- WEST OF BAGHDAD -- The Humvee in civilian trim
is the macho brute of the American highway, but the military version has
turned out to be a lightweight deathtrap on the roads of Iraq.
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- Earlier this week, a day after a bomb killed one of their
soldiers in a Humvee and wounded three, soldiers of the 1st Battalion of
the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment began outfitting dozens of the vehicles
with homemade armor. They used sandbags and sand-filled boxes made of plywood
and cardboard.
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- "We're using the Humvee in an unconventional way,
and we're having to adapt the vehicle to the situation," said Sgt.
1st Class Mark Ferguson of Charlie Company.
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- In other words, improvised explosive devices have led
to improvised armored vehicles.
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- Fort Bragg's 82nd Airborne Division, to which the 504th
belongs, is a quick-reaction assault force that travels by air, then fights
on foot. The occupation in Iraq, though, doesn't involve massive air assaults
or parachute drops. Instead, it requires frequent security patrols. That
means vehicles.
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- Like the 82nd Airborne, the Humvee wasn't meant for this
mission.
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- Made by AM General in South Bend, Ind., the High Mobility
Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle was designed to replace the venerable Jeep.
It weighs 5,200 pounds and can carry a 2,500-pound payload, roll through
5 feet of water and scale a 60-degree grade, according to its manufacturer.
But it has thin body panels of fiberglass and aluminum.
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- The truck offers little protection from improvised roadside
bombs and rocket-propelled grenades.
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- The paratroopers brought a few trucks that were factory-outfitted
with Kevlar armor and bulletproof glass. Most, though, are the standard
unarmored version, configured like a pickup with two or four seats in the
front. Most don't have a seating arrangement in back that allows all the
gunners to face outward easily.
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- The Humvee ambushed Sunday was all but shredded, and
several soldiers who saw it were taken aback by how little protection it
had offered.
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- The paratroopers did learn from the attack, though, by
studying where sandbags had been on the destroyed Humvee in relation to
the occupants. Four walked away from the blast, and the three injured men
will probably survive, something Ferguson called a miracle given the damage.
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- "We got some good feedback," Ferguson said.
"It's just a shame that someone had to die for it.
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- "The Army has always sandbagged its vehicles --
probably as far back as World War II. . . . We're just updating it."
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- Indeed, all the foot wells and cargo bed floors had already
been lined with a layer of sandbags. The modifications underway Monday
were much more elaborate.
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- Ferguson's soldiers were building rectangular boxes that
looked like 6-foot-long flower planters. They strapped a box atop each
wall of a Humvee's cargo bed and ran a third up the middle for gunners
to sit on. Sand filled all three boxes to blunt the force of an explosion
or bullet -- they hope.
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- A few yards from Ferguson's informal armory, Alpha Company
soldiers were building cruder variations. They emptied dozens of cardboard
boxes containing Meals Ready to Eat (the military's field ration), filled
them with sand, then taped them shut and strapped them along the sides
of the trucks, topping them with a layer or two of sandbags.
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- Some were built up with so many boxes and sandbags that
they looked like rolling bunkers.
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- Jay Price is a reporter for the Raleigh News & Observer.
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- <http://www.startribune.com/copyright>© Copyright
2003 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
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