Insomnia ([info]insomnia) wrote,
@ 2005-08-07 09:03:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend  Next Entry
Where are the M113's?
Until I read this article, I wasn't aware that the U.S. was sitting on a large supply of M113A3 armored personnel carriers that could've been protecting soldiers for quite some time. They are supposed to be refitted and sent out to Iraq, but I haven't heard whether this has already started happening, or whether such vehicles are more or less successful than Humvees.

(14 comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]phlyto
2005-08-07 04:58 pm UTC (link)
I once spent most of my working days for four months trying to retrofit and restore a 113 that was over 25 years old. It had no working electronics, and passenger compartment was in ruins. Every time we tried to drive it the thing would function for 5 seconds to 1 hour and randomly die for no apparent reason in that time period. It leaked every kind of fluid you put into it from a dozen places, but some how managed to retain water under the deck plating when it rained...

And that was representative of every one of the older 113's I saw.

And, I think its armor was only rated to stop light to medium small arms fire. M113's are slower than armored humvees, and while 113's offer more apparent protection, they are also more vulnerable to rocket attacks and offer less options for the occupants to return fire if attacked.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]insomnia
2005-08-07 07:23 pm UTC (link)
Hm. Maybe they'd be good hand-me-downs for the Iraqis.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]garlicfiend
2005-08-07 05:07 pm UTC (link)
Personally, I think the reluctance to use 113's is all appearance. You look more scared of an attack riding around in an armored tracked vehicle. You also look more like an occupying army than a police force. A humvee, even up-armored, supposedly gives the impression that we are just riding around in cars like any other police force in the world.

There is one other consideration -- a 113 is much more difficult to drive inthe kind of chaotic crowded traffic conditions that exist in Baghdad. And any accidents that do happed are going to be that much more serious because it's a big heavy armored vehicle. Our Bradley's got in a couple "fender benders" that just destroye the cars they hit.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]booo_urns
2005-08-07 05:19 pm UTC (link)
You also look more like an occupying army than a police force. A humvee, even up-armored, supposedly gives the impression that we are just riding around in cars like any other police force in the world.


Excellent point. I had not considered that.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]phlyto
2005-08-08 01:40 am UTC (link)
Hell, Uparmored LMTV's obliterate civilian vehicles too.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]pure_agnostic
2005-08-07 05:50 pm UTC (link)
IMO, one part of the article tells more about the Bush Regime's attitude than any other:

I took a few steps out of the media area where I had been sitting, and said to Rumsefeld, "Mr. Secretary, military families think you're lying to them. Why won't you meet with them?" The Secretary ignored me as two men who appeared to be Secret Service agents aggressively removed me from the premises. I know of no other instance in which government agents have been used to physically assault a reporter for mildly questioning a public servant. None of my media brethren have so far come to my defense, despite the possibility they could be similarly bullied merely for doing their jobs.

Perhaps the Regime's henchmen don't believe in freedom of the press. As I see it, freedom of the press not only allows people to publish as they want, but also allows reporters to ask very simple questions.

(Reply to this)


[info]snarkactual
2005-08-07 06:26 pm UTC (link)
Ever been in an M113? First thing you notice is that if you have a piece of equipment like a bayonet scabbard at the back of your pistol belt or something similar it goes right through the aluminum skin if you sit down wrong. An aluminum skin which is meant to stop fragments and not bullets like the M2 Bradley the Stryker or even an up armored Humvee. The second thing you find out is that the suckers burn very easily. Back in the seventies one of my Sergeants earned a BSV (Bronze Star Medal for Valor) for pulling three survivors out of a burning M113 that had been hit. They are slow (top speed <35MPH) and the troops inside don't have any firing ports or other means of defending it when it is moving except the pintle mounted MG on top of the vehicle. A position that is at least as exposed if not more so than the gunner's position in a Gun-truck.

You're more than welcome to travel in one through Iraq if you want to. But, when I'm there, I want to be traveling in something faster, more maneuverable and if it happens to have armor, that it be designed to stop small arms fire at the very least and not burn like fresh tinder when its hit.

Everyone that I know who had M113s in one of the ARNG units that still had them was glad to be rid of them before they deployed to Iraq.

(Reply to this)


[info]tsjafo
2005-08-07 06:34 pm UTC (link)
The aluminium "armor" of an M113 can burn. Only the American "defense" industry could come up with something that stupid. Then again, the point of the M113 was never to defend our troops, the point was to make an obscene profit for our defense manufacturers. (See also: F/A-22, F-35, B-2, Next Generation Tanker Program, etc.)

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]snarkactual
2005-08-07 07:50 pm UTC (link)
LOL! The primary purpose of the DoD budget is to provide jobs for Congressional constituents as part of "patronage". That's been true almost since the beginning of the country and especially true of the Yankees in what is referred to by them as the "Civil War". It was also true of the US in WWII when obscene profits were made mass producing substandard tanks and other armored vehicles.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]john_of_arabia
2005-08-07 11:32 pm UTC (link)
Let me guess, you call it the "War of Northern Agression", right? lol

From a decendant of a member of the 10th NY Volunteer Infantry (Brooklyn)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]5hmoo
2005-08-07 11:53 pm UTC (link)
calling *any* war "civil" is laughable, when you thin about it. :)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]snarkactual
2005-08-08 12:56 am UTC (link)
Too true. Especially those types as to the best of my knowledge those seem to bring out the absolute worst in people.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]snarkactual
2005-08-08 12:55 am UTC (link)
No, the War of Yankee Aggression. ;-)

From a lineal decendant of Batu Khan and unreconstructed Southerner.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]pecunium
2005-08-10 07:34 am UTC (link)
I've seen photos of them in Iraq.

They are louder, and less manueverable than HUMMVEEs, and the number of qualified drivers is less (as well as being harder to get those drivers qualified).

They are easier to hit with an RPG too, as they are slower, and less manueverable (to say nothing of being more the size of target the RPG's sights were designed to hit).

TK

(Reply to this)

(14 comments) - (Post a new comment)

Create an Account
Forgot your login or password?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…