat are cool systems which pass their lineage back to Pookie, also from that part of Africa, though from the defunct nation of Rhodesia (many of the Rhodesian ex-pats settled in South Africa where the Meerkat/Huskey system are built. Of course these are best used against smaller AT mines, not large command detonated IEDs.

Meerkat

Huskey w/ Trailers

Pookie

 

[Pappa-G]

I haven't had a chance to see the armored version of the LMTV but we did get to do some off road driving this past week end in the 2.5ton cargo. They are very impressive. Talk at a regular level while doing 60mph. Have a female driver that weighs 90lbs soaking wet two finger steer it through the woods up hill over ruts. Other than having a high CG its hands down better handling, better driving and easier to maintain. Well thats my opinion anyhow. And every one that was driving was all smiles at the end of the day.

 

[emmado22]

easier to maintain

I know a BUNCH of 63 series guys that would disagree with that one....

 

[ARMYMAN30YearsPlus]

We are Stuck with them

As long as we have them I am very thankful that we have all that travel off of the FOBs armored. It took a herculian effort on thousands of folks to do that as well as a significant amount of the National Budget. Thanks to all you who support our Soldiers.

 

[armored_jon]

I have not seen any M548's over there, in fact my unit left their's back in the rear. Every vehicle now has a different kind of armor on it. Our tanks have the tusk kit, Bradleys have reactive armor tiles and M113s have slat armor to deflect RPGs. We now have the MRAP which can carry a sufficient amount of cargo.

 

[L1A1]

Hey evryone!
The FMTVs are butt ugly with their armored cabs on but, if they save lives.... The angular shape of that blunt nosed cab reminds me the old M26 dragon wagon tank retreivers of W W II. My worth.
Matt

 

[saddamsnightmare]

June 15th, 2008.

Just A Thought......

Instead of disposing of the five and ten ton deuces, I would think that it is more cost efficient to rebuilt them to new technology (as was done on the M35A3's), and up reactive armor them like the gun trucks...... The advantage is a simple, robust mechanism, generally easy to repair, and the capacity for armoring..... Sure, it cuts down the payload some, but unlike the FMTV, MTV, HMMWV, all of which approach the dueces tare weight when armored, without any appreciable cargo capacity remaining and a shortened vehicle life, the 5 & 10's are paid for already.....
AND, when you think about it..... if an IED can flip an Abrams.... there isn't much short of a up armored locomotive that can stand that kind of explosion....
My best defense against the need to armor, is Gen. Geo.S. Patton, Ulysses S. Grant, Philip H. Sheridan, and William T. Sherman.... To avoid the need for anti insurgency operations.... you need to make the locals aware that the cost of supporting such actions, for them, is going to be too high... Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley is legendary, and when he transferred his skills to the Native Americans, they sued for peace almost instantly... Nothing creates success like success. If they aren't gonna love us, and if we must be there, for whatever reason, we must make it very expensive to continue the insurgency.... What are we gonna do, lose sleep over turning a desert into a desert?
Even though Missions change, and even Sun Tzu said that the only constant in war is change, we keep coming back to Mission 1, Protect OUR TROOPS, and make it PROHIBITIVELY expensive for our enemies to carry on with the war.....
One could wish that War did not happen, but humans are fallible, and so the past pretty much repeats itself.....
The next war will be like the last one, only the electronics will change..... When our supply columns began to be attacked, the options were to go to South African "Buffalo" type MRAPV's, and call in the A-10's for convoy support.....
just my depreciated worth,

Regards,

Kyle F. McGrogan

1971 Kaiser Jeep M35A2 Wo/W "Saddam's Nightmare" Desert Storm and Vietnam Veteran Deuce
1968 Johnson Corp. M105A2 Cargo Trailer
1967 Hercules Gas Gen-Set APU MEP023A
Swiss Army Cargo Unimog, S.404.114 MB

 

[Alredneck]

Yea speed is life, been there done that got the scar. There are a bunch of M1s messed up in Taji from 06 when we were there last (want pics) One got struck one black route by a bunch of 155s and blew off the turret destroying the tank. Another was hit coming down MSR tampa with 500lbs of boom and it destroyed that one as well but the crew survived at least. Im sorry the first the loader, and driver made it. One of the bradleys was hit in the same place as the first tank a couple months latter and that was my guys killed while I was on the MITT team burned the vehicle to nothing. 7-10 CAV lost a bunch of brads and soldiers in the back ( i hate armor they are death traps ) in and around the same AO. I was hit on my last one by 2 152mm, 130mm, and a unknown, in my brand new M1114 with Cat 5 mine kit.

There is no operational value to these pics and they are not violating OPSEC they are not at the scene of the incident. So if any of you go back to Taji and go by the scrap yard you can see the ole girl. I wonder if anybody has taken my bumper Its probably bad luck anyway