Iraq

U.S. is racing to harden its vulnerable Humvees

NAJAF, Iraq - Many Humvees in Iraq are not "up-armored," and attacks by roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades are driving up the casualty toll.

On Sunday, a Humvee was engulfed in flames after a roadside bomb struck a U.S. convoy in eastern Baghdad, killing a U.S. soldier. It was not known if the Humvee had the extra armor.

When the war began, only about 2 percent of the Army's 110,000 Humvees were armored. Now, of the nearly 15,000 Humvees in Iraq, about 1,500 to 2,000 are armored, according to the Army. The numbers are increasing.

The Army is making a "full-court press" to locate and deliver every armored Humvee in its inventory to Iraq, said Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division. At the same time, factories are boosting production of the armored version.

During the invasion last year, some Humvees were ambushed as swift-moving U.S. troops bypassed pockets of resistance.

But the attacks have mounted as Iraq became what Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. forces, calls "a 360-degree battlefield," with none of safer rear areas of conventional warfare.

"They were not intended to be on the front lines," Dempsey said of the unarmored vehicles. "In a linear battlefield, Humvees always operated behind the front lines.... Iraq isn't a linear battlefield."

For now, soldiers in Iraq are making do. They're hardening their "soft-skins," as unarmored Humvees are called, from kits available at some bases or by getting enterprising Iraqis to whack steel sheets onto their vehicles.

The basic M998 Humvee, or High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle, began rolling off assembly lines in 1985, replacing the jeep and variously configured to serve as a field ambulance, scout vehicle or war zone taxi.

An armored Humvee, the M1114, first appeared in 1993, but the Army initially ordered a few. It can stop AK-47 bullets, antipersonnel RPGs and most roadside bombs and mines - weaponry that makes short work of the unarmored version.

The Army says production is being sped up at the Am General Plant in Mishawaka, Ind., the sole maker of the Humvee, and at O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt of Fairfield, Ohio, where the armor is mounted.

The Senate passed a supplementary $239.3-million bill in November to produce 1,065 armored vehicles at a cost of $150,000 apiece, compared with about half that for a soft-skin.

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