Patriot Performance Materials in Sanford, NC is manufacturing armor systems for the HMMWV's as well as the 5-tons. They are also supposedly retrofitting a hanger in Baghdad to perform the work on a DOD contract. I was made privy to this information a couple weeks ago while touring their manufacturing facility.

I do not know if it was completely accurate or him blowing smoke, but there were several HMMWV's in the shop that had undergone some extensive work and testing out at Range 37.

Crip

Going back a little, I have never agreed with the "citizen soldier" concept. I know I am in the minority on this and will probably be flamed.

I have nothing against the NG and reserves or regular units. The all have fine people in them and they sacrifice a lot when called on. Most of them do a good job.

Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but you are either a citizen or a soldier. When I was on an A Team, we were one tiny step from jail all the time when at home - mostly because we didn't sign the social contract. We had our own rules, the rules of the regiment like the man said. We didn't talk to reporters or even anybody that wasn't wearing a green hat unless it was to tell them to shut the fook up or get us another beer.

Downrange was a different story of course.

And we had rights - the right to STFU and do what the leadership said and the right to conduct the mission.

A lot of the citizen soldiers appear to be more citizen than soldier. And probably correctly so. I'm not sure its fair to ask a person to leave normal society, where he is protected and has rights and plays by their rules - to go to another society like ours. And the JAG guys and the non-combat leadership tries to make that line fainter and fainter every day. Nice people usually do well in society, They have lots of friends, they have cocktail parties, they go to the theater and on vacations.

I never really knew any nice people in Group or the Spec Ops coomunity in general. Not nice by regular society standards. Seems like everyone was always one step away from a fist fight (at a minimum) there was no slack for anything, you were judged and criticized constantly and the "teasing" could be merciless. (I really miss it all). I don't think I ever heard anyone say "Old so and so, he's a nice guy." Good guy yes, but not nice.

These kids seem to be under the mistaken impression that they matter, that they have rights as individuals. Soldiers are chess pieces. We are disposable (woe be unto him that abuses). Anyone that thinks they matter as an individual is sadly mistaken and needs to look for another hobby.

Group is the only place I ever heard even the clergy say, "Stop sniveling you cry baby!"

This whole concept of pay as you go, soldier on call is misguided for the kind of conflicts we have today. Anytime there is not a direct invasion of the US, there will be a significant group questioning the purpose. There will be those that want the benefits without having to pay the price. That think the recruiter owes them something. The dirty little wars need to be fought by people that like that kind of thing.

You don't read a lot about anti-war protests before the draftees started going to Vietnam. I don't remember a lot of picketing and handwringing over the Rangers and Operators in Somalia, Panama, Grenada, El Sal etc. Yes, there were protests, but about imperialism, not troop losses or armor. Nobody seems to get too upset when its just us. Maybe we need to look at that a little bit.

I agree 99.9998%, the exception being the 19th & 20th SF Groups.

There are other units in the RC/NG that are not SOF that are doing an outstanding job. While my former NG would not be one of them they do exist.

Well said NDD. I also think that it is all a matter of mind set. If you go outside on a quite evening, even where you are located, and listen closely you will hear a low wailing sound similiar to the sniveling of an army of rats eating onions and it is coming from Vermont. You cannot believe the wailing and sobbing over the deployment of about 1000 NG folks, many of them who joined only for the social aspect and the extra pay check. Now that it is time to pay the piper they are literally about to revolt. What is so disconceting is the total lack of understanding about what the military even is or what the troops are even about. What it has all basically come down to is the loss of family income while daddy and mommy are away slaying bad guys. It has nothing to do with service to the country or the fact that this is what military folks do. To listen to them you would think that Vermont has been stripped bare of its ability to defend itself from the French and Indians that are now bound to sweep down from Canada to avenge the loss of their fur trading routes. I can't actually fault the mind set in the guard up here, just look at what the marketing tells them. One weekend a month and one month a year, etc, etc, etc. Join up and we'll send you to college, etc, etc, etc. I had the opportunity (not that I wanted it) to do the advisor thing for the 12th SFG back in the early 80s. They had some good troops and some good teams, but it was a frigging social club. They spent more time figuring out where they were going to go to eat in the evening then they did training. They loved to jump, but hated to train seriously in some of the units. I broke their bubble the first weekend they all showed up for drill at the group headquarters when I closed down thier big old DZ and made them jump on a small horse farm where they actually had to manuever their chutes and walk for a mile to turn in their chutes. It took me a while to find the smallest acceptable DZ I could and I named it Cairn DZ. They thought it was because of the small piles of rocks they had to avoid, but actually it was because when I was surveying it I had my dog, a small Cairn Terrier, with me and she took a dump on it dead center. It took me almost 2 years to get them back on track at the headquarters and it was always an uphill battle. But, as I said, there were good teams also and well motivated but most still had that part time dedication for something that required a full time commitment. After the requirement for SFAS and full Q course requirements started for all components I saw a distinct change in force for the better, but you cannot turn off and on the warrior spirit and most of us are not accepted in polite society and from what I have seen I am glad I never will be accepted. I think the best example of what you are talking about from a personal perspective was when I processed thru the VA once I retired. After a battery of exams and tests they told me if I was going to be integrated back into society I needed to go back to school because I possessed neither the skills or the "social graces" that would enable me to succeed as a civilian. So I went back to school and terrorized the faculty to the point where I revamped their ideas to the point where they turned over some classes to me and did all that they could to get me thru the program so that they could get back to teaching theories and avoid application in the real world when it came to management and leadership. But I digress.

Jack Moroney

All the Terries I've spoken to here were over the moon to be deployed for Timor. Mind you, you have to do it for the love of it since the pay is something like $50NZ a day.

For those members here who are not fluent in Kiwi, I think you were referring to the Territorial Guard, the Commonwealth equivalent of the National Guard or Army Reserve here.

Mr. Moroney, I think that you have to admit that those citizen soldiers when they return will likely have a significantly different attitude than when they left, hopefully a more realistic one.

Besides, people in that part of the country have a long history of being strong willed and anti-government. :D

TR

Sorry guys, should have been clearer. TR is right, it's the Territorial Forces.

Mr. Moroney, damn that is a little formal.

It is not the citizen soldier's attitudes, they are fine. Guess I didn't make that clear but then I was still on my first cup of coffee. The whiners belong to the citizens who for the most part don't even know where SWA is and vote continuously for the only socialist (Bernie Sanders) in congress year after year. The last time I saw so much crying and wailing was when they found out that Lake Champlain's legendary monster "Champ" did not exist.

Jack Moroney-sole survivor of MR Moroney :)

Sir,
I would argue, albeit not having been there, that it is indeed the citizen soldier's attitudes, at least in this case.

Armor seems to be a good thing and I am in favor of increasing soldier survivability by all means. It seems there is a defensive mindset being embedded here. Friends have told accounts of IADs for vehicle ambush being to take cover behind the armored vehicles and wait for help. I have also been told the Marines have fewer ambushes because they have a different IAD.

It would seem to me that armor is the latest magic bullet.

I wonder what will be said when 99.9% of all vehicles are armored and the BGs use bigger devices and there are still KIAs? Didn't we lose some Abrams tanks? The most advanced armored vehicle on the planet? Haven't Strykers been lost to RPGs? The newset armored vehicle in the inventory?

The only sure I know of to keep the BG from killing me is to kill that bastard first. Or not be where he can get to me. They aren't saying much about this IED Task Force, but the concept seems sound and the way to go.

Let's get the handover done and get out.

Does this mean we shortly can start calling you "Mr. Reaper"? :munchin

Mmm, good popcorn. :D

I agree, I was refering not to those over there but those here that are all fired up to go. The NG here have shown positive attitudes.

As far as armor goes and having had the misfortune to have started my career in an armored division, there is some rediculous feeling of invincibility by the troops when they are riding around the battlefield surrounded by several layers of homosexual steel. The same thing happens when someone straps on a vest for the first time or snuggles up behind a blast shield. That all quickly evaporates when the first round goes off and folks realize that there is nothing that is going to stop everything and that no one, regardless of what they are riding in or wearing is invulnerable. Damn, molotov cocktails work well. Huddling around a downed vehicle and sitting there instead of trying to get your butt to a better position or taking the fight to the assailant only fixes you for further incoming and incompacitates you just as much as if you have been hit. Now I can understand that if that is the only thing available and you can return fire of call in fire but not just to sit there waiting to be slaughtered. Don't get me started on the Stryker, that vehicle is the latest gama goat as far as I am concerned.

Jack Moroney

I'm glad we agree sir.

Me too. The two people I never want pissed off at me are a Team Sergeant or an SF Medic. :D

Jack Moroney

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/07/in...tml?oref=login

Article on the amror question

You have to login, I used bugmenot.


Many Missteps Tied to Delay in Armor for Troops in Iraq
By MICHAEL MOSS

Published: March 7, 2005

he war in Iraq was hardly a month old in April 2003 when an Army general in charge of equipping soldiers with protective gear threw the brakes on buying bulletproof vests.

The general, Richard A. Cody, who led a Pentagon group called the Army Strategic Planning Board, had been told by supply chiefs that the combat troops already had all the armor they needed, according to Army officials and records from the board's meetings. Some 50,000 other American soldiers, who were not on the front lines of battle, could do without.

In the following weeks, as Iraqi snipers and suicide bombers stepped up deadly attacks, often directed at those very soldiers behind the front lines, General Cody realized the Army's mistake and did an about-face. On May 15, 2003, he ordered the budget office to buy all the bulletproof vests it could, according to an Army report. He would give one to every soldier, "regardless of duty position."

But the delays were only beginning. The initial misstep, as well as other previously undisclosed problems, show that the Pentagon's difficulties in shielding troops and their vehicles with armor have been far more extensive and intractable than officials have acknowledged, according to government officials, contractors and Defense Department records.

In the case of body armor, the Pentagon gave a contract for thousands of the ceramic plate inserts that make the vests bulletproof to a former Army researcher who had never mass-produced anything. He struggled for a year, then gave up entirely. At the same time, in shipping plates from other companies, the Army's equipment manager effectively reduced the armor's priority to the status of socks, a confidential report by the Army's inspector general shows. Some 10,000 plates were lost along the way, and the rest arrived late.

In all, with additional paperwork delays, the Defense Department took 167 days just to start getting the bulletproof vests to soldiers in Iraq once General Cody placed the order. But for thousands of soldiers, it took weeks and even months more, records show, at a time when the Iraqi insurgency was intensifying and American casualties were mounting.

By contrast, when the United States' allies in Iraq also realized they needed more bulletproof vests, they bypassed the Pentagon and ordered directly from a manufacturer in Michigan. They began getting armor in just 12 days.

The issue of whether American troops were adequately protected received wide attention in December, when an Army National Guard member complained to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that troops were scrounging for armor to fortify their Humvees and other vehicles. The Pentagon has maintained that it has moved steadfastly to protect all its troops in Iraq.

But an examination of the issues involving the protective shielding and other critical equipment shows how a supply problem seen as an emergency on the ground in Iraq was treated as a routine procurement matter back in Washington.

While all soldiers eventually received plates for their vests, the Army is still scrambling to find new materials to better protect the 10,000 Humvees in Iraq that were not built for combat conditions. They are re-enforced by simple steel plates that cannot withstand the increasingly potent explosives being used by the insurgents, according to contractors who are working to develop more sophisticated armor for the Army.

Army generals say a more effective answer to the threat of explosives may lie in electronic instruments that have proven successful in blocking the detonation of homemade bombs, called improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.'s. They have caused about a quarter of the more than 1,500 American deaths in Iraq, including those of two National Guard members from New York City just last week.

Such an electronic countermeasure was used at the start of the war to shield Iraqi oil fields from possible sabotage. But some members of Congress and security experts say shortsighted planning and piecemeal buying on the part of the Army has resulted in too few of the devices being used to protect the troops.

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