Army rushes to armor Humvees as deaths mount in Iraqi attacks

By Denis D. Gray
The Associated Press

	MUHAMMED MUHEISEN / AP An Iraqi man uses an ax on a burning U.S. Army Humvee yesterday after a roadside bomb struck a convoy in eastern Baghdad, killing a U.S. soldier. It was not known if the Humvee had extra armor.
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"Then we started checking whether we still had our 10 fingers on," Monti recalled of the recent ambush south of Baghdad.

Not only had all four soldiers escaped injury, but the vehicle — which had been fortified by armor plating and bulletproof glass — came through with just a few dents and a cracked windshield.

"There probably would have been wounds, maybe mortal ones, in your basic Humvee," said Monti, of St. Louis. "Every vehicle that goes out on the road should be 'up-armored.' Your safety is dramatically increased."

But many in Iraq are not "up-armored," and attacks against them by roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades are driving up the casualty toll. Yesterday, a Humvee was engulfed in flames after a roadside bomb struck a U.S. convoy in eastern Baghdad, killing a U.S. soldier. It was not known if the Humvee had the extra armor.

When the war began, only about 2 percent of the Army's 110,000 Humvees were armored. Now, of the nearly 15,000 Humvees in Iraq, about 1,500 to 2,000 are armored, according to the Army.

The Army is making a "full-court press" to locate and deliver every armored Humvee in its inventory to Iraq, said Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division.

"I saw an e-mail the other day that said there was one up-armored Humvee in Kosovo and they were tracking it coming here," he said.

At the same time, factories are boosting production of the armored version. The Senate passed a supplementary $239.3 million bill in November to produce 1,065 armored vehicles at a cost of $150,000 apiece, compared with about half that for a soft-skin.

Attacks on Humvees increased as Iraq became what Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. forces, calls "a 360-degree battlefield," with none of the safer rear areas of conventional warfare.

"They were not intended to be on the front lines," Dempsey said of the unarmored vehicles. "In a linear battlefield, Humvees always operated behind the front lines — in most cases even out of artillery range.

"Iraq isn't a linear battlefield. As we find ourselves in a low- to midintensity conflict, and we have all these vehicles designed for a linear battlefield, they come up short."

In the meantime, soldiers in Iraq are making do. They're hardening their "soft-skins," as unarmored Humvees are called, from kits available at some bases or by getting enterprising Iraqis to whack steel sheets onto their vehicles.

The basic M998 Humvee, or High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle, began rolling off assembly lines in 1985, replacing the venerable Jeep and variously configured to serve as a field ambulance, scout vehicle or war-zone taxi.

An armored Humvee, the M1114, first appeared in 1993. It can stop AK-47 bullets, anti-personnel rocket-propelled grenades and most roadside bombs and mines — weaponry that makes short work of the nonarmored version.

However, the Army initially ordered only a few, apparently not envisioning post-Cold War conflicts and peacekeeping missions such as Somalia, Kosovo, Haiti and Iraq, where guerrilla attacks could come anywhere and anytime.

"You can mitigate your risks in combat in a lot of ways. One active way is to up-armor. It's essential," said Capt. Brian Ducote, of Dunwoody, Ga. Re-armoring normally includes rolled steel plates for the sides, shields behind the back seats, reinforced flooring and bulletproof glass. Such refits take about a day.

"It's a great temporary fix, but they need to push the armored ones," said Staff Sgt. Brian Rasmussen, of Payson, Ariz. A soft-skin, he said, was not built to take the extra weight of the armor, which strains the suspension system and makes it hard to maneuver. Sometimes the bulletproof glass available is too thick to fit into the window frames, he said.

Units that must continue to use unarmored Humvees are coping in various ways. Sometimes the engines are tuned to allow speeds of up to 75 mph to scoot out of ambush-prone areas. And crews, including the driver, are to pull triggers more quickly in event of an ambush, or simply avoid using Humvees on risky patrols.

Some who have to ride in the soft-skins resort to prayer.

"It hasn't prevented me from going out, but whenever possible, I bum a ride in an armored Humvee. There is a little extra element of having to trust God more when going out in soft-skins," said Maj. Chip Huey, of Hattiesburg, Miss., chaplain for the 3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division.

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