MRAPs can't stop newest weapon

[RamboLiberal]

Source: USA Today

New military vehicles that are supposed to better protect troops from roadside explosions in Iraq aren't strong enough to withstand the latest type of bombs used by insurgents, according to Pentagon documents and military officials.

As a result, the vehicles need more armor added to them, according to a January Marine Corps document provided to USA TODAY. The Pentagon faced the same problem with its Humvees at the beginning of the war.

The military plans to spend as much as $25 billion for up to 22,000 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles by 2009. Last month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared that buying the new vehicles should be the Pentagon's top procurement priority.

But the armor on those vehicles cannot stop the newest bomb to emerge, known as an explosively formed penetrator (EFP). The Pentagon plans to replace virtually all Humvees with MRAPs to provide better protection against roadside bombs, responsible for most casualties in Iraq.



Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-05-31-mrap-insurgents_N.htm

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Wow, those insurgents sure learn fast!

[Zywiec]

1. I don't think it's the insurgents who are building explosively formed penetrators

The IEDs were by definition improvised explosives built using anything that could be found left over from the unprotected demo sites. The EFP are most likely coming from Iran.

[Mechatanketra]

3. EFPs can be built from scrap too.

At the heart, it's just another kind of shaped charge -- a steel pipe, a copper bowl, plus the boom. Rube Goldberg devices, they ain't.

[Kelvin Mace]

4. That's what the neocons claim

Which is a good reason to doubt it.

[chknltl]

9. Most likely the EFP are from the CIA

I have EQUAL proof...only I don't have the bfee agreeing with me....maybe that makes my proof a bit better!

Or I suppose I could have posted: Those damned Iranians...that's it! Lets nuke em!


My point: "The DEMONS must be stopped!!!" um... been there done that with Iraq, been there done that with Afghanistan...neither turned out to be the monsters bush claimed... Oh Hell, NOW he is making those same noises at Iran! (Have you noticed a pattern here my fellow DUer)

If Kim Il Sung announced that he was going to detonate a small stink bomb in Times Square at a designated time and then carried out his threat, bush would retaliate by invading Iran.

PERHAPS those EFPs were made in Iran...perhaps they were made by the CIA...who knows and who cares? All that is important here is that bush wants to invade Iran. I'll do what I can with my keyboards to calm folks down here but I am but one person my fellow DUer...care to join me?

Vilifying the folks that bush is vilifying, regardless of based in facts or propaganda is serving bushco's needs. I urge you to consider that angle.

Allow me to rant on a little further: What would Saddam Hussein have done with a nuke? (Remember, the very reason we needed to go over there and stop him?) Think about it sans the fear which the fear mongers so diligently gave us. What could Saddam Hussein have done with a NUKE? ANY offensive use with one would have limited his own lifespan into days at best! Kim Il Sung has a nuke, using it offensively would limit his days equally. America has the arsenal...anyone who is on our "Evil Doers List" who dares to use one can expect to meet their maker a whole lot faster than they would want...THEY KNOW THIS! They are NOT martyrs...there are no gains in being dead here!

So now we hear these things about Iran... I ask you, WHY do we hear these things about Iran?
I hope you will join me in suppressing the fears which the fear-mongers would spread... so really, who cares who made those EFPs? The better question here is: "How is the best way to prevent them from going off under our vehicles?" My answer to this: "Let us not roll our vehicles over them, let's instead roll our vehicles out of harms way...HOME would work." Rolling our vehicles into Iran will be asking to roll them over even MORE stuff that is not healthy for them and in the bigger picture, not healthy for us here at home either...for from actions such as that: MARTYRS are created.

We are on the same side her my fellow DUer... I am not flaming you. We share the same concerns. I hope to pass along this perspective so as to maybe prevent the very conditions which we worried over just prior to invading Iraq...only this time the scenario for a MARTYR to set off that nuke in one of OUR cities becomes far more likely should we blunder by invading Iran. We have met the enemy: the enemy is indeed U.S.! (....well bushco to be precise.)
chknltl

[Barrett808]

16. But US forces have found indigenous EFP factories

Inside Iraq. Iraq once had sophisticated industries which used blasting technology, and the knowledge is fairly common.

And Iran arming Sunni insurgents? Come on.

[tabasco]

21. You don't need a factory to make a shape charge.

Are you gullible to propaganda?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

22. EFPs are pipes bombs with a cover.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_formed_penetrator

Jeez, and I suppose Iran has Saddam's missing WMDs too.

:eyes:

[Richard Steele]

23. Nope. Simply not true. nm

[wakeme2008]

2. IMHO this is Pentagon BS they did not design the MRAP

and now want to hold off 5-8 years while they come up with their own design.....

MRAP will save 90% of the lives of people killed today... We do not need to wait 5 years for the first prototype... :grr:

[Javaman]

12. Because they had to get rid of their back stock of humvees...

If they are rolling out these new beasts now, that means they had them all along. This is not WWII were gov't contractors had to actively redesign new vehicles on the fly to counter act the German Tiger tank.

This is a completely new model, not a modification on the humvee.

We live in the world of the military economy. They have designs and prototypes for vehicles years in advance.

These "new" ones are just the first in the latest line they are selling the American public as "counter active measures" and making a bundle off the gov't. I can guarantee you, there is a design flaw in this vehicle that will be uncovered soon by the "insurgents" so that yet another vehicle has to be "dreamed up" to help the soldiers.

This is Willie Loman gone wild.

[bemildred]

5. Bring 'em home and you won't need MRAPs to protect them. nt

[DireStrike]

6. That's what I'd do if I were fighting an asymmetrical war.

They aren't aiming to kill our soldiers. Sure it's a good morale booster for them, but the real goal is to waste our money. The new vehicles are more expensive, and if they're useless, what replaces them will be yet more expensive.

They're doing a fantastic job, really, with help from george and co. He's happy to let us lose the war if it means his friends can get rich.

In fact, I'd bet they seeded this little idea along with many others.

[David__77]

11. Of course their goal is to kill US soldiers.

If it isn't they're stupid. The aim of war is always to destroy one's enemy and preserve oneself. They are trying to create the political conditions such that US withdrawal is not optional. Do you think the US would have withdrawn from Vietnam is there were no casualties?

[anotherdrew]

7. distance makes the best armor n/t about 6000 miles should do

[happyslug]

8. 3x the Weight and twice the range, how much fuel does this thing use?

The MRAP is coming in at 38,000 pounds (19 tons). That is 1/3 the weight of a WWII Sherman Tank (Which weight 60 tons). This means ANY anti-tank weapon that was effective in WWII or afterward is effective against the MRAP (and this includes the 50 caliber Machine gun).

At 19 tons, the MRAP weighs as much as a M2 Bradley (which weighs 25 tons). It exceeds the 13 tons of the M113 APC. What does the MRAP get per mile? (I can guess about 1 mile per gallon). I have always speculated the main reason the US Army has NOT sent in M113s to replace the Armored Humvees is do to concern about fuel usage. Furthermore what type of Wrecker will be assigned to units with MRAPs? The Humvee has a maximum combat weight of only 6 tons and as such the traditional 5 ton wrecker can handle it (If you need the whole five ton pull two five ton wrecker can be used). At 19 tons you have to go to some sort of Wrecker based on the MRAP. The 5 Ton Wrecker do NOT get great fuel economy, a MRAP wrecker will get less. Will the conversion to the MRAP force the US to double or triple its fuel usage? Whatever is the increase can it be supplied to people in the field?

In my opinion the statement that it is the Pentagon intention to replace the Humvee with the MRAP starting in 2009 answer this question. By 2009 someone else other than Bush will be President and US forces will be out of Iraq before the Fall 2008 election (Just to give the GOP a chance of willing something in 2008). Thus while the Pentagon KNOWS it can NOT supply the fuel, it will not have to for US forces will be out of Iraq by Fall 2008 (or at least this is what the professional staff of the Pentagon is counting on).

[Javaman]

14. It actually comes with it's own diesel refinary. lol nt

[SayWhatYo]

15. Well I'm not so sure about this...

"That is 1/3 the weight of a WWII Sherman Tank (Which weight 60 tons). This means ANY anti-tank weapon that was effective in WWII or afterward is effective against the MRAP (and this includes the 50 caliber Machine gun). "

Weight doesn't equate amour strength. Amour technology has improved since then and they can get more for less.

[happyslug]

24. Armor has improved but at increased costs.

The biggest improvement was the adoption of Ceramics armor starting in the 1970s. The problem with such Ceramic Armor is the price and the need for it to be flat. Look at the M1 Tank, it does not have any curves, the Armor has angles but no curves for this reason. This seems to be followed by the MRAP, i.e NO curves, but all flat armor. Thus it may have Ceramic armor, which is stronger than the Steel armor of WWII, but not that much. You talking about no more than a 10-20% increase in strength which means they have better armor than most of the tanks from the earlier years of WWII (Most were all un-armored) but the Armor protection is less than the Tanks of the middle of WWII and the end of WWII (i.e. the Sherman, the German Panzer Mark IV, Panther and Tigers and the Russian T-34 tanks). No one is saying the MRAP's armor is better than the Armor of the Sherman let alone the T-34 and Panthers and all three could be taken out by the WWII Bazooka. The Improved 3.5 inch post-war Bazooka was design to be able to take out the much heavier Tiger and JS-III tanks. The 3.5 Bazooka was replaced by the 66mm Light Antitank Weapon (LAW) during the 1960s, which could take out the Soviet Tanks of the 1960s. The Soviet RPG-7 was design to take out the M60 tanks of the era. The RPG-7 is still in use in Iraq along with its successors. The RPG-7 is marginal against the M1 tank, but it is effective against anything lighter such as the MRAP.

Anyway one of the problems of increase armor is increase fuel usage along with increase fuel usage by its support elements do to the fact the support elements must upgrade its wreckers and other equipment to be able to support the MRAP. I just do NOT believe we can provide the fuel to these vehicles, for if the US military could do so, the M113 would have been pulled out of retirement and used (People in Iraq were actually demanding them knowing what depot the M113 were being kept in).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Force_Protection_Cougar.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAP_%28armored_vehicle%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:FPCougar.jpg

One last comment, did I wrote 60 Tons for a Sherman? That is to high, the Sherman weighed 30 tons (This was do to transportation limits of shipping the tanks overseas as oppose to any lack of desire for heavier tanks, when this shipment limit was removed in the 1950s US tanks grew to be over 60 tons). The Vietnam Era M60 Tank weighed 60 tons (as did the WWII German Tigers). The M1 weighs over 70 tons. Despite this the real comparison is between the MRAP and the WWII Sherman. The MRAP weighs 2/3 of a Sherman, its Armor may get up to Sherman levels with the use of Ceramic Armor, but that still means any Anti-tank weapon designed since WWII can take it out. The MRAP is NOT a Tank, and as such does NOT provide the protection a Tank does to its crew (and the M1 Tank does NOT have the ability to haul Infantry in excess of its own Crew).

[speedingbullet]

17. On a Related Note

The photo of the MRAP indicates that it is a big, cumbersome vehicle. This would seem to give it some definite limitations in an urban area, i.e. places that the big lug can't go. Wouldn't the size mean that there are more times when the troops have to get out and patrol or whatever on foot?

[David__77]

10. War breeds ingenuity.

There is no "magic weapon." And in war, people are fundamentally the most valuable asset and weapon. Morale and determination are key. For that reason alone, the US cannot "win" this war.

[Javaman]

13. You got that right.

Just like how US soldiers in WWII realized that when you get a tiger tank to approach you at at certain angle under certain conditions you can take it out with a good shot to the belly.

The insurgents at doing the same here.

[Bigmack]

18. Earlier in the "war"...

I was a racist... thinking that the Iraqis didn't show me much of a learning curve. The Vietcong curve was much faster.

I've noted lately that I was wrong.

I'm not happy about it - don't get me wrong.

Anybody can make a shaped charge.

Wikipedia has an excellent diagram if any of the insurgents need it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_formed_penetrator

[Xithras]

19. Nobody thought of penetrators?

Geez, people have been building penetrators in the middle east for decades. The Palestinians have been using them against Israeli armor for at least 20 years. Nobody considered the possibility that someone might tell the Iraqi's

Penetrators are incredibly easy to build. You just need to strap a normal bomb to a piece of metal durable enough to survive the explosion (a 1" thick copper plate works beautifully, and can be manufactured easily from copper scrap). When the bomb detonates, the metal plate becomes a high velocity projectile capable of penetrating most armored vehicles. Back in 1989 Hezbollah used one of these to kill a guy in an armored car in Germany, and they can trace their roots back to WW2. Short of hauling people around in tanks, nothing we do is going to protect our soldiers from these weapons. The German bomb, by the way, consisted of a simple bomb sitting in a backpack with a copper plate next to it. While formed penetrators are more precise and effective, even this trivial modification to the IED allowed it to rip through the armored car and kill the occupant. According to wikipedia, calculations show that the copper plate had a velocity of 2Km per second...nothing could have stopped it.

[damntexdem]

20. Ya go to war with the army ya have ...

not with one that might be effective.