geoswan's Journal: Surviving an IED

Picture first.

If I were an American I would be demanding the resignation of Secretary Rumsfeld. He has spent $200 billion plus on the War in Iraq, but he hasn't bothered to get GIs vehicles that will protect them from land mines and IEDs.

A year and a half ago I read that 50% of American casualties were due to land mines. More recently I read that the percentage had increased to 70%. Rumsfeld stalled and stalled about awarding more contracts to build armor kits for the humvees. The original little outfit that had the contract when armor wasn't an issue got to keep the contract, even though only a trickle of kits were flowing out of it.

About a year ago Rumsfeld uttered the deceptive claim that all the vehicles were armored. But he was counting the improvised "hillbilly" armor made in the field. And he was counting armor that only protected against small arms fire, and did not provide any protection against mines -- when mines were the main danger.

The sad truth is that a humvee can never provide very much protection against mines, even if it has the best armor kit. Its undercarraige is not suitable for mine protection. There are mine protected vehicles, which provide protection against mines that much better than that provided by a humvee, better even than an M113. These vehicles all have V-shaped hulls, to direct the mine's energy outward, away from the passenger compartment.