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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Military / More Body Armor! More Body Armor!

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32Comments

  1. 1.

    neil

    I was a soldier once, and young. I wore the late 80’s through mid 90’s vintage body armor in a variety of conditions. To say that body armor was teh suck, was to do an injustice to teh suck.

    The main problems were that it was hot, it was heavy, and it was hard to maneuver while wearing the stuff.

    Not to quibble too much, but I can think of at least a few reasons why soldiers in the late 80’s through mid 90’s might not have been as gung-ho about body armor as soldiers in the last year or two.

  2. 2.

    Lines

    So Al Maviva is equating jungle tactics with city block tactics?

    Al is a simpleton, and therefore, able only to think in terms of his own simplistics.

    When busting down doors, when involved in short burst firefights outside of the green zone, security forces deserve to wear the armor they want to have. I trust the soldiers in this, and those that request the armor and get it bought by families or whatever, are the ones that didn’t have it when they thought they needed it.

    Those requests wouldn’t have ever been made if Al “simpleton” Maviva was right, but as we’ve seen in his comments, thats rarely the case on anything.

  5. 5.

    Richard Bottoms

    WASHINGTON (CNN) — The U.S. Navy will try to lift some of the burden off U.S. Army troops in Iraq this year by increasing the number of sailors inside that country and taking on duties soldiers have been doing, according to the Navy’s top sailor.

    http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/07/iraq.navy/

    Time to throw the Sailors into the grinder, now that we are running out of Soldiers and Marines. So now a soldier and a marine expect to see combat on the ground. Wonder how many swabbies will believe they signed up for this?

    How soon before the Airforce has to cough up some warm bodies? I predict falling enlistment rates in the services that until now have been able to ride this debacle out. Plus we have that little matter of Iran to invade soon.

    But we have the comfort of knowing a Democrat would have undoubtably made things worse.

    Somehow.

    Sound like gloating? No. Sound like I told you so?

    You bet.

  7. 7.

    The Other Steve

    This is Al’s argument.

    Soldiers demanding better equipment (implies) soldiers don’t want to wear equipment we give them

    How do we get there using inductive or deductive logic?

  8. 8.

    BumperStickerist

    I suppose the option of blanketing the forward enemy occupied positions / buildings with Willy Pete is out of the question.

    Of course, were WP used we could send the soldiers in with nothing other than a good windbreaker and a pair of khakis.

  9. 9.

    Andrew

    Not to quibble too much, but I can think of at least a few reasons why soldiers in the late 80’s through mid 90’s might not have been as gung-ho about body armor as soldiers in the last year or two.

    Well, to be fair, bulletproof vests only became popular after Dr. Dre and Chuck D started sporting them in the early ’90s.

  10. 10.

    Kirk Spencer

    I, too, wore the darn stuff “back when” – as it happens, about the same time as Al. A difference, I think: I was a groundpounder. Not a mechie, airborne. If I didn’t carry it, it didn’t come.

    A couple of times (wisea$$e$ that we were) we checked our total combat load with parachute. Assuming the “average” male soldier is ~180 pounds, the normal weight carried about doubled a soldier’s weight. Now I admit that 50 pounds of that disappeared within a couple of minutes of leaving the airplane, but it’s worth noting the 72 pound measure in the FMs cited by Al have their flaws. Oh – and yes, we wore our vests.

    Now, I’ve got a few friends over there. And I’ll summarize what they say about the vests, plus make a separate observation. Summarizing – if you’re doing a long walking patrol, the extra plates are something you prefer to leave behind. If it’s ride and raid or convoy, you always want the plates, especially the side plates as that’s where the IEDs come in. Observation – if grunts on the ground don’t want them, why are so many of them paying their own money to make up the lack?

    Let’s agree that anecdote is not the plural of data. However, each anecdote is a single point of data and should not therefore be dismissed out of hand. I’ll also note that FMs have disconnects between “should” and “do”. And how much the mule, er, soldier carries is one of the big ones.

  11. 11.

    Lines

    Thanks Kirk, you said it better than I did. Something about Al just brings out the snark in me.

  12. 12.

    Richard Bottoms

    Course if the Iraqi’s were throwing roses at our guys as predicted we wouldn’t be having this conversation now would we:

    Cakewalk In Iraq

    By Ken Adelman
    Wednesday, February 13, 2002; Page A27

    Even before President Bush had placed Iraq on his “axis of evil,” dire warnings were being sounded about the danger of acting against Saddam Hussein’s regime.

    Two knowledgeable Brookings Institution analysts, Philip H. Gordon and Michael E. O’Hanlon, concluded that the United States would “almost surely” need “at least 100,000 to 200,000” ground forces [op-ed, Dec. 26, 2001]. Worse: “Historical precedents from Panama to Somalia to the Arab-Israeli wars suggest that . . . the United States could lose thousands of troops in the process.”

    I believe demolishing Hussein’s military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they’ve become much weaker; (3) we’ve become much stronger; and (4) now we’re playing for keeps.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A1996-2002Feb12

    I don’t recall anywhere where Kenny Boy said he was… wrong nor has he apologized for the mess that has claimed 2250+ soldiers lives and 15,000 wounded. Plus odd dead Iraqi here and there.

    But, the person who really needs to apologize is, Cindy Sheehan. All her fault really.

    Suckers.

  14. 14.

    Retief

    Al Malvina gives us a lot of math just to say that the troops don’t want any body armor. Of course. If they were asking for more body armor, Rumsfeld would give them more body armor. Just like Bush would have been happy to send more troops if only his generals had ever wanted more troops.

    The fact that there was a shortage of modern armor is not in dispute by the pentagon so there is no need to theorize on whether or not it was needed or desired. The shortage does seem to have been addressed during the course of the past 2 years of war. A lot of the problem appears to have come from the number of reserve units thrown into Iraq with their 1970s era equipment. And then that gives you the full time vs reservist, second class soldier issues.

  16. 16.

    Richard Bottoms

    It’s amazing the sorts of things that become partisan issues.

    Has Bush played it any other way for once second of his time in office? On 9/11 we were united. I still wouldn’t vote for a Republican, ever. But I backed going in Afghanistan.

    Now. I wouldn’t piss on Geroge Bush if his hair was on fire.

  19. 19.

    The Other Steve

    Has Bush played it any other way for once second of his time in office? On 9/11 we were united. I still wouldn’t vote for a Republican, ever. But I backed going in Afghanistan.

    This is because the invasion of Iraq wasn’t an issue of National Defense.

    It was an issue of Republican Politics.

    I just think it’s fucking pathetic that we have a President who launched a war, just because he thought it’d make it easier for him to pass tax cuts.

  20. 20.

    Mr Furious

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I hear the armor would come in particularly handy when on patrol in the Humvees. Since it seems most of our casualties come from IEDs while guys are in vehicles, why would the extra weight be such a problem?

  21. 21.

    Richard Bottoms

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I hear the armor would come in particularly handy when on patrol in the Humvees. Since it seems most of our casualties come from IEDs while guys are in vehicles, why would the extra weight be such a problem?

    It’s not the weight, it’s the money.

    Too pricey for our boys.

  22. 22.

    Jay C

    You know, even though I always feel like I need a shower after visiting the site, I logged on to Cold Fury to see what Al Maviva had to say about the body-armor “controversy”; and, fwiw, he actually does have something of a point about the weight-of-equipment issue (I had no idea that the armor weighed 30+ pounds).
    But of course, being Al, he can’t just do a post outlining a simple thesis like: “In dealing with the body-armor question, we should think about the extra/total weight a soldier has to carry, especially in desert heat” No- he just has to lard his post with irrelevant sneers and nasty crapola about “Democrats” and “liberals” (as if concern for US soldiers’ protection, however misplaced is some sort of partisan issue) – and revel in self-satisfied righteousness about his superior considerations (seconded by his snarking amen chorus).
    Too bad: it might have been an interesting post: but as usual, AL does come across as a simpleton. Again.

  23. 23.

    scs

    Did you all catch up on the latest vehicles they are trying to put out there now? They have some new gigantic vehicles that are much more bomb-proof. I think Defensetech.com had some info on them. One feature they have is a big curved hollow space under the cab that blows the blast force from an IED outward and not up into the cab. They have a few in field now but they are trying to pump out more. One of the ones in the field was rumored to take a hit and all survived. Why didn’t we make more of these before the war I wonder.

  24. 24.

    Elmohammed

    Now. I wouldn’t piss on Geroge Bush if his hair was on fire.

    Richard like-it-in-the Bottom. Yeah, but I bet you enjoy pissing in your buddy’s colon during your lefty-lovefest daisychains don’t you? You’re such a partisan moron. You know NOTHING about what soldiers need?

  25. 25.

    Yeff

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I hear the armor would come in particularly handy when on patrol in the Humvees. Since it seems most of our casualties come from IEDs while guys are in vehicles, why would the extra weight be such a problem?

    Humvees replaced the jeeps, not armored vehicles. Putting armor on them makes them top-heavy and slows them down. There’s always some trade-off and there’s something to be said for speed and agility.

  26. 26.

    Jay C

    Yeff: Think your’re confusing two issues here: Al Maviva’s post was about the body armor that ground troops wear for personal protection – and he did make the point that the extra weight was much less of an issue for riding, vs. walking personnel.
    Vehicle armor, though (or its lack) is quite another issue.

  28. 28.

    The Other Steve

    Humvees replaced the jeeps, not armored vehicles. Putting armor on them makes them top-heavy and slows them down. There’s always some trade-off and there’s something to be said for speed and agility.

    Humvees were never intended for front-line battles.

    That’s the essence of it… we gave our troops the wrong equipment to fight this war.

    But then, that’s because they planned for them to be greated with flowers and sweets rather than IEDs.

  29. 29.

    Richard Bottoms

    Richard like-it-in-the Bottom. Yeah, but I bet you enjoy pissing in your buddy’s colon during your lefty-lovefest daisychains don’t you? You’re such a partisan moron. You know NOTHING about what soldiers need?

    Oh, I’m so hurt.

    Guess my 13 1/2 years in the Army were all for nothing.

  30. 30.

    Richard Bottoms

    But then, that’s because they planned for them to be greated with flowers and sweets rather than IED

    Maybe they got it confused with FTD?

  31. 31.

    scs

    Probably talking about the Stryker

    Nah, they’re even better than Strykers. I think they may be called Cougars. Well they have a couple different models I think.

  32. 32.

    Gray

    This comparison is useless. OK, so the average US soldier is carrying too much into combat. But it isn’t mentioned here that Pinnacle armor dragon skin ( http://www.pinnaclearmor.com/body-armor/sov.php ), the best body protection that’s availabel for hard dollars, according to many troops, weighs only 34 lbs in its heaviest configuration, compared to the 38 lbs of the army issue vest.
    The point isn’t to burden the troops with heavier armor, it should be to provide them with the best armor that still allows them to move and fight. Dragon Skin is superior, but the DoD recently issued orders that soldiers will lose their inssurance if they use it ( http://www.sftt.org/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=cmpDefense&htmlCategoryID=30&htmlId=4514 ).
    The protection of DoD bureaucrats against criticism is more important than the protection of US troops, of course.

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