ISIS Releases Photos of Militants Using U.S. M113s as VBIEDS

defense tech ^ | 10/30/14 | Mike Hoffman

[winoneforthegipper]

ISIS militants have loaded U.S. M113 armored personnel carriers and are using them as vehicle born IEDs against Iraqi Security Forces, according to photos release by militants with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

U.S. forces rarely drove the M113s brought to Iraq outside the wire because the vehicles were so susceptible to buried improvised explosive devices. Rather than ship the aging armored personnel carriers, U.S. officials left many M113s with the Iraqis after U.S. troops returned home. ISIS militants have since taken those M113s in northern Iraq since overrunning Iraqi army bases.

The photos released by ISIS show the M113s driving through side streets of Amiriyat al Fallujah in eastern Anbar province. The photos of the M113s are then followed by explosions, supposedly of explosive-laden M113s hitting Iraqi Security Forces positions.

[winoneforthegipper]

Talk about Big Gulping a grenade...sheesh.

[Darksheare]

Sad end to a fine vehicle, but they are lightly armored and it won’t take much of a knock for us to put them out of commission.

[MeganC]

Thank you, Obama!

[Red Badger]

Seems like every army in the world uses the M113 variant of one type or another.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M113_armored_personnel_carrier

[GeronL]

Obama armed them well I guess

[Blue Jays]

Too bad there is not functionality by which to remotely disable the vehicles.
Even if terrorists took possession of the vehicles, they would simply have a hunk of non-operational steel.
Difficult to envision how it could be done "real world" yet just thinking out loud.

[BenLurkin]

Scaled up!

[Pecos]

If the vehicle is vulnerable to IEDs, and ISIS doesn’t have technology as sophisticated as we do for finding/countering IEDs, the solution would seem to present itself quite nicely. Show the Kurds and loyal Iraqi force pictures of damaged M113s and provide working materials.

[KingLudd]

“Us” isn’t going to take any isis stuff out of commission.

[winoneforthegipper]

Oh good point....and last told quite a few recruits from the land of Rhein. U have nailed their inspiration.

[Kenny Bunk]

MII3 was a very reliable, rather sporty battle taxi, except for offering practically '0' protection from serious explosives, light artillery, RPGs, or heavy MG attacks.

Nowadays, it's just too vulnerable. I'll bet it is still useful behind the lines, schlepping stuff about depots and as transport for the coming-to-a-neighborhood-near-you-soon Public Library SWATs. Why not? Every other department has a SWAT. Besides, those bastards holding overdue books and CDs can be nasty!

Rather makes one long for the days when the natives were armed with rocks and the odd left-over Mussolini-era rifle.

[RS_Rider]

“Too bad there is not functionality by which to remotely disable the vehicles.
Even if terrorists took possession of the vehicles, they would simply have a hunk of non-operational steel.”

It’s called On-Star and they only use it on domestic subjects.
It is against the religion of islam for us to disable their suicide vehicles.

[Blue Jays]

I was thinking something like a remote feature that delivers a salt/sand mixture into the engine plus fuel system.
Advantage is minimal risk to "good guys" while they are properly in possession...yet vehicle could instantly be shut-down if recovery was impossible.

Very clever insight about close similarity to OnStar. ;-)

[Darksheare]

Unfortunate truth to that.

[RitchieAprile]

use what the repo guys use. remote control disable of
engine controls.

[lurk]

This makes the vehicle and the driver non-reusable. Ok with that.

[wally_bert]

I had fun what few times I drove one playing army guard.

[PIF]

Really scaled up!

[JohnBovenmyer]

The potential problem is the next Snowden giving the codes to ISIS, Putin, Occupy, etc. It’s not relevent now as Obama would leak them himself, but if we ever get a pro-American president again it would be a problem.