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Re: [OM] Question I proposed on RFF

Subject: Re: [OM] Question I proposed on RFF
From: ClassicVW@xxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2013 15:27:12 -0500 (EST)
I recall when the Humvee was introduced and trumpeted as the Jeep  
replacement. Think of what the Jeep was, and you wouldn't be as surprised as 
the  
Army brass was when our guys were being killed by plain old gunfire and the  
vehicle was destroyed by mines, RPGs  and roadside bombs. Then they decided  
to put a gun on the roof and have the guy that handles that weapon be 
completely  out in the open and exposed. 
 
Much later on, after all these losses did they come up with the armored  
Humvee and some other mine resistant armored vehicle with a vee bottom.
 
In the government's defense, urban warfare is a relatively new concept and  
it takes probably 10-15 years to propose, design, get funded from congress 
and  build a new vehicle. So, many got caught off guard by urban warfare 
being the  new norm. Heck, it was only 15 years prior to the first Gulf War 
that we were  still doing it the old fashioned way in Vietnam, area bombing 
with B-52s. But  you'd think that someone in all those think-tanks we employ 
could have seen it  coming.
 
Today, if you fight a war like we did in WWII, you'd be prosecuted as a war 
 criminal for all the civilian deaths you caused. The flip side to that is, 
if we  fought WWII like we fight wars now, we'd still be fighting WWII.
 
George
 
On 31  Dec 2012, at 20:37, Chris Crawford <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>  
wrote:

> The answer is that the Iraq war was largely an urban war,  and tracked 
APCs
> can damage paved roads in cities. Remember, we were  supposed to be
> 'liberating' Iraq, not destroying its cities (though we  did a lot of
> that). I wonder why the Army didn't have an armored  version of the Humvee
> or some other APC more suited to urban  warfare?

-- 
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