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The War in Iraq: Weapons
Mad Max Does Baghdad
by James Dunnigan
August 26, 2004
Discussion Board on this DLS topic
Since March, 2003, army mechanics in Iraq and Kuwait have installed 8,000 armor kits, 2,000 aid conditioners and 4,500 bulletproof windshields in trucks and hummers. The units that do this work are sometimes called “Mad Max Shops” (after the armored vehicles in the Mel Gibson movie of the same name.) The mechanics also do all sorts of modifications, many of them experimental (some work, some don’t). The Mad Max Shops work at night, as the metal becomes too hot to pick up and handle by day. The preferred material for armoring vehicles is a Swedish steel/nickel/chromium alloy called Hardox 400. It costs $1,200 a (40x120 inch) sheet, but is popular because the 10mm thick steel is really good at stopping bullets and bomb blast fragments. There are also commercial armoring kits, and bullet and blast resistant stick-on material. But the Hardox 400 armor is preferred. This corrosion and wear resistant metal was developed for industrial uses, and not only is tough, but looks and feels tough. The Mad Max shops stay in business because they can do custom work, and basically solve protection problems that armored kits or stick-on materials cannot. This is especially the case with outsize vehicles, like heavy trucks and tank transporters. The Mad Max mechanics can cut Hardox steel to fit just about anything.
Other equipment mods are made in these shops as well. Some large trucks are fitted with battering rams, the better to plow through roadblocks that attempt to halt a convoy in an ambush. Fence like structruere are sometimes installed, to protect against RPG warheads. There are still several thousand vehicles equipped with BFT (Blue Force Tracker). This system, so useful during the initial invasion of Iraq, continues to save lives by allowing users to instantly know where other BFT equipped vehicles are, and to IM (Instant Message) them. The BFT equipment requires maintenance, and the installation of upgrades. But it is seen as a really useful, and often lifesaving, piece of equipment. When the radios don’t work, BFT usually will (because it uses a satellite phone link).
August 14, 2004: A U.S. Army Stryker brigade stationed in the north of Iraq, around Mosul, for eight months so far, has proved itself quite capable in combat. The Stryker armored vehicles are controversial, mainly because they are new, and are light armored vehicles that move via wheels, rather than tracks. The Strykers are also catching a lot of criticism for the usual problems a new combat vehicle encounters. The Stryker brigade equipment exchanged a lot of armor protection and heavy weapons for more electronics and communications equipment. The brigade has an initial version of the “battlefield Internet” that the army is slowly putting together. The action in and around Mosul is not as heavy as it is down around Baghdad. But there are heavily armed Baath party diehards and al Qaeda terrorists up in Mosul. Thus the Stryker brigade has seen a lot of action, some of it quite heavy. It was thought that the Strykers would be very vulnerable to RPGs, but only two vehicles have been lost that way so far. In some actions, platoons (four vehicles) of Strykers had dozens of RPGs fired at them with no serious damage. The protection on the Strykers has been up to the job, but the troops, and hostile Iraqis, have also noted that the Strykers are faster, and quieter, than armored vehicles. This turns out to be a battlefield advantage, something American troops had forgotten about. The last large scale use of wheeled armored vehicles by American troops was in World War II. Some of the details of how those vehicles could be used had apparently been forgotten. A wheeled armored vehicle can more quickly move out of an ambush, or any other kind of trouble. Wheeled armored vehicles also make a lot less noise. The “track laying system” is inherently noisy, wheel’s are not. Strykers can sneak up on the bad guys, an M-2 Bradley or M-1 tank cannot.
The troops in the Stryker Brigade are trained to same high standards of all American infantry, which means soldiers capable of operating at high speed. The Stryker brigade has a new communications system that allows for speedier operations. Whether it’s getting out of an ambush, or getting into position for a raid or attack, the extra speed leaves the enemy at a disadvantage.
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