As we watch our national treasure of blood and money sink into the sands of Mr Bu$h’s ego-war in Iraq, it’s useful to understand the mechanics of why our MRAPs will end up costing at least twice the amount (some $20 Billion) they were sold for. Part of that $20 Billion will be increased by the costs of flying these beasts to Iraq. This is a necessary cost because blood is far more expensive than money and the troops need these vehicles two years ago.

For some presently unexplained reason, when the Marines in Iraq started asking for them back in late 2004 the requests were ignored at the Pentagon. I speculated elsewhere that it was felt they would arrive after our Iraq conquest was completed – “cakewalk” and all – but then I am exceptionally cynical after watching the Bu$h malAdministration for six and one-half years. Don’t mind me – your mileage may vary.

The problem started with our thin-skinned HumVees, which were very susceptible to RPGs and simple IEDs. The resistance had a lot of them, because as we conquered Iraq ammunition bunkers weren’t deemed worth guarding. Only the Oil Ministry, with its precious oil field maps, was deemed worth protecting.

So the bunkers got looted and it was “game on.”

The quick answer to the RPGs was simple armor plating – first “hillbilly armor” scavenged at dumps by desperate GIs until the Pentagon finally got some bolt-on plates made and shipped into Iraq.

A large part of military history has been the technological struggle between weapons makers and their opponents, armor makers. Each new weapon produced a defensive counter, which was then eventually overcome by a new weapon. Wax on, wax off.

This hillbilly armor was defeated by the first IEDs, courtesy of the thousands of tons of explosives that Messers Cheney and Rumsfeld did not feel were worth guarding. IEDs buried in a road beat hillbilly armor and bolt-on plates, which only protected the sides of HumVees. The way to defeat these buried IEDs is to travel slowly and keep a good watch on all suspicious points, which of course made you vulnerable to the gun and RPG ambush. A second response to IED hunting is the secondary booby trap. The troops see a suspicious spot, halt to call up the OED people and they are vulnerable to a better-hidden command detonated bomb.

The troops started asking for better armor protection and the Stryker vehicle, which was already in the procurement and deployment pipeline, was sent to Iraq with newly deployed brigades. They were vulnerable to larger IEDs and EFPs, which began slowly making an appearance in the cities and roads of an unpacified Iraq. The very large IED and many EFPs can defeat any armor plating, including the Chobham armor on our M1A2 Abrams tanks, said to be the best battle tank in the world.

How did we get to this point?

The use of the Abrams tank for urban pacification is a radical step because tanks are not optimized for urban combat. They are too vulnerable. We saw more EFPs and still larger IEDs incorporating aircraft bombs – 2000 pound bombs capable of tipping an Abrams or Bradley fighting vehicle on its side.

A predictable step, of course since EFPs can defeat most armor systems. They have defeated the special Chobham armor on M1A1 Abrams tanks. You’d expect them to crack standard armor.

Before and during WWII vehicles were armored with successive series of steel plates. To beat that, cannon makers developed guns with longer barrels, and a slightly smaller muzzle in order to produce a higher muzzle velocity. Ammunition makers created hardened steel caps to enable the projectile to penetrate the plates.

Armor makers developed a new idea, sloping the armor, which gave the benefit of automatically making the armor thicker at no additional cost in steel or weight carried by the vehicle. If you studied geometry in school, you’ll remember that the hypotenuse of a right triangle is larger than the other dimensions.

Image - Wikipedia.com

The answer to this was to make anti-tank guns larger, with longer barrels for still higher muzzle velocities, and the tank mafia just made armor thicker. One response to this was to add additional layers of steel, with an air space between them. The energy of the explosion penetrates the outer armor layer, but doesn’t have enough punch to defeat the vehicle’s armor.

The Germans developed a hollow charge explosive device to attack the huge reinforced concrete forts that guarded Belgium at the Meuse river. These were followed by shaped charges. This is the secret to how the EFPs work. The explosion melts an inner core, often copper, and focuses it as a jet of molten metal that burns right through the armor.

During the Cold War forces on both sides developed reactive armor – an outer layer of small explosive boxes that dissipated the effects of the molten jet upon contact.

The best current solution to defeat shaped charges and EFPs is still an outer layer to cause the round to explode on contact with that outer layer. The US Army and Marines have had some success in Iraq and Afghanistan against RPGs by putting “cage” armor on their vehicles. This causes the projectile to explode before it strikes the vehicle.

As we struggle to enforce our occupation, and uparmor our new MRAPs to defeat the EFPs used by the resistance they will most likely just produce more EFPs, and bigger ones.

It looks like the resistance in Iraq might continue for many years, until we either leave and give these people back their country, or until we have killed so many of them that the survivors will be too few, and too weak, to resist.

Main & Central Articles on MRAPs

Mine Resistant Vehicles

17,700 MRAPs

Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae

A Minor MRAP Problem

The Super-MRAP

The Cougar MRAP

Baby Huey Needs Feeding

What Does the JIEDDO Do?

MRAPs Go Mainstream

MRAPs AirShipped to Iraq

MRAPs Get Bad Press From Pentagon

The Struggle Between Armor and the Projectile