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06-30-2010, 11:55 AM
Use of Humvees restricted in Afghanistan
By Tom Vanden Brook - USA Today
Posted : Wednesday Jun 30, 2010 10:35:08 EDT
WASHINGTON — Top commanders in Afghanistan have further tightened restrictions on the use of vulnerable vehicles after roadside bomb attacks that have killed eight U.S. soldiers since late May.
The new rules come as attacks from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have spiked to record levels and insurgents create ever more lethal bombs.
One of those bombs killed five soldiers June 7 when it destroyed their Humvee in eastern Afghanistan.
The Humvee’s fatal flaw, a 2008 Pentagon inspector general’s report found, is that its “flat bottom, low weight, low ground clearance and aluminum body” leave it vulnerable to IEDs buried in roads. Military officials had known of that weakness since 1994, according to the report.
At the time of the attack in June, troops needed at least a lieutenant colonel to approve leaving a protected base in a Humvee, according to Maj. Patrick Seiber, an Army spokesman for forces in eastern Afghanistan.
This month, the commander of coalition forces in the region raised the authorization for Humvee use to the level of colonel, Seiber said in an e-mail.
The change by Maj. Gen. John Campbell, commander of Combined Joint Task Force-101, had been discussed for some time, Seiber said, and was not simply a reaction to the attack.
The bombing, like all attacks that result in troop deaths, is under investigation by the military, Seiber said.
The new requirement for a colonel’s authorization is an overreaction to tragic events, said Dakota Wood, a military analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He noted that a lieutenant colonel has about 20 years of experience.
Sergeants and junior officers often have the most relevant experience in combat, Wood said. Top officers should rely on their subordinates’ judgment about the danger on roads and the vehicles required for Afghanistan’s rugged terrain, he said.
“Out of concern for high casualty levels because of roadside bombs, senior leaders appear to be taking decisions out of the hands of subordinates,” Wood said.
Roadside bomb attacks have soared in Afghanistan.
The 1,128 IED attacks in May were more than double the same month in 2009, according to the Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization. Attacks that wounded or killed coalition troops increased by 205 percent.
Those bombs killed 134 servicemembers from January through May and wounded 1,052, records show.
A suicide car-bomb attack on an armored sport-utility vehicle in Kabul on May 18 killed a U.S. colonel, a Canadian colonel and two U.S. lieutenant colonels. The attack killed the most high-ranking U.S. officers since the war began in 2001.
Col. Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for the military leadership in Kabul, said commanders continually assess insurgent threats and take measures to protect troops.
Commanders have to balance protection with conducting the counterinsurgency campaign, he said.
“We have to convince the Afghan people we are here to help their government and them,” Shanks said in an e-mail. “You can’t do that from inside an armored vehicle. No amount of armor protection will protect troops from some of the IEDs we’ve seen in the recent months.”
The military’s newest defense against IEDs — an all-terrain armored truck — has helped troops survive dozens of attacks in Afghanistan and could help defuse the insurgents’ most effective weapon against coalition troops, according to military officials and analysts.
The all-terrain version of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle was designed specifically for Afghanistan’s poor roads and rugged terrain.
The MRAPs produced for Iraq aren’t nimble enough for much of Afghanistan, and their ride was bone-jarring for troops in the back, said Marine Brig. Gen. Michael Brogan, who leads the Pentagon effort to field the trucks for Afghanistan.
The first all-terrain MRAPs arrived in Afghanistan late last year.
A Marine battalion commander in restive Helmand province reported that insurgents had destroyed 50 of the all-terrain vehicles with improvised explosive devices, Brogan said. The most serious wound suffered in the attacks was a bad concussion. Nobody died, the commander told Brogan in an e-mail. The trucks have seats for four troops and a turret for a gunner.
“The troops really love these vehicles,” Brogan said.
Navy Capt. Jack Hanzlik, a Central Command spokesman, said there have been about 200 IED attacks against the all-terrain MRAPs between January and June. The attacks resulted in several deaths and a number of injuries, but the death and injury rates would have been much more significant had troops not been in those vehicles, Hanzlik said.
Commanders have issued urgent requests for more than 8,000 of the trucks to protect troops from roadside bombs. About 3,000 of the vehicles are in Afghanistan, and the remainder will arrive in November.
Their raised chassis and V-shaped bottoms can protect troops by putting them farther from the blast and deflecting its force.
The vehicles’ off-road ability makes U.S. forces less predictable, Brogan said.
“We can make the targeting challenge more difficult for the enemy,” he said. “If we can go where they’re not expecting us, you might not run into a bomb.”
The trucks have the potential to be “hugely important” in defeating the insurgency, said Michael O’Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution, a think tank.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/06/gns_humvee_restriction_063010/
By Tom Vanden Brook - USA Today
Posted : Wednesday Jun 30, 2010 10:35:08 EDT
WASHINGTON — Top commanders in Afghanistan have further tightened restrictions on the use of vulnerable vehicles after roadside bomb attacks that have killed eight U.S. soldiers since late May.
The new rules come as attacks from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have spiked to record levels and insurgents create ever more lethal bombs.
One of those bombs killed five soldiers June 7 when it destroyed their Humvee in eastern Afghanistan.
The Humvee’s fatal flaw, a 2008 Pentagon inspector general’s report found, is that its “flat bottom, low weight, low ground clearance and aluminum body” leave it vulnerable to IEDs buried in roads. Military officials had known of that weakness since 1994, according to the report.
At the time of the attack in June, troops needed at least a lieutenant colonel to approve leaving a protected base in a Humvee, according to Maj. Patrick Seiber, an Army spokesman for forces in eastern Afghanistan.
This month, the commander of coalition forces in the region raised the authorization for Humvee use to the level of colonel, Seiber said in an e-mail.
The change by Maj. Gen. John Campbell, commander of Combined Joint Task Force-101, had been discussed for some time, Seiber said, and was not simply a reaction to the attack.
The bombing, like all attacks that result in troop deaths, is under investigation by the military, Seiber said.
The new requirement for a colonel’s authorization is an overreaction to tragic events, said Dakota Wood, a military analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He noted that a lieutenant colonel has about 20 years of experience.
Sergeants and junior officers often have the most relevant experience in combat, Wood said. Top officers should rely on their subordinates’ judgment about the danger on roads and the vehicles required for Afghanistan’s rugged terrain, he said.
“Out of concern for high casualty levels because of roadside bombs, senior leaders appear to be taking decisions out of the hands of subordinates,” Wood said.
Roadside bomb attacks have soared in Afghanistan.
The 1,128 IED attacks in May were more than double the same month in 2009, according to the Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization. Attacks that wounded or killed coalition troops increased by 205 percent.
Those bombs killed 134 servicemembers from January through May and wounded 1,052, records show.
A suicide car-bomb attack on an armored sport-utility vehicle in Kabul on May 18 killed a U.S. colonel, a Canadian colonel and two U.S. lieutenant colonels. The attack killed the most high-ranking U.S. officers since the war began in 2001.
Col. Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for the military leadership in Kabul, said commanders continually assess insurgent threats and take measures to protect troops.
Commanders have to balance protection with conducting the counterinsurgency campaign, he said.
“We have to convince the Afghan people we are here to help their government and them,” Shanks said in an e-mail. “You can’t do that from inside an armored vehicle. No amount of armor protection will protect troops from some of the IEDs we’ve seen in the recent months.”
The military’s newest defense against IEDs — an all-terrain armored truck — has helped troops survive dozens of attacks in Afghanistan and could help defuse the insurgents’ most effective weapon against coalition troops, according to military officials and analysts.
The all-terrain version of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle was designed specifically for Afghanistan’s poor roads and rugged terrain.
The MRAPs produced for Iraq aren’t nimble enough for much of Afghanistan, and their ride was bone-jarring for troops in the back, said Marine Brig. Gen. Michael Brogan, who leads the Pentagon effort to field the trucks for Afghanistan.
The first all-terrain MRAPs arrived in Afghanistan late last year.
A Marine battalion commander in restive Helmand province reported that insurgents had destroyed 50 of the all-terrain vehicles with improvised explosive devices, Brogan said. The most serious wound suffered in the attacks was a bad concussion. Nobody died, the commander told Brogan in an e-mail. The trucks have seats for four troops and a turret for a gunner.
“The troops really love these vehicles,” Brogan said.
Navy Capt. Jack Hanzlik, a Central Command spokesman, said there have been about 200 IED attacks against the all-terrain MRAPs between January and June. The attacks resulted in several deaths and a number of injuries, but the death and injury rates would have been much more significant had troops not been in those vehicles, Hanzlik said.
Commanders have issued urgent requests for more than 8,000 of the trucks to protect troops from roadside bombs. About 3,000 of the vehicles are in Afghanistan, and the remainder will arrive in November.
Their raised chassis and V-shaped bottoms can protect troops by putting them farther from the blast and deflecting its force.
The vehicles’ off-road ability makes U.S. forces less predictable, Brogan said.
“We can make the targeting challenge more difficult for the enemy,” he said. “If we can go where they’re not expecting us, you might not run into a bomb.”
The trucks have the potential to be “hugely important” in defeating the insurgency, said Michael O’Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution, a think tank.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/06/gns_humvee_restriction_063010/