Military Humvee Issues
shrubkiller
Jun 23, 4:23 pm
Newsgroups: us.politics, can.politics, aus.politics
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"shrubkiller" <shrubkil...@excite.com> - Find messages by this
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Date: 23 Jun 2005 14:23:31 -0700
Local: Thurs, Jun 23 2005 4:23
pm
Subject: Building a Better Deathtrap for the Troops
Psychological
Armor By JB Campbell 6-23-5
Here's one reason that so many American soldiers
and marines have died in Iraq... Back in 1981, I was the head of a bulletproof
car company in Monterey, California. We'd construct a box made of Lexgard inside
a limo or regular car. It was pretty effective but difficult to install. Lexgard
is General Electric's transparent polycarbonate armor, very effective at stopping
handgun bullets. If you put a hard surface in front of it, such as glass or sheet
metal, it will stop rifle bullets. After the bullet hits the hard surface it is
upset slightly on its axis and is then trapped in the dense but crystal-clear
polycarbonate material.
The FMC factory was in nearby San Jose. I read
a story about the troubles with the aluminum armor on their new Bradley Fighting
Vehicle. The Bradley was having PR problems already but now the issue was the
armor. Aluminum is a bad material for armor, since it doesn't stop bullets very
well. When they come through, they cause something called "spall," which
means that the pieces of the armor itself become deadly little weapons. And aluminum
burns.
The army, though, wanted to save weight so they told FMC to make
the Bradleys out of aluminum. (FMC was later sold and is today United Defense
LP, owned in part by George Bush's Carlyle Group.) So I went to FMC and proposed
to line the inside of a Bradley with Lexgard, the way we did with limos. This
would protect everyone from spall and fire, because Lexgard is fireproof and non-toxic.
Installation would have been relatively easy in the boxy Bradley. I was politely
turned down. Puzzled, I called Dr. Charles Church, the head of research at the
Pentagon. He said, "Listen don't try to modify an existing vehicle. If you
want to do something, design it from the ground up and make your armor integral
with your chassis." So that's what I did. I came up with something I called
"The FLEA," which stood for, "Forward Light Escort, Armored."
I used an unknown but powerful fiberglass armor for the body with hardened Lexgard
windows. It was to be hydraulically operated with its wheels almost two feet away
from the body, for protection against tank landmines. My design was based on my
experience with landmines in Rhodesia as a member of their security forces in
the terror war in the 70s. Shortly after my design was complete (1982), the army
put out a request for proposal (RFP) for a new vehicle they called the "High
Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle," or "HMMWV." The new Jeep
and light truck. I duly submitted the FLEA to Tank Automotive Command (TACOM)
in Michigan. After a month or so, I called TACOM and inquired as to the progress
of the selection process. The officer said, "The FLEA yes, I have it here
Oh, yeah this is armored. We don't want armor." I knew the specification
they wanted. The bodywork had to defeat the equivalent of a pellet fired from
a pellet gun. Something like 19 grains at 435 feet per second. Something silly
like that. I mentioned this to the officer. "Yeah, right. We call it psychological
armor'" "'Psychological armor?'" I let that sink in to my brain.
"You mean, the guys just THINK they're sitting behind armor?" He chuckled.
"Yeah, pretty much." "But, " I said, "I'm under the weight
requirement even with the armor. Why not give them the protection?" "That's
not what we want." I kept trying to get some interest in the vehicle for
its own sake, as a tank killer, not as a Humvee. No sale. Well, actually, there
was some interest. I got a retired general to promote it to the army's Advanced
Development Experimental Agency at Ft. Hunter Liggett. They liked it and sent
it to their commander at Ft. Lewis, who liked it and sent it to TACOM, who didn't
like it again. In 1993 I took a chance and put $80,000 into building the rolling
(unarmored) chassis, so people could actually see its basic dimensions and logic.
The army still wasn't interested, apparently not wanting to believe that a lightweight
vehicle could do what I advertised. Then I forgot about the whole thing til 2000,
when my old friend, Skip, persuaded me to go to a symposium on humanitarian demining
in Monterey. I made some good contacts, such as the general who became the head
of Army Materiel Command. He was vitally interested in mine protection. But I
became vitally interested in humanitarian mine removal. I thought the FLEA would
be ideal for this noble effort, since I was by this time a serious opponent of
the US Army, the US government and war. I also had been blown up by an anti-tank
mine in Africa in 1973 while riding in a police Land Rover, so I appreciated the
mine problem made famous by the late Diana, although she was involved more in
the small but terrible anti-personnel mines.
By 2003, I moved to Las
Vegas and became partners with a guy who liked my humanitarian plan. The FLEA
was now patented and protected here and overseas. I began to seek support for
the humanitarian version of the vehicle. It turned out that the US Army in charge
of humanitarian demining, so they were invited to come to Las Vegas to view the
now-armored rolling chassis. The two men who came were the director of combat
development at Fort Leonard Wood and a man from Night Vision Labs in New Jersey,
a retired colonel. The men were astonished on seeing the FLEA. One said that he'd
been asking TACOM for just such a design for years, that is, a lightweight vehicle
that could withstand the hit of an anti-tank mine. He was told repeatedly that
such a vehicle was impossible. "But here it is," he marveled, "this
is how you beat the tank mine, with your wheels way outboard." It was clear
there was no budget for a humanitarian demining vehicle, but there was great interest
in this thing for Iraq. The FLEA is designed to keep moving with the loss of one
or even three wheels. By now the design had replaced the hydraulic operation with
hybrid-electric drive and steering and air suspension. And it had six wheels instead
of four. The man confided several secrets to us, secrets about the Bosnian adventure
and about the six-month old invasion of Iraq. American vehicles were unusable
in Bosnia, he said, due to their gross weight. "The
roads and bridges couldn't support them and they never left the airport."
This would continue to be a problem even in Iraq, where the ballyhooed "Stryker"
vehicle would collapse roads and bridges and roll over into canals and drown crewmen.
He said, "You've obviously solved the tank-mine problem, but the real threat
in Iraq is the IED (improvised explosive device)." The IED would continue
to cause 70% of US casualties to this day. He revealed that even the Future Combat
System requirement for mine protection was only against anti-personnel mines!
But, of course, the real scandal is the ridiculous Humvee, perhaps the most preposterous
idea of all, after the invasion itself. A preposterous invasion needs a preposterous
vehicle. First of all, the Humvee is just an aggressive-looking
station wagon. It has four doors, unless they are removed. If you want
to shoot out from the thing, the doors have to be removed, so you can swing your
rifle around. That's what we did in Rhodesia, with our Land Rovers. Took the doors
off so that when we drove into an ambush we could return fire and save ourselves.
The Humvee's windows don't roll down, so you can't shoot
with the doors closed. And it's pretty silly to open the door and try to
stick your rifle out with the thing swinging around as you're trying to return
fire, escaping up the road. A real tactical vehicle has no roof, either, so that
you can see and shoot at an overhead threat. As we saw with the "psychological
armor" bit, it doesn't really matter if the doors are on or off, because
you have no protection either way. With the doors off, you can at least shoot
back. With the doors on, you're a sitting duck. And the real problem is not bullets,
but blast from IEDs. Serious armor protection was called for! Duh.
So,
when enough people started getting killed in these things, the army decided to
armor them. It went from the ridiculous to the insane. Meanwhile, TACOM (now TAACOM)
sent engineers from its R&D group, TARDEC, to Las Vegas for discussions with
us in January, 2004. We also had representatives from Michelin, Eaton-Vickers
and the armor manufacturer in San Antonio (Safeguard Security) and others present,
plus men from Senator Harry Reid, who was backing the project. The TARDEC men
said that the landmine requirement for Future Combat System vehicles would have
to be rewritten now, due to the FLEA's design. The FLEA would be funded for 2005
and Senator Reid's military liaison said that if TARDEC would go ahead and use
some discretionary funds for 2004, the senator would pay them back in '05, so
as to get this wonderful vehicle to the troops this year ('04). This was agreed
to by the TARDEC men. By all accounts it was an unprecedented meeting of army,
industry, political and us entrepreneurs. Michelin has a fantastic new plastic
wheel/tire combo that is virtually indestructible. They were interested in introducing
it on the FLEA. So were we. And so was the army. I regaled everyone with the story
about Psychological Armor. The chief engineer from TARDEC squirmed and said quietly,
"Let's hope that doesn't come out" Later in January my partner and I
flew to Washington DC to meet with Senator Reid's chief counsel, the US Army Materiel
Command and the State Department's landmine removal personnel. The Army Materiel
Command had tried to get us into business with United Defense, mentioned above.
The general thought if UD went ahead and built the prototype, the army could purchase
it that way. But United Defense wouldn't do it without millions of dollars being
paid to them first. That's how they're used to doing things. It's
the Halliburton method. All went well until we got back to Las Vegas. The
army had investigated us and found that we were both politically incorrect. ...
read more "
Reynaud
Jun 23, 4:43 pm
Newsgroups: us.politics, can.politics, aus.politics
From:
"Reynaud" <s...@mts.net> - Find messages by this author
Date:
Thu, 23 Jun 2005 16:43:22 -0500
Local: Thurs, Jun 23 2005 4:43 pm
Subject:
Re: Building a Better Deathtrap for the Troops
Sure
thing Pinnochio.Can't you dumb ass Yanks read? Who the F---- cares about American
troops anyway. Rey
zzbunker@netscape.net
Jun 23, 4:57 pm
Newsgroups: us.politics, can.politics,
aus.politics
From: "zzbun...@netscape.net" <zzbun...@netscape.net>
- Find messages by this author
Date: 23 Jun 2005 14:57:38 -0700
Local:
Thurs, Jun 23 2005 4:57 pm
Subject: Re: Building a Better Deathtrap for the
Troops
-
Show quoted text - That's what wrong with idiots like TACOM and Michican, though.
They can't read, write, weld, or sing, just like their idiots leaders at GM. The
HMMWV was a called a wheeled vehicle, because it was to be street vehicle, with
*armoured tires*, not a moron, or an army GM vehicle, or a Jeep. - Show quoted
text -...
