NAJAF, Iraq – Deafening noise, confusion and fear erupted as the roadside bomb slammed into the U.S. Army Humvee, knocking over Spc. Stephen Monti, who was manning a gun in the turret.
“Then we started checking whether we still had our 10 fingers on,” Monti recalled of the recent ambush south of Baghdad.
Not only had all four soldiers escaped injury, but the vehicle – which had been fortified by armor plating and bulletproof glass – came through with just a few dents and a cracked windshield.
“There probably would have been wounds, maybe mortal ones, in your basic Humvee,” said Monti, of St. Louis. “Every vehicle that goes out on the road should be ‘up-armored.’ Your safety is dramatically increased.”
But many in Iraq are not, and attacks against them by roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades are driving up the casualty toll.
On Sunday, a Humvee was engulfed in flames after a roadside bomb struck a U.S. convoy in eastern Baghdad, killing a U.S. soldier. It was not known if the Humvee had the extra armor.
When the war began, only about 2 percent of Army’s 110,000 Humvees were armored. Now, of the nearly 15,000 Humvees in Iraq, about 1,500 to 2,000 are armored, according to the Army. The numbers are increasing.
The Army is making a “full-court press” to locate and deliver every armored Humvee in its inventory to Iraq, said Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division. At the same time, factories are boosting production of the armored version.
In the meantime, soldiers in Iraq are making do. They’re hardening their “soft-skins,” as unarmored Humvees are called, from kits available at some bases or by getting enterprising Iraqis to whack steel sheets onto their vehicles.
An armored Humvee, the M1114, first appeared in 1993 but the Army initially ordered a few.
The Army says production is being speeded up at the Am General Plant in Mishawaka, Ind., the sole maker of the Humvee, and at O’Gara-Hess &Eisenhardt of Fairfield, Ohio, where the armor is mounted.
Copyright ©2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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