Thousands of pounds of armor added to military Humvees, intended to protect U.S. troops, have made the vehicles more likely to roll over, killing and injuring soldiers in Iraq, a newspaper reported.
"I believe the up-armoring has caused more deaths than it has saved," said Scott Badenoch, a former Delphi Corp. vehicle dynamics expert told the Dayton Daily News for Sunday editions.
An analysis of the Army's ground accident database, which includes records from March 2003 through November 2005, found that 60 of the 85 soldiers who died in Humvee accidents in Iraq -- or 70 percent -- were killed when the vehicle rolled, the newspaper reported. Of the 337 injuries, 149 occurred in rollovers.
Ad hoc engineering AKA 'field expedients' or, more coarsely, 'Mexineering' can only go so far. According to the Law of Equivalent Exchange:
"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only, truth." - Alphonse Elric, from Fullmetal Alchemist.
I learned about that in Alchemy 101 way back in school. Change one thing, change everything. The soldiers are still dying, but it's way more palatable for the Pentagon to say they died in a traffic accident than to say they got blown to bits.
Humvees were supposed to be transportation, scout cars, etc., not armored cars. Who'daever thunk an enemy would use explosives against the largest mechanized army in history? Obviously not the rocket scientists at the Department of Defense.
See also: TANSTAAFL.
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