Freeper Ranger On The Radio -- LIVE THREAD

The Radio Factor ^ | 01-02-04 | Mike Barnicle

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Started at 1207 Eastern

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

He did a great job. Praised a fellow American who is trying to help (and running into bureaucratic red tape):

"Virgil," from Jefferson City, MO, industrial sheet metal company in town...someone he knows heard from a friend stationed in Baghdad who wanted to know whether there was any way they could get extra armor on their vehicles.

The civilian citizen(s?) volunteered labor and material to armor the Humvee's before they were to ship out days later.

(Virgil) re. Pentagon's response: ""from what I was told" they were told that they did not have the right to defend themselves and they'd have to leave the armor behind." News media picked it up...and they were allowed to take the armor...unsure whether they were allowed to "put it on."

Virgil was responsible for putting armor on between 50 and 70 vehicles (6 1/2 tons) in a little over a week.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The DoD told Brian very little the day they came to his door with the news of his son's death. He relied on the internet, and even Al Jazeera ~ finding the newsmedia more informative and trustworthy than the government his son served: "I'm not surprised anymore, more disappointed than anything else."

Mike Barnacle ended the segment by saying that Brian's son died "for lack of efficiency from the bureaucracy called the Pentagon."

   
Pfc. John D. Hart

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Lack of Armor?

[Cannoneer No. 4]

[doug from upland]

I was on hold but couldn't get on the show. Does our commander in chief know about this? If not, we should bombard him with the info. Priority one should be getting the equipment to these soldiers that can protect them better. I will gladly pay more taxes for that.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Beats me what our Commander-in-Chief knows.

I think he gets bombarded enough.

Priority one should be victory.

I want our troops to have what they need to do the job we have stuck them with. The trick is to know what they need.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Armored Humvees may not be the answer.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

We managed without armored humvees for a long time.

[doug from upland]

I appreciate the arguments on the other side, but I think the troops want them and feel they would be safer, don't they?

[Cannoneer No. 4]

The Army ain't Burger King. The troops don't always have it their way.

There is no end to what the troops want. The richest country the world has ever seen cannot afford to give every soldier everything he or she wants.

The troops already have the vehicles they are supposed to have. Great care and effort has gone into Tables of Organization and Equipment for each unit, specifying in infinite detail what this artillery battery or that mess kit repair platoon shall have. Our tankers have tanks, our mechanized infantrymen have Bradleys, our combat engineers have M113 armored personnel carriers, our artillerymen have self propelled howitzers, and our military police have M114 armored HMMWVs; almost every unit in the Army has enough vehicles to mount the entire unit and move out. The military term for that is deployable with organic transportation, meaning they don't need outside help to move.

The "shortage" of M114 armored humvees is a result of the "shortage" of military police.

You have heard of LTC West, who was put out of the Army for roughing up a prisoner. LTC West was a Field Artillery battalion commander. His battalion was given tasks which have nothing whatsoever to do with fire support. They were acting as infantry, performing stability and support operations and trying to be MPs as best they could. Most of the Army in Iraq is caught up in trying to retain their original capabilities while accomplishing constabulary missions. Our field artilleryman may be kicking down doors and searching houses one night and bringing down rapid and accurate counter-mortar fire on Hadji's head the next.

Much was made a while back ago of some of our troops using AK-47s because they had no rifles, as if the Army was somehow derelict in not providing these soldiers with the proper arms. Turns out these AK - armed soldiers were tank commanders and tank gunners who by TOE are armed with pistols, not rifles, but they were tasked to act as infantry and had to scrounge.

There are a great many units acquiring M1114 Armored HMMWVs who were never previously authorized them. Progress is being made. I think greater use could be made of other vehicles that would serve the same purpose, including former Iraqi vehicles.

But whatever we mount our constabulary troopers in, we can't let protection degrade our lethality. Our best protection is dead enemies.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Equip our soldiers -- Mike Barnicle

I was talking with Patti DeCorte the other day when, suddenly, I saw Iraq in a whole new light: This may be the first war America ever jumped into while asking the people doing the fighting to bring their own equipment if they wanted to come home alive. "My husband bought his own Kevlar vest and took it with him to Iraq because his unit didn't have them," DeCorte told me. "He'd had the vest since he served in Bosnia a year and half ago. We paid for it."

Her husband, Rodney DeCorte, is an Army sergeant. He's a reservist, called to active duty when the war firm of Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz & Bush got a case of the hots over the prospect of quickly crushing the Iraqis and turning that country into a democracy with a Starbucks on every corner and a chapter of Common Cause in downtown Tikrit.

Look, Saddam Hussein is a murderous thug and it's great that he's been driven from office and captured. And there are probably a lot more success stories there than we know or read about in the papers.

But the idea that American soldiers are asked to patrol and pacify a nation filled with armed zealots willing to die for their beliefs, their country or even their hatred of us without getting the very best equipment we can offer is, in a word, nuts. Unfortunately, that happens to be the case.

"Not only have we not learned our lesson," Rep. Ellen Tauscher told me the other day, "but we have a bunch of people in the Pentagon who don't want to learn the lesson."

Tauscher is a Democrat and on the House Armed Services Committee. She is from the Bay area in California. She was in Iraq three months ago. She has listened to constituents who are crazy with worry that their son or daughter is being exposed to even more harm in a war zone because clerks in the Pentagon are too busy fighting their petty turf battles to get enough items like Interceptor vests and armored Humvees to units engaged daily in battle.

"Too many of the Humvees have plastic flaps instead of armored doors," Tauscher said. "We've passed two emergency appropriations for this war - one in April, the second in October - giving the President $166billion. We appropriated $900 million to find weapons of mass destruction but when we tried to take $300 million out of that $900 million and earmark it specifically for equipment for the National Guard and reservists in Iraq, the Republicans voted it down."

Maybe those Republicans who are so gung-ho for this war ought to sit down with Brian Hart. His son John was a paratrooper with the 173rd Infantry Brigade and he was killed in October when his Humvee was ambushed by Iraqis. The vehicle was nearly two decades old. Young Hart was 20 when he died. His family's automobile offers more protection from harm than did the vehicle private first-class Hart took to war.

"The Democrats want to politicize this," Brian Hart has said. "The Bush administration wants to pretend we're not in a guerrilla war and the Pentagon simply screwed up in their planning and doesn't seem to want to address the matter. I just want the armored Humvees produced and distributed in quantity as quickly as possible.

"As far as I'm concerned," Hart added, "the party politics stopped at the gates of Arlington when we buried John on 4 November."

The war goes on every day. And we are spending more to rebuild Iraqi police stations, firehouses, water systems and power grids than we are on making sure our own soldiers have the best equipment possible.

"The Pentagon says it's a procurement problem," Tauscher said. "Hey, if that's all it is, then why don't we just get someone from Amazon.com to do it? At least they're good at that stuff."

Originally published on December 28, 2003

[Cannoneer No. 4]

BEDFORD -- As American deaths in Iraq continue to mount, the fight to stop them has become personal for two Bedford parents who think their son's death could have been prevented.

Brian and Alma Hart of Bedford are the parents of Army Pfc. John Hart, 20, who died when his patrol was ambushed Oct. 18 in Iraq.

Hart was manning the machine gun in the third Humvee of a group of three when the vehicles came under attack. The first two Humvees escaped as Hart shot at their attackers, but Hart was shot several times and died, his parent's said. His lieutenant, in the same Humvee, also died after bleeding to death.

Before Hart's death, his parents heard hints of concern from their son about the lack of body and vehicle armor in Iraq. When John Hart died, his parents said it became obvious this was more than a small concern. And now, as more soldiers die and the Harts hear the stories of those who survived, they have vowed to do something about it.

"John called us the week before he died and said he was very concerned because they were not equipped for the missions they were being sent out on," Brian Hart said. "A lot of his friends had been shot, blown up in unarmored Humvees. John was issued second-hand body armor to wear."

Brian Hart's biggest problem with the safety of the soldiers is the lack of unarmored Humvees in Iraq. When the Harts went to Arlington National Cemetery to bury John, they met with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass, about the problem. Hart said Kennedy agreed that something needs to be done.

"I asked him to check into two issues," Hart said. "The lack of armored vests and unarmored Humvees."

Hart said he asked two soldiers who were at the funeral what they needed in Iraq the most, and they said up-armored Humvees - Humvees with armor that protects soldiers from bullets and grenades.

"I promised that I would look into it and see what I could do to help," Hart said. "They were John's buddies; they were there when he died."

At a meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee in mid-November, senators questioned Army officials regarding the soldiers' lack of protection, including the need for helicopters equipped with new missile alert systems.

After Kennedy called the Harts to tell them about the meeting, it became clear the battle would be an uphill one.

The Scripps Howard News Service reported an estimated 10,000 of the Army's 100,000 Humvees are in Iraq. No more than 2,000 of those are armored, according to defense industry analyst Michael Hoffman of Friedman Billings Ramsey in Arlington, Va. Therefore, four out of five Humvees in Iraq are not armored.

Hart said the Army has requested roughly 3,500 Humvees be made and sent to Iraq, up from a previous request of 1,700.

"The problem is that, based, on current production, that will take almost two years to produce," Hart said. "That's ridiculous."

Hart said that 50,000 commercial Humvees will be produced next year for use. General Motors, he said, produced 376 in October alone.

"So in the meantime, almost every day, we are experiencing casualties," Hart said. "Something is really wrong. We have a $100,000 tax deduction available to small businesses and self employed individuals to purchase SUVs over 6,000 pounds. So as a result, we have yellow Humvees being purchased by dentists at taxpayer expense and we have no adequate supply of armored Humvees."

On Nov. 21, Hart spoke to legislative representatives in Kennedy's office who told him there are issues of money, production levels, and bureaucracy that are making this a difficult process.

"Everyone wants the problem solved; now it is a question of how it will get done," Hart said. "It seems reasonable that 3,500 Humvees could be available within six months or less if the production were put on a wartime footing. Are we at war?"

A representative from Kennedy's office said the manufacturer of the up-armored Humvees is a company in Ohio called Ogara-Hess & Eisenhardt Their maximum production capacity is 220 Humvees a month. In fiscal 2003, Congress did not give the Army enough money to buy the maximum number of Humvees the manufacturer could produce. This May, however, the company will produce them at maximum capacity - yielding the requested number of Humvees by July of 2005.

Armored Humvees give soldiers armored crew compartments, two-inch thick bulletproof windows, a roof gun turret, gun shields, and upgraded suspensions. Scripps Howard said Armored Humvees are capable of withstanding a 12-pound bomb blast under the front section and a four-pound explosive under the rear. On Nov. 19, ABC News reported that Kennedy told the Armed Services Committee that the head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, had assured him in a recent letter that soldiers wouldn't be put in harm's way without proper equipment. ABC News quoted Kennedy, "It is inconceivable with our manufacturing capability that we cannot produce that kind of a vehicle more rapidly and replace it." Kennedy's representative said the Army is testing a product that could help the problem - Humvee kits which include armored plates that can be bolted to the Humvees. Soldiers can get more protection faster by using the kits, although the representative was not briefed on the outcome of the tests. Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island, has also been active in pushing for more protection, as three Rhode Island National Guardsmen were killed in Iraq in September. Three were from Massachusetts. Reed and Kennedy have been working together since then to get more money for protection and a better time frame. "It's difficult to believe that planning for the war failed to anticipate the need for better protective vests and more effective armor on Humvees," Kennedy said. "No soldier or Marine should have to serve in Iraq without it." Kennedy's representative said the senator is not satisfied with the goal of July 2005. But it is hard to say if the production will be sped up. Kennedy has been talking with and visiting soldiers in New England and elsewhere to find out what they need.

According to the representative, the problem regarding the lack of body armor will be solved by the end of this month. Every American soldier, government employee and contractor in Iraq should have new metal armor plates by the end of December.

Hart said while troops wait for more armor, they are taping sandbags to the Humvees to protect themselves from grenade attacks and bullets. Kennedy's representative said soldiers can tape sandbags everywhere except under the accelerator. Because of this, drivers' legs are sometimes seriously injured.

"This is a real big problem because the military miscalculated," Hart said. "They didn't know we would have a guerilla war. Essentially, troops are being ambushed in unarmored vehicles. We are seeing casualties occur without real gain."

Hart argues that with all the manufacturing capacity of this country, the armored Humvees should be able to be made much faster.

"The country is not being told we have a problem," Hart said. "Hence, there is no national effort to get these troops what they need. We have local dentists buying Hummers to take their kids to soccer games, but our troops can't get armored Humvees for several years. Thirty of the last 100 casualties have been from unarmored Humvees." Kennedy's representative said the Army has its own internal bureaucracy battle, and it took them a while to figure out they had a problem. A lot of the time, she said, political pressure does help get things done.

In the meantime, Hart continues to uphold his promise to the soldiers and do all he can to help. He collects all the information he can about what is happening to be as knowledgeable as possible.

"I couldn't be happier with the efforts Kennedy has taken to address this issue," Hart said. "Civilian production needs to take a second importance to a military need in a time of war."

[SLB]

I don't think the M1114 is the save all answer that it is played up as. Read the comments by Qatar-6 and others on stripping off the doors, curtains and other hinderances to a fast exit. Give the soldiers some decent body armor and individual weapons. Protect the crews on the mounted crew served weapons with some gun shields and then shoot the hell out of the ambushes. Use some recon by fire techniques. When a patrol sees something they suspect might be an ambush, use basic maneuver and fire techniques to get the advantage.

[Voice in your head]

If PFC Hart returned fire and was shot in the neck, then neither an M1114, nor any kind of turret armor would have saved him. A more pressing and important question is this: how many HMMWVs are on patrol, when there are M113s and Bradleys sitting idle at the unit's compound? An M1114 most likely would have saved the Lieutenant. But that still leaves the case of the turret gunners. How many soldiers have been killed when ambushed in Bradleys? How many of the idiots dumb enough to attempt to ambush a Bradley are still alive?

"So as a result, we have yellow Humvees being purchased by dentists at taxpayer expense and we have no adequate supply of armored Humvees."

And with all due respect, this is absolute Barbra Streisand. If I take a tax deduction, then I am forcing my fellow taxpayers to incur an expense? Kennedy might actually be attempting to do something worthwhile by seeking more body armor for our soldiers, but don't take talking points from him.

[Tailback]

RE: #6

Then why didn't the Army do something that would have prevented another Somalia. With the black eye that the Army got over that you'd think they'd have figured out that Humvee's and RPG's don't mix well and that the gunners need shields.

[Darksheare]

*Fumes*
I honestly cannot rationally form a thought in response to this at this time.

[Dark Wing]

The Winds of Change web log dealt with the M1114 shortage here:

Military Mobilization: Ralph Peters is Wrong

http://windsofchange.net/archives/004427.html

It also dropped this from another Freep thread:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1027429/posts

AM General Corp., South Bend, Ind., was awarded on Nov. 4, 2003, a $39,571,065 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract for 500 M1114 up-armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle expanded capacity vehicle chassis. Work will be performed in South Bend, Ind., and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2007. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole-source contract initiated on July 17, 2000. The U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (DAAE07-01-C-S001).


O’Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt Armoring Co., Fairfield, Ohio, was awarded on Nov. 4, 2003, a $35,675,000 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract for 500 M1114 up-armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles with gun shields. Work will be performed in Fairfield, Ohio, and is expected to be completed by May 31, 2005. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole-source contract initiated on April 10, 2000. The U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (DAAE07-00-C-S019).

[Cannoneer No. 4]

seen this?

[Voice in your head]

That winds of change link is great. Thanks. It has long baffled me why the most technologically advanced nation that has ever existed cannot adequately outfit its military with the gear needed to fight, win and survive. I have served in both the active component and in the National Guard. In the guard, our equipment was one step up from Vietnam era. We did not get night vision until we actually deployed, in 2001. Here on active duty, even in a lackluster unit, I was seeing equipment for the first time and some of it I had never even heard of - Javelin command launch units, thermal sights that mount on individual weapons, telescope sights for crew-served weapons, etc. Now guard units are cycling through Iraq. If they get the new equipment, their training on it will be substandard, due to the high volume of BS mobilization check-the-block tasks that they will be saddled with - something else that I'm sure no one has thought of.

[R. Scott]

Yep.

[Dark Wing]

The Army is deploying South African anti-mine equipment to beat Iraqi IEDs.



European Stars and Stripes
January 4, 2004

New Vehicles Allow GIs To Find, Remove Hidden IEDs

By Rick Scavetta, Stars and Stripes

BALAD, Iraq — Using recently fielded mine detection vehicles, soldiers from Company C, 489th Engineer Battalion are hunting roadside bombs similar to those that have killed and maimed dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq over the past six months.

Equipped with South African-designed vehicles — the Meerkat and the Buffalo — the Arkansas-based Army Reserve troops have taken an Army side project to the forefront in the military’s efforts to counter the threat of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

Insurgents aiming to demoralize the U.S.-led coalition often stage ambushes with crude explosives hidden among debris along convoy routes or buried near roads.

The platoon of combat engineers, who had been working odd jobs in Kuwait, are now sweeping major convoy routes in central Iraq to clear highway shoulders and medians.

Cramped in the single seat Meerkat, Spc. Stephen Fowler, 22, of Fayetteville, Ark., examined a stretch of Highway 1 last week with the tractor’s powerful winglike metal detectors.

“We have certain audible tones when we find something,” Fowler said.

An ink jet marks the spot. Soldiers in the heavily armored Buffalo pry suspicious objects from the ground with a remote-controlled fork. Sappers — engineers trained in explosives — can then demolish the device.

Both vehicles are designed to protect soldiers from a blast, said Sgt. 1st Class Ed Fletcher, an Oklahoma native supervising the operation.

“It can take up to 20 pounds of TNT and everybody inside will survive,” Fletcher said. “The vehicle is down, but the passengers are all right.”

In June, civilian contractor Shon Craig, 50, of Manassas, Va., arrived in Iraq with the $1.5 million Interim Vehicle Mounted Mine Detection System, a package of several mine-detecting vehicles that the military has kept for five years, Craig said. The equipment, based on South African anti-mine technology, saw action last March at the U.S. airfield in Bagram, Afghanistan, he said.

At first, the Army in Iraq was not interested in manning or field-testing the new equipment, Craig said. The mine threat was minimal, and units were busy changing from combat to occupation duties, he said.

But for six weeks, South African trainers taught Fletcher’s platoon about the equipment from the inside out. Then soldiers translated the schooling into Army tactics. And there were no mine-clearing missions.

Meanwhile, IED attacks against U.S. troops were rising.

“They had all this multimillion-dollar equipment sitting around, so we put it to use against IEDs,” Fletcher said. “It was pretty scary at first.”

On an early mission, the crew stumbled upon an IED half-buried in a foxhole.

“It was an artillery round. You could see the blasting cap and the wire coming out the end of it,” Fletcher said.

His soldiers fanned into a security perimeter and traced the wire’s end; thankfully, no enemy was attached, Fletcher said.

Sgt. Brad Lipe, 24, of Van Buren, Ark., operated a Buffalo for two months.

During that time, he found IEDs and other unexploded munitions. Years of video games prepared him to maneuver the Buffalo’s mechanical arm using only a small display screen to watch the nine-pronged fork scrape into the dirt.

“At first you are a little nervous, but after numerous times it becomes routine,” Lipe said. “You get used to seeing certain things, and know when something’s been put there.”

The Buffalo’s long arm jabs into the crusty roadside. Watching a screen on the dashboard, the operator uses the arm’s camera to pluck out objects.

Much of the time, they find debris.

“We’ve found everything from manhole covers to mufflers,” Lipe said.

At times, locals will point out potential bomb sights, for fear that an attack could harm their children, Lipe said.

Now, the team is sharing their experiences with fellow soldiers, as the company trains other units to use the gear.

“The Army decided to train us up on this and they like how we did,” Fletcher said. “So, they bought several more systems.”

The operation caught the attention of top brass, said Lt. Col. Kent Savre, commander of the Fort Lewis Wash.-based 864th Engineer Battalion, the team’s higher headquarters.

Savre, 43, of Edina, Minn., recommended that the Army supply one system to each division in Iraq. Three weeks after filing the request, a half-dozen more sets were shipped out, Savre said.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my 19 years in the Army,” Savre said. “The senior leaders saw the threat and immediately bought more [systems].”

Both the Fallujah-based 82nd Airborne Division and the 4th Infantry Division in Tikrit sent troops to Balad to train for clearing missions in their sectors. Another team recently deployed to southern Iraq to begin work there.

“They’re figuring it out and morphing this equipment into something useful,” said Col. Gregg Martin, commander of the 130th Engineer Brigade, who oversees much of the Army’s engineers in Iraq. “This is cutting-edge stuff.”