Mine-Resistant Vehicle Production Ahead of Schedule

[unhappycamper]

Mine-Resistant Vehicle Production Ahead of Schedule
American Forces Press Service | November 15, 2007

WASHINGTON – Production of mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles continues ahead of schedule, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said here today.

“For the month of October, we had hoped to produce 431 vehicles,” Morrell said during a news conference. “We have produced 452. That's 21 more than we had anticipated, which puts us overall, year-to-date, program-to-date, 34 ahead of schedule.”

The vehicles are state-of-the-art defenses against the leading killers of American troops in Iraq – improvised explosive devices and explosively formed penetrators. The V-shaped armored hull deflects explosive blasts from mines, IEDs and EFPs away from the crew compartment.

Variants of the vehicle are being produced for different mission needs, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has said there is no more important program than getting the vehicles to combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Army and Marine units use the vehicles.

The Defense Department is airlifting the vehicles into the U.S. Central Command area of operations once technicians at the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in Charleston, S.C., outfit the vehicles with radios, jammers and other equipment allowing crews to communicate inside the vehicle and identify enemy or friendly forces.

“We are also showing some progress with regards to the outfitting of these vehicles down at SPAWAR in Charleston,” Morrell said. “The time it takes to equip these vehicles with all the government-furnished equipment … has been cut down to 21 days. I think when we started this, it was about 30 days.”


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,156306,00.html

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Couldn't they use protective reaction armor for this, as with tanks? nt

[NYVet]

2. The problem is that most vehicles

drive over the IED and the flat bottoms have no way to deflect the blast to the sides. They also do not have enough ground clearance to mount an efective V- shaped blast shield on the bottom of many vehicles.

[rakeeb]

3. Reactive armor is designed to defeat anti-armor missiles

that would otherwise penetrate inches of armor prior to detonating its real payload. That's not a concern for countering IED's.