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Iraq
Troop ingenuity armors Humvees
Associated Press
Published January 14, 2006
TIKRIT, Iraq - Soldiers exposed to Iraq's increasingly lethal roadside bombs, which can rip through armored Humvees, are drawing on wartime experience and stateside expertise to protect their vehicles with stronger armor and thermal detection cameras.
Nearly three years after rolling into Iraq in trucks covered in many instances by canvas roofs, the 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade is adding extra layers of armor to its Humvees.
Col. Michael Steele, brigade commander, said he ordered improvements because insurgents' roadside bombs have become bigger and harder to detect.
There have been 43 bomb and mine attacks on Humvees operated by the brigade since it came to Iraq in September, killing nine soldiers and injuring dozens.
"The responsibility of the commander is to figure out what we need to respond to this evolving threat," Steele said.
A National Guard unit in Baghdad went beyond armor. Drawing on the part-time soldiers' backgrounds as mechanics, electricians and carpenters, the 126th Armor Battalion based in suburban Grand Rapids, Mich., added to six Humvees thermal imaging cameras and 6-foot booms. Dangling chains and an infrared countermeasure on the boom can help trigger explosives before the Humvees are directly over them, said Lt. John Caras.
U.S. troops in the past have hardened soft-skin Humvees by using upgrade kits or by putting spare steel onto their vehicles, and the Army's chief of staff now requires that all combat vehicles in Iraq be armored. The military now has more than 25,000 armored Humvees in the country.
The 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade will upgrade nearly all its 530 Humvees at a makeshift assembly line it created in Tikrit.
Maj. Tom Bryant, the brigade spokesman, said the armor program is not a reaction to faulty equipment but a response to change on the battlefield.
"We're not interested in creating controversy," he said. "It's about saving soldiers lives."
[Last modified January 14, 2006, 01:39:15]
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