Specially armored Humvees bound for Iraq (tells production story)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=18875

The U.S. European Command has shifted roughly 600 specially armored Humvees to Iraq, where they will be used to fill a shortage of the urgently needed vehicles, according to a Pentagon spokesman.

Most of those vehicles, which began being moved in July, have come from the Balkans, said Army Maj. Gary Tallman, a Pentagon spokesman.

The shift is part of a plan to get nearly 3,000 of the specially outfitted Humvees to Iraq, where they can protect U.S. troops from insurgents using conventional firearms, improvised bombs and grenades that can cripple a regular Humvee.

Of the roughly 120 U.S. combat-related deaths in Iraq since May 1, about 30 were the result of attacks on vehicles either by a bomb or small-arms fire.

<snip>

O’Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt, which installs the armor, usually produces about 30 a month. Company officials said they hope to more than double production to 80 a month beginning this month, and to produce as many as 220 a month by the spring.

[RC]

1. And why are they being retro-fitted

instead of being built armored in the first place?

[ConcernedCanuk]

6. "why are they being retro-fitted" - if ya guessed "contracts" - ur right

. . - there were many disagreementa betweeen the engineers and the military, about strength and cost -

cost won

and soldiers died

don furget, most of the people that MAKE the military sh_t are big contributors to those in power

so they hafta sorta tow the line

well, till people find out

then they hafta "upgrade"

but only AFTER they've pocketed Billions of dollars in profits,

and young REALLY Patriotic Americans die

That's Just My Tainted Canuk Observation

[UpInArms]

2. thanks for the post

It also seems to go to the point that the attacks on the US troops and its "supporters" in Iraq are not going to be decreasing and that there will be no reduction in force -

this states basically (the underlying premise) that we are escalating by increasing our "armor" and do not intend to do anything but increase the level of force.

I wish the rest of the citizens of the US would wake up and watch what they do and forget what they say.

[Jacobin]

3. This is all about the "success" in IraqNam

We are holed up in compounds with 20 foot concrete blast walls.

When we venture out, our vehicles are blown up.

Answer to the problem? Armour the Hummers!!

Such blatant bullshit.

[realFedUp]

4. Hope those Russian garbagetrucks and collectors

are fully protected too...:eyes:

[yorgatron]

5. hess & eisenhardt sounds familiar to me

don't they also build hearses?

[MercutioATC]

7. A military vehicle that's BULLETPROOF? What will they think of next?

Seriously, why aren't we using our armored vehicles (Bradley) instead of Humvees if we're being shot at? We have them for a reason...

[0007]

8. Probably because of fuel consumption!

I don't know.

[MercutioATC]

10. True, with Halliburton charging the military twice the going rate

for gasoline (on a no-bid contract, no less) I guess we do have to watch our mileage...

[htuttle]

9. They could just borrow some from Miami