Army Designs Brand-New Armor Kit for Humvee
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Reported by Sandra I. Erwin
By next summer, the Army expects to begin shipping a newly redesigned
armor kit for Humvee trucks in Iraq. That appliqué armor
will offer the same level of protection currently available only
in factory-armored Humvees. The armor will be made with a steel-aluminum
alloy and will be far easier to install than current kits, said
Richard McClelland, director of the Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments
Command’s research, development and engineering center.
Protecting U.S. troops from roadside bombs in Iraq increasingly
has become more difficult, as insurgents continue to beef up the
size of the explosives they use, said Army Brig. Gen. Carter Ham,
commander of the Multinational Brigade-Northwest. In number and
frequency, improvised bombs have decreased, “but the lethality
has remained very, very high,” he told reporters. “We
are seeing larger amounts of explosives … different types
of penetrators, different techniques of triggering the events.”