Posted on 12/10/2004 7:04:48 PM PST by Doctor Raoul
See the following articles: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/203200_armor10.html FROM THE SEATTLE TIMES ARTICLE: Here's the phone number 1-800-782-7892 - Intl. Export / Import Services, press "0" to get a person. Is Durbin a hypocrite for saying anything while he protects the pork at home?
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/breaking_10.html
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m998.htm
From those articles and webpages, here's some facts:
19,400 Humvees in Iraq
TODAY 77% of Humvees in Iraq are armored
5,900 were shipped from factory with armor
9,000 upgraded with kits in theater
Unarmored Humvees aren't supposeed to go off base.
Unarmored Humvees travel between bases on a flatbed truck.
Of 9,386 armor kits shipped to Iraq, 9,143 have been installed.
That's 97% installed, only 3% to go.
There are at least 16 varients of the Humvee:
M998 cargo/troop carrier without winch
M1038 cargo/troop carrier with winch
M966 TOW missile carrier, basic armor, without winch
M1036 TOW missile carrier, basic armor, with winch
M1045 TOW missile carrier, supplemental armor, without winch
M1046 TOW missile carrier, supplemental armor, with winch
M1025 armament carrier, basic armor, without winch
M1026 armament carrier, basic armor, with winch
M1043 armament carrier, supplemental armor, without winch
M1044 armament carrier, supplemental armor, with winch
M996 mini-ambulance, 2-litter, basic armor
M997 maxi-ambulance, 4-litter, basic armor
M1035 soft-top ambulance, 2-litter
M1037 S-250 shelter carrier, without winch
M1042 S-250 shelter carrier, with winch
M1069 tractor for M119 105-mm light gun
The Humvees to be factory-armored by O'Gara-Hess have some different specifications than the models shipped without armor, Woodward said. So increasing production requires careful planning.
Today on Rush's show, he had a caller that swears she knows people that are buying steel locally there in the Pacific Northwest and sending it by UPS to soldiers in Iraq.
"It's not like making a Big Mac," he said. "There are so many configurations. ... You can't just whip them through like a big grill in a McDonald's."
I called UPS. They will ship to Iraq, but you have to pick up your shippment at their offices in Baghdad or Basra. They don't deliver to anyone's door.
Also, length, width and height can't total more than 165 inches.
The weight limit on packages to Iraq, 150 lbs.
Yeah, ship armor plate by UPS, that'll work.
A caller to Dom Giordano's show last night had three very good observations. The handwringing liberals posture this as "if you only cared enough, people wouldn't die" even in a war.
He also said it depended on believing that people in the Pentagon would put $$$ before a soldier's life.
Last, he noted that the HMMWV replced the jeep and that no one would expect even an armored jeep to do what we have armored HMMWVs doing.
Rock Island Arsenal has a piece of this according to the caller and LTC Scott Rutter USA(Ret) and that Durbin's backyard. Obviously those take more time to reach the soldiers than those modified in theater.
Rummy's comment that an armored vehicle can still be blown up was quite obtuse, not consise and to the point.
"And if you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored humvee and it can be blown up. And you can go down and, the vehicle, the goal we have is to have as many of those vehicles as is humanly possible with the appropriate level of armor available for the troops. And that is what the Army has been working on."-Rumsfeld
And the point is ??? Forget about wanting the armor?
Conservatives should have an anti-BS mindset.
BS costs lives, in war.
The T-34 had great mobility. Kind of a loud squeaking when it moved because the track pins were not held in with bolts, but rather pressed back in by rubbing against the side of the chassis.
The T-34 was also cramped, the loader had to load left handed, and if you fired the gun at the wrong time you got the "wound of wounds".
The commander had rotten visibility and an absurd work load. The driver would quickly be exhausted from shifting through the gears. The Pzkw-4 H with the long barrel 75 was much its superior. Pzkw4 were used until 1972.
yes, but no M-26 ever killed a Tiger.
The M-36 (90mm) and M36Bs and M-10s got a few.
But they got a few Panthers.
Why, thank you. I don't actually come across too much PC stuff--except for, possibly, some of the mandatory training--and I have no complaints so far. As far as having to deal with troops--I'm not in a command position, so I probably don't see the best or worst of them, but I think we have a pretty good bunch of soldiers here. And I have learned to be very careful, because they will follow my example. Wish I could get son and hubby (retired Navy chief) to do the same!
I agree that it is a trade.
The other important thing is TACTICS, so that you can use your strengths, and cover your weaknesses. Our soldiers and marines are very good at that, as shown by the loss ratios.
Our soldier's body armor helps, the armored vehicles help, but no Hummer is going to shrug off an RPG hit. The good news is that our soldiers use automatic fire, and the RPG is single shot. Our tactics encourage the enemy to take a shot at the limit of his range with a single shot weapon that is most likely to miss, and we answer with mass fires either by several automatic weapons, or by large caliber rounds. We also look carefully for changes, knowing that each additional piece of garbage can be cover for an IED.
Next: small robotic sensor-gun packages that can manipulate battlefield debris, but are armed, so the enemy can not ignore them. Just the thing to investigate the new pieces of garbage before our guys get within the casualty radius.
You got it. The Hummvees were not designed to act as armored vehicles. They are a jury-rigged solution to a situation we find ourselves in. Sens. Kerry and McCain have been in the Congress since 1986 and have greater responsibility for the state of our Armed Forces than Secretary Rumsfeld.
A good friend told me that certain F4 pilots in 'Nam removed armor so that they could ditch SAMs.
Those "lightly armored" tanks had gasoline engines that exploded. That's why they were simply iron coffins.
Our tanks weren't designed to fight German armor. That was the job of anti tank weapons, artillery, air power and these;
http://www.britannica.com/normandy/articles/tank_destroyer.html
www.gopusa.com/activist/petitions
Online Activist -- Rumsfeld Petition
Support Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
President Bush has reaffirmed his faith in Donald Rumsfeld by asking him to remain in his cabinet for his second term. We stand with our president and the leadership of the Republican Party who have expressed their confidence in Secretary Rumsfeld.
We express our steadfast support for Sec. Rumsfeld, and we urge President Bush to reject any efforts by the media, liberal detractors, or disloyal Republicans to push for Rumsfeld's resignation or ouster. In times of war, there is no place for playing politics with the Department of Defense.
>> Sign the Petition!
Then they should not have taken the field against German armor. The Germans only produced about 5,500 Panzers. It appears that we should have depended on our tank destroyers to knock out their Panzers and saved our armor for infantry/armor joint operations.
Hidden truth ping.
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