They since have hired Iraqis to install makeshift armor on all their vehicles. At $2,000 apiece, each vehicle’s floorboard and cargo areas were lined with steel. Steel doors were added, along with steel enclosures for the gunners on gun trucks. Sandbags on the floor and crossed fingers do the rest....I'm certain there are those around America who grouse about how our HUMMVs don't have armor installed.
“We have been very, very lucky,” said Staff Sgt. Anna Berber-Giddings, a driver for unit commander Lt. Col. Drew Ryan.
The improvised armor has its drawbacks. On one recent trip to Iraqi villages near LSA Anaconda, Berber-Giddings had to repeatedly check the loose-fitting latches on her door to keep it from swinging open while she drove.
When the rear driver’s side door of the vehicle kept flying open, Berber-Giddings tied a string across the loose-fitting latch to keep it closed. Some soldiers put an extra-long string on the door latch so they can hold the door closed while they’re speeding down the road.
“We have made do,” Berber-Giddings said.
What they don't know is the HUMMV was never intended to have armored sides or floor.
The HUMMV replaced the Jeep. The jeep never had armor. The HUMMV, like the jeep, was designed as the combat equivalent of a 4X4. Able to drive off road and to carry (usually) 4 people.
No one cried out in WWII that the Jeep wasn't armored. But in WWII we had a traditional war...a war with fronts. And by and large, jeeps didn't sit on the pointy end of the spear.
We aren't in that type war now. We are in a more dangerous kind...one without fronts. One without clearly defined lines of "good guys are here, bad guys are there".
The improvised explosive device (roadside bomb) is a weapon largely new to this war in the experience of the US military. As such it is considered a new "measure" by the enemy. As a result, HUMMV armor is the new "countermeasure" by the US Military. And developing that countermeasure and fielding it takes time.
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