Posted on 03/17/2010 8:40:48 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at heraldsun.com.au ...
A comment regarding the Bushmaster wheeled vehicles.
M113s should be used in place of the Bushmasters, because they are:
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.
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.
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