> It's not the munitions the soldiers are concerned > with; it's defense. > They have, essentially, none.
That's not entirely true. The Army has plenty of Bradleys and Abrams over there, and both vehicles are proving to be very survivable against all manner of manpack anti-tank weapons. In fact, so much so that the Army is rethinking some of the tactics it uses in urban combat (it used to be you would dismount all your infantry and send them in first to supress possible ambush sites, locate the enemy, etc; this was because armored vehicles had previously been very vulnerable to manpack AT weapons -- something the Brad's and Abrams' are proving very resistant to). Even the Interceptor body armor is redefining small unit tactics. The problem, rather (or the gripes) are not with these vehicles, but with rear etchelon vehicles that normally see no combat. Given that Bush & co thought Iraq would be a "slam dunk" its reasonable that they wouldn't armor trucks hauling beans & bullets. But the character of the conflict means that, like Vietnam, there are no front lines... My question is why can't in-country engineer units just scab the armor on like they are doing now (though arguably with higher quality -- and probably lighter and more durable -- armor plate supplied from stateside manufacturers?). The Army and other branches have a long tradition of "field mods", such as crude overhead armor on M10 and M36 tank destroyers in WWII, or armor plate on trucks and jeeps in Vietnam. Might not be an elegant solution, but its been proven to work in the past... Damon. ===== ------------------------------------------------------------ Damon Agretto [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum." http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html Now Building: Revell Germany's M60A3 ------------------------------------------------------------ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - What will yours do? http://my.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
