Humvee vulnerabilities were long known

[unhappycamper]

Reports distributed throughout the Army and Marine Corps after the 1991 Gulf War and the Somalia conflict in 1994 urged the development of armored vehicles to avoid the devastating effects of roadside bombs and land mines, but the Pentagon failed to act, a new IG report says.


Humvee vulnerabilities were long known
By Tom Vanden Brook - USA TODAY
Posted : Thursday Feb 5, 2009 13:09:16 EST

WASHINGTON — Army and Marine Corps officials knew nearly a decade before the invasion of Iraq that its workhorse Humvee vehicle, was a “deathtrap” even with armor added to protect it against roadside bombs, according to an inspector general’s report.

Reports distributed throughout the Army and Marine Corps after the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the Somalia conflict in 1994 urged the development of armored vehicles to avoid the devastating effects of roadside bombs and land mines, but the Pentagon failed to act, the report says.

The Pentagon didn’t field significant numbers of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles until 2007, more than three years after roadside bombings began to escalate in the Iraq war. The conclusions of the 1991 and 1994 reports were not included in the one-page summary of the inspector general’s findings released in December.

The inspector general’s full report was later posted on a Web site by the Center for Public Integrity, a government watchdog group.

Troops added makeshift armor to their Humvees and the Pentagon rushed kits to retrofit the vehicles with better protections after the threat from roadside bombs escalated in 2003 and 2004. Even so, retrofitted Humvees remained vulnerable to improvised explosive devices (IEDs), because of the vehicle’s “flat bottom, low weight, low ground clearance and aluminum body,” the inspector general found.


Rest of article at: http://armytimes.com/news/2009/02/gns_humvees_020409/%2e