Army Wants Tanks to Protect GIs in Iraq

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040428/ap_on_re_us/us_iraq_heavy_armor&cid=519&ncid=1480

WASHINGTON - Changing gears in the face of an emboldened insurgency in Iraq (news - web sites), the Army is asking for additional tanks or other heavy armored vehicles to improve protection for soldiers.

The request reflects a recognition by military commanders that they must adapt as the insurgency evolves. With at least 115 deaths, this has been the deadliest month for U.S. forces since they invaded 13 months ago; troops are killed and maimed daily by improvised bombs and rocket-propelled grenades that can penetrate the relatively thin skin of the jeep-like Humvee.

When the Army rotated fresh units into Iraq this spring, the newly arrived forces left some of their tanks, Bradley infantry vehicles and armored personnel carriers at home, figuring they needed a higher proportion of Humvees to be light and more agile to deal with insurgents.

But as the anti-occupation violence has grown, Army leaders have concluded that the lighter force should be stiffened with more armor. Initially the response was to add armor plates to the Humvees, giving them a measure of extra protection. Now, even that seems too little.

[bobthedrummer]

1. Obviously they need to replace all the armor hit by Iraqis, in their

opinion.:grr:
I support US troops, bring them home now.

[bemildred]

2. Not thinking clearly are they?

Tanks in an urban setting require dismounts to protect them.
Somebody is going to have to walk. There is no way to do
purely armored urban combat without getting your ass blown up.

Reminds me of the fast, smart little mammals making the big
armored dinosaurs extinct.

[bobthedrummer]

7. Many Iraqis are veterans too, now they've banded into nationalism

time to come home, no more Saddam in Iraq, Bush Doctrine is a failure.

[bemildred]

9. You gotta wonder what the next fallback position is gonna be?

You know these dipshits aren't going to give up until we
have thousands of dead.

[Capt_Nemo]

11. Uh-oh! Remember the assault on Grozny in the 1st chechen war?

Only tanks and APCs, no infantry taking hold of key buildings in
the
streets they were going through... got their ass kicked hard.

granted the Abrams doesn't have the highly vulnerable auto-loader
of the T-72s and T-80s, but as we've seen in this war they can
be disabled/destroyed.

[bemildred]

13. A good example of the problem.

You are right that the Russians were stupid.
They didn't make that mistake twice, but they are
still going nowhere.

[lebkuchen]

3. Stripes letter today discusses this: "Chinks in the armor exposed"

The last letter:

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=125&article=21875

[atreides1]

4. Just Don't Ask Powell

The last time Colin was asked about sending armor to help US troops, he said he didn't think it was agood idea, and 19 US Army Rangers died.

And we got to see some of their bodies dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.

Maybe it's a good thing that Powell isn't in uniform anymore, at least where the troops on the ground are concerned.

[Jacobin]

5. They already live in bunkers. They can't drive around.

Apparently, we are surrounded and we won't give up.

[neverforget]

6. The armor provides protection AND firepower. The infantry still

needs to be dismounted but armor/infantry tactics can still be used in an urban environment. The armor is still vulnerable just not as vulnerable as the Humvees.

[bemildred]

8. The proper solution is not to go in there.

As the Germans found out at Stalingrad.
This is a band-aid to buy time for the politicians.
There are too many dead soldiers, and this is endangering
their plans to hang on until after the turnover and/or
November elections, i.e. their plans to "manage" the conflict
are not working. If they actually gave a shit about the
Soldiers, they would all be much safer in Kuwait.

[underpants]

10. According to Newsweek there are only 70 operational tanks in Iraq now

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4825948

Soldiers in Iraq complain that Washington has been too slow to acknowledge that the Iraqi insurgency consists of more than "dead-enders." And even at the Pentagon many officers say Rumsfeld and his brass have been too reluctant to modify their long-term plans for a lighter military. On the battlefield, that has translated into a lack of armor. Perhaps the most telling example: a year ago the Pentagon had more than 400 main battle tanks in Iraq; as of recently, a senior Defense official told NEWSWEEK, there was barely a brigade's worth of operational tanks still there. (A brigade usually has about 70 tanks.)


Oh yeah and this little tidbit:

A breakdown of the casualty figures suggests that many U.S. deaths and wounds in Iraq simply did not need to occur. According to an unofficial study by a defense consultant that is now circulating through the Army, of a total of 789 Coalition deaths as of April 15 (686 of them Americans), 142 were killed by land mines or improvised explosive devices, while 48 others died in rocket-propelled-grenade attacks. Almost all those soldiers were killed while in unprotected vehicles, which means that perhaps one in four of those killed in combat in Iraq might be alive if they had had stronger armor around them, the study suggested. Thousands more who were unprotected have suffered grievous wounds, such as the loss of limbs.

[bemildred]

12. The point is that we are taking substantial attrition in Iraq,

and the rate of attrition is going up as our forces are being
degraded. There are logistics shortages in ammo, fuel, food,
armor, most everything. The are having "issues" with air support
too, from what I can tell. The question is at what point do the
ground forces collapse, how long can this go on?

The disgusting part is the obvious fact that our so-called leaders
clearly do not give a rats ass about the troops on the ground
there in this hellish war.

[bobthedrummer]

15. That's why they employ mercenaries, it's a real mess because the

mercenaries are fueling anti-Americanism, advancing the general cause of Osama Bin Laden, and endangering our US troops by disrupting operations.

Our military is being further abused by the policy of using US military to take reprisals for the loss of mercenaries employed by the administration of George W. Bush aka The War President imho as the sole surviving son of a US Marine.

[bemildred]

16. That is part of it too.

Although the occupation would have been better served to overlook
the treatment of those four (that is obvious now, isn't it?),
the innate racism and colonial attitudes that the occupational
authorities are infected with blinded them to that.

[bemildred]

14. All this truce talk is (IMHO) aimed at keeping the

resistance localized. If the coalition forces are attacked
in many places at once there could well be a rout. OTOH, the
resistance has no reason to press just yet, better to allow the
degradation to continue.

[TahitiNut]

17. Humvees were NEVER designed to be armored (i.e APC's)

They might as well try to put armor on a Jeep. (Fucking nonsense.) The Humvee is a rear echelon utility vehicle, NOT a battleground vehicle. They keep trying to play out this INSANE lie of being "welcome" by people in an occupied country. We're not. It's not even a stable (pacified) occupation, merey the continuation of resistance to an invasion.

In essence, they're sacrificing the lives of troops to keep up the facade of "flowers and dancing" ... and trying to avoid the picture of a beseiged invader.

It's fucking disgusting. Playing photo politics at the cost of many lives. :puke: