As critics assail the lightly armed vehicle's use, experts say the AAV is no more risky than other military carriers.
By Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler, Times Staff Writer
Published August 5, 2005
[Times photo: Daniel Wallace]
AAVs are the standard mode of combat transport for Gunnery Sgt. Erik Cone, 33, and other members of the Marine Corps 4th Assault Amphibian Battalion, which has its headquarters at 5121 W Gandy Blvd. in Tampa.
TAMPA - It's 26 feet long, 10 feet tall and weighs 28 tons when fully armored.
Modeled after a Clearwater man's 1937 hurricane rescue carrier, the military's amphibious assault vehicle navigates land and sea.
Col. Kent Ralston of the U.S. Marine Corps 4th Assault Amphibian Battalion in Tampa calls it "The Hog" - versatile, big and strong.
"Nothing is perfect," said Ralston, 43, who served in Persian Gulf War. "But for what we do, it's been a darn good piece of equipment."
The AAV has drawn criticism this week following the deaths of 14 Marine reservists, including a 22-year-old Tampa man, who were sweeping for insurgents about 140 miles northwest of Baghdad on Wednesday when a roadside bomb detonated near or beneath the vehicle.
Experts say none of the U.S. military's vehicles are guaranteed to withstand such an attack, the deadliest roadside bombing of U.S. troops in Iraq. But critics question whether the lightly armored amphibious vehicle has any place on the intense battlefields of Iraq. Even Doug Coffey, a senior official at BAE Systems, the London international defense and aerospace company that manufactured the vehicle in the early 1970s, called the AAV "one of the more vulnerable vehicles on the battlefield."
AAV's are protected with an inch of aluminum armor, and the vehicles assigned to Iraq have additional armor designed to protect them from the blast of 7.62mm rifle rounds and 155mm artillery fragments.
They are not built to withstand heavy fire or large explosions - even though they transport troops and cargo across waters and into the Iraqi desert, where roadside bombs have grown more frequent and more powerful.
Dan Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, a think tank near Washington, D.C., that studies military issues, said the AAV is not alone in its vulnerability to roadside attacks.
"The reality is, a 500-pound bomb like the one allegedly used this week would have probably taken out an M-1 (Abrams tank)," he said. "And no army in the world drives in nothing but 60-ton tanks. They need a whole array of vehicles to do a whole array of things. The AAV is one of those vehicles."
In Iraq, Marines transport combat troops ashore in AAVs outfitted with a .50-caliber machine gun and a 40mm grenade launcher, Ralston said.
Ralston said Marines have used amphibious vehicles since the late 1930s, when Clearwater resident Donald Roebling designed the AAV's prototype, the Roebling Alligator, for hurricane relief.
Marines used AAVs to bring troops ashore during World War I and World War II, the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, and during Desert Storm.
Modifications were made over the years, and a sturdier AAV - called an Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle - is scheduled to roll out within the next couple of years. The current AAVs are based on a model that debuted in 1973.
Wednesday's bombing was one of the deadliest for Marines since American troops invaded Iraq in March 2003, and it is part of trend toward more sophisticated, powerful insurgent bombings.
The explosive device was constructed from a bomb weighing 500 pounds or more, and the blast left a crater 6 feet deep and nearly 17 feet wide, while flipping the troop carrier and engulfing it in flames. Fourteen Marines, including Lance Cpl. Kevin G. Waruinge of Tampa, died. Only one Marine survived.
Waruinge isn't the first Tampa Marine reservist to die aboard an AAV.
Lance Corp. Andrew Aviles, an 18-year-old Robinson High graduate, perished in April 2003 when enemy artillery hit his AAV.
Andrew's father, Oscar Aviles, said Thursday that Aviles never complained to them about the AAVs.
"Any time we received a letter, he told us not to worry because he was riding with his lieutenant and his sergeant. He said they could ride through everything and anything," he said.
Aviles shipped out to Iraq in January 2003 for a five-month mission with more than 200 other 4th Battalion reservists, most of them based in the Tampa Bay area.
The Battalion is headquartered at 5121 W Gandy Blvd. in Tampa but has reserve units in Mississippi, Texas and Virginia. Ralston said 41 reservists from Tampa are currently in Iraq, part of a group of 220 who left in March and are due back this fall.
Of the 138,000 U.S. armed forces personnel in Iraq, more than 23,000 - or 17 percent - are Marines. Yet they represent 530, or 29 percent, of the more than 1,820 U.S. personnel who have died there, Marine Corps officials told the Associated Press.
Marines have been given some of the most dangerous assignments in Iraq.
They joined the Army's 3rd Infantry Division in the drive toward Baghdad in 2003. They are assigned to the Anbar province, home to Fallujah, Ramadi and Haditha, where the insurgency is strong and unrelenting.
"The Marines were charged with entering and defeating the insurgents in Fallujah - twice," Goure said. "That was an extremely ugly area."
Information from the Associated Press contributed to this report. Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at 813 226-3373 or svansickler@sptimes.com
