Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
April 4, 2008
Pg. 1C
Georgia troops love their new MRAPs, designed to curb deaths, injuries from roadside blasts.
By Moni Basu
Baghdad, Iraq -- Staff Sgt. Jamie Linen's crew hits the road every day, taking supplies and transporting soldiers from Forward Operating Base Falcon to nearby patrol bases where Georgia-based "surge" troops of the 3rd Infantry Division are based.
Every time he rolls out of the gate, Linen thinks about the risks of roadside bombs, the No. 1 killer of American soldiers in Iraq. But since November, when the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Division received a shipment of the military's new anti-mine vehicles, Linen's confidence has been boosted.
The Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, are the new stars in the military's vehicle inventory. The 1-30 was the first 3rd Infantry Division unit to use them.
Made by International, the $658,000 trucks sit high on the road -- 36 inches off the ground -- and come with a V-shaped hull that helps deflect the impact of an improvised explosive devise.
"It is the one vehicle that gives us enough confidence to go out there," said Linen, who took a weeklong training course on operation and maintenance. "Nothing is invincible here. You got tanks with 3 feet of armor getting blown up. But the MRAPs give us a sense of security."
Spc. Robert Nowlin, who drives Linen's truck, said "the enemy is more afraid of us when we are in an MRAP."
Before the MRAPs, Nowlin's platoon in Fox Company was using up-armored Humvees. The platoon leader, 1st Lt. Mark Little, is recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center after an IED blast blew both his legs off last year. It's difficult to speculate, but Linen and Nowlin said that perhaps Little would not be in prosthetics right now had he been in an MRAP.
Besides the heavy armor and state-of-the-art design, the MRAPs come loaded with safety features, including a fire suppression system that protects every part of the truck and a pressurized cab built to withstand a nuclear or biological attack.
The seats have shoulder harnesses, and the doors operate on a hydraulic system so that in a rollover, soldiers don't have to push their way out of doors that weigh up to 1,000 pounds. That was a common complaint with the up-armored Humvees, whose doors weighed 700 pounds.
The MRAP's dashboard and steering wheel look and feel more like one of a semi rather than a military vehicle. It has power adaptors, power steering, heating and, best of all, decent air conditioning. Compare that with a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, which has no cooling system. In the middle of an Iraqi summer, the heat in the back of a Bradley can rise above 140 degrees.
The only thing the MRAP lacks, joked Sgt. Luke Hitchcock of the 1-30th's Bravo Company, is cup holders.
"I'm not going to lie. It was fun," Hitchcock said of his experience at MRAP training. "You feel like you're in a monster truck."
As of Dec. 11, 900 MRAPs were under contract with plans to build up to 15,374 of them.
More than 1,500 are already in circulation in Iraq.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters in December that "these armored trucks ... have been the military's top acquisition priority for months now, and with good reason."
The MRAPs stand 12 feet tall and can hold four to six people in the main cab along with a driver, a truck commander and the gunner, who is the most vulnerable in the exposed hatch.
In fact, the only MRAP casualty in Iraq so far was a gunner in the 1-30 Infantry. Spc. Richard Burress died Jan. 19 when his MRAP rolled over a 300-pound bomb. The other soldiers in the MRAP survived with broken bones and cuts.
"We're the luckiest battalion in the world," said Lt. Col. Kenneth Adgie, 1-30 commander. "If that bomb had hit any other vehicle, it would've killed every soldier."
Adgie said the height of the MRAP can be a hindrance. The antennas sometimes pull down power lines -- not a good move in counterinsurgency operations when soldiers are trying to win over the hearts and minds of the Iraqis.
"It's a great vehicle, a tremendous vehicle," Adgie said. "But there is no perfect vehicle."
From the start, the insurgency here has been a game of one-upmanship.
As Americans introduce more heavily armored vehicles, the insurgents come up with more powerful and sophisticated bombs.
U.S. forces here worry that there will be a bomb powerful enough to overcome the MRAP. But for now, soldiers such as Linen and Nowlin wouldn't trade their truck for anything.
April 4, 2008
Pg. 1C
Georgia troops love their new MRAPs, designed to curb deaths, injuries from roadside blasts.
By Moni Basu
Baghdad, Iraq -- Staff Sgt. Jamie Linen's crew hits the road every day, taking supplies and transporting soldiers from Forward Operating Base Falcon to nearby patrol bases where Georgia-based "surge" troops of the 3rd Infantry Division are based.
Every time he rolls out of the gate, Linen thinks about the risks of roadside bombs, the No. 1 killer of American soldiers in Iraq. But since November, when the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Division received a shipment of the military's new anti-mine vehicles, Linen's confidence has been boosted.
The Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, are the new stars in the military's vehicle inventory. The 1-30 was the first 3rd Infantry Division unit to use them.
Made by International, the $658,000 trucks sit high on the road -- 36 inches off the ground -- and come with a V-shaped hull that helps deflect the impact of an improvised explosive devise.
"It is the one vehicle that gives us enough confidence to go out there," said Linen, who took a weeklong training course on operation and maintenance. "Nothing is invincible here. You got tanks with 3 feet of armor getting blown up. But the MRAPs give us a sense of security."
Spc. Robert Nowlin, who drives Linen's truck, said "the enemy is more afraid of us when we are in an MRAP."
Before the MRAPs, Nowlin's platoon in Fox Company was using up-armored Humvees. The platoon leader, 1st Lt. Mark Little, is recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center after an IED blast blew both his legs off last year. It's difficult to speculate, but Linen and Nowlin said that perhaps Little would not be in prosthetics right now had he been in an MRAP.
Besides the heavy armor and state-of-the-art design, the MRAPs come loaded with safety features, including a fire suppression system that protects every part of the truck and a pressurized cab built to withstand a nuclear or biological attack.
The seats have shoulder harnesses, and the doors operate on a hydraulic system so that in a rollover, soldiers don't have to push their way out of doors that weigh up to 1,000 pounds. That was a common complaint with the up-armored Humvees, whose doors weighed 700 pounds.
The MRAP's dashboard and steering wheel look and feel more like one of a semi rather than a military vehicle. It has power adaptors, power steering, heating and, best of all, decent air conditioning. Compare that with a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, which has no cooling system. In the middle of an Iraqi summer, the heat in the back of a Bradley can rise above 140 degrees.
The only thing the MRAP lacks, joked Sgt. Luke Hitchcock of the 1-30th's Bravo Company, is cup holders.
"I'm not going to lie. It was fun," Hitchcock said of his experience at MRAP training. "You feel like you're in a monster truck."
As of Dec. 11, 900 MRAPs were under contract with plans to build up to 15,374 of them.
More than 1,500 are already in circulation in Iraq.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters in December that "these armored trucks ... have been the military's top acquisition priority for months now, and with good reason."
The MRAPs stand 12 feet tall and can hold four to six people in the main cab along with a driver, a truck commander and the gunner, who is the most vulnerable in the exposed hatch.
In fact, the only MRAP casualty in Iraq so far was a gunner in the 1-30 Infantry. Spc. Richard Burress died Jan. 19 when his MRAP rolled over a 300-pound bomb. The other soldiers in the MRAP survived with broken bones and cuts.
"We're the luckiest battalion in the world," said Lt. Col. Kenneth Adgie, 1-30 commander. "If that bomb had hit any other vehicle, it would've killed every soldier."
Adgie said the height of the MRAP can be a hindrance. The antennas sometimes pull down power lines -- not a good move in counterinsurgency operations when soldiers are trying to win over the hearts and minds of the Iraqis.
"It's a great vehicle, a tremendous vehicle," Adgie said. "But there is no perfect vehicle."
From the start, the insurgency here has been a game of one-upmanship.
As Americans introduce more heavily armored vehicles, the insurgents come up with more powerful and sophisticated bombs.
U.S. forces here worry that there will be a bomb powerful enough to overcome the MRAP. But for now, soldiers such as Linen and Nowlin wouldn't trade their truck for anything.