A bomb attack on allied forces in Afghanistan on Tuesday marked the first time the Taliban has been able to effectively strike the heavily armored Mastiff personnel carrier, British officials said.You might nod your head and state that any vehicle can be penetrated if the bomb is big enough but if you do then you're missing the point.
“It’s the first time personnel inside a Mastiff have been killed by an IED [improvised explosive device],” a Ministry of Defense official said.
Based on the Cougar mine-resistant vehicle made by U.S. defense giant General Dynamics, the Mastiff is designed specifically to protect soldiers from improvised explosive devices and rocket-propelled grenades, the firm says on its website.
The company says the 21-ton Cougar vehicle has “withstood literally thousands of IED/landmine attacks” in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A General Dynamics spokesman in the U.S. declined to comment, saying he would defer to Britain's defense ministry.
The ministry declined to give details of the incident, though it said in a statement that the three British soldiers who were killed were inside the vehicle and that they "received immediate medical attention" and were airlifted to a military hospital "but could not be saved."
The Brits took a standard Cougar MRAP and added even MORE armor to it. Short of the enormous Buffalo, this is probably the most heavily armored MRAP ever to see action. Additionally it kept ever hallmark of the MRAP in its up armoring ..high ground clearance, a vee shaped hull and of course all the jamming devices known to the free world.
It still didn't work.
This leads to the next question. If its practically impossible to achieve a balanced iron triangle...one in which you still maintain mobility but still have heavy armor protection to defeat the average IED, then is it even worth attempting?
I say no. Gain cross country mobility to be where they ain't and get aggressive in the maneuver again. Its really the only solution.
Cross country mobility can't get you over the mountains, you would be forced to move supply units through roads controlled by hostile population in arab regions, and therefore seeded with IED's.
ReplyDeleteWhole concept of MRAP is to force the enemy to make more powerful and more sophisticated IED's while adding protection to friendly forces. This is reducing total number of IED planted because more explosives and technical expertise is needed per IED produced.
Also it makes advanced IED more easily discoverable during deploying phase -- more time is needed to deploy them properly do defeat V-hull, and advanced IED is harder to conceal due to larger explosives mass and specific anti V-hull positioning requirements.
IMHO
Well for insurgencies i'm beginning to believe that dismounted operations are best and supply missions should be conducted by remote control helicopter. the USMC is already using one and EuroCopter has a couple in development too. i just think that we've reached diminished returns...its just too easy to build a bigger bomb than to keep deploying more advanced armor. especially if this catches on against an advanced enemy.
Deletei;m really surprised that i haven't seen someone develop a self burying 2000 pound bomb...i'm sure Northrop or ATK has to be working on it for an anti-armor role.
Its easy to make a bigger bomb, but then enemy will not be able to make 10 smaller bombs, while MRAP still offering solid protection.
DeleteEvery bomb dropped from a considerable altitude is a kind of self buried. During WWII allies during bomb raids on Germany industrial areas dropped some heavy bombs with delayed fuse(hours or days), to make harder to repair infrastructure after a bombing raid.
Unmanned helicopter concept is very nice, but in mountainous arab regions helicopters cannot always fly high enough to be protected from 0.50 cals or hand held anti air weapons, and downed drone helicopter is costly to replace. But it will save life of a pilot! So agree mass producing such K-MAX would definitely solve much of logistic problems.
I think time for unmanned ground robo-MRAPS covered by unmanned drones and remote firebases has come.
yeah and that's another program that everyone has been working on forever. i don't know if you're aware of Oskhosh but they have a MTVR setup as a robot truck and have had it for years but no one will take it to combat to test it.
DeleteDetails remain sketchy, but,
ReplyDeleteEstimates are that the bomb used was over 1000lbs
Its the first UK vehicle related IED fatality in THIRTEEN months
A month ago, The ANP took over responsibility for road security.
Planting a 1000lb bomb is hard. Its a huge amount of weight to carry, its a lot of volume to bury.
With proper route security, its borderline impossible. As the complete inability to hit them for 13 months shows.
And thats the key.
The story isnt the vehicle being hit. Its the ANP letting a barrel of explosives be buried in a month.
Incompetent, too scared to intervene, paid off or Taliban Sympathetic, none look good for The Mayor of Kabul surviving Afghanisation.
No vehicle is invincible, this MRAP has saved thousands of lives and that's what it was designed for, to increase survivability. May these soldiers rest in peace and death to the Talibananas.
ReplyDelete