Five Diggers hurt in biggest attack on Australians in Afghanistan

Herald Sun ^ | March 18, 2010 | Ian McPhedran

[myknowledge]

THREE Australian soldiers were almost killed when their armoured vehicle was blasted by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.

Two other Diggers also were wounded in the devastating blast near the main Australian base at Tarin Kowt.

The infantry soldiers from the 1st Mentoring Task Force were blown up during a routine patrol as summer approaches and the "killing season" begins in the war against the Taliban.

The three critically wounded soldiers were treated by combat medics and flown by helicopter to a nearby Australian-US medical centre on Tuesday night.

[myknowledge]

War News Ping!

A comment regarding the Bushmaster wheeled vehicles.

M113s should be used in place of the Bushmasters, because they are:

• Tracked vehicles - cross country mobility.
• Up-armor-able
• Lighter
• Higher power-to-weight ratio
• Can be up-gunned.

[rahbert]

These can be overloaded and when that happens they break
torsion bars. Also, they are aluminum armored, which
an IED would open right up. We rode on top because of the lack of blast protection. Also we lined the floor with sandbags/cans of .50.

Unless they can rebuild them with lots of Kevlar/ceramic
armor, I’d be leeery of using Zeldas.

[naturalman1975]

The Bushmaster does the job it is designed to do very well. This is the first time a Bushmaster has been penetrated by enemy action in Afghanistan and even this time the injuries sustained were less severe than they could have been, if still more serious than anybody would hope for.

Precious little of Australia's defence infrastructure is Australian made nowadays. While I'd never want Australian vehicles used just because they are Australian, if an overseas alternative is genuinely better, the Bushmasters do what we need them to do very well.