From: Alan R Wise (awise1@cinci.rr.com)
Date: Sun Oct 05 2003 - 06:28:58 PDT
on 10/5/03 4:50 PM, Steve Grammont at islander@midmaine.com wrote:
1. Small arms attacks ARE still a problem in Iraq.
2. In operational areas such as Iraq, you do what you can. The effort here
is to protect the men, not build a tank. Who gives a flying f about a fuel
tank or batteries; if attacked by something big, the truck is toast anyway.
3. The protection afforded by an M-113 has proven itself all around the
world. "Adding wheels" to this vehicle, when its an option available such as
here, makes sense.
4. Its easy to sit back in your lazyboy at home and critize what is done in
the field when you don't really have a clue what's involved. Limited
resources, limited time, people getting hurt. Fix it.
5. People have a misconception about armor; it buys you time, little else.
But often, thats all you need.
6. This concept worked quite well in Vietnam, against the exact same type of
weapons.
My .02
> Well, I am still trying to figure out how these sorts of conversions are
> going to help. From the reports I have seen troops are getting killed by
> rather massive remotely detonated explosives. Small arms attacks don't
> appear to be a big problem and even RPG attacks appear to have dropped
> off (too dangerous for the attackers I suppose).
>
> The unfortunate thing is that not much can be done against such remote
> bomb attacks since the explosive power, if propperly shaped, placed, and
> timed, would be in excess of any practical defensive armor arrangement.
> Since it would be practically impossible to protect the gas tanks and
> batteries from such an attack, no sense waisting weight on armor for
> them. Better to put that weight towards shielding the crew area.
>
> This is a rather interesting conversion though. Looks like they cut up
> an old M113 and mounted it on a 5 Ton? truck chasis. My guess is that
> this could actually offer the kind of protection needed for the run of
> the mill explosive attack, but as Jim suggests the weight would mean it
> could either transport very little or not keep up with a convoy. But
> this is such an involved and expensive conversion, even if it did work
> the Army wouldn't be able to field more than a small handful. And that
> won't solve anything.
>
> Steve
>
>> what kind of dumb design is that it dont even shield the gas tank or the
>> batteries??
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: <jimweb@endgame.demon.co.uk>
>> To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
>> Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2003 6:11 AM
>> Subject: [MV] Gun Trucks
>>
>>
>>> Another Iraq gun truck - though I understand that this approach may have
>>> been abandoned on the grounds that the truck couldn't keep up with the
>>> cargo versions...
>>>
>>> http://community.webshots.com/album/92508045vVhFUA
>>>
>>> --
>>> TTFN
>>> Jim
>>> ICQ: 58721472
>>> ****************************************************
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>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
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>
>
>
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