American Humvee with some high quality armor during the 2003 Iraq invasion
Posted by Great_White_Sharky@reddit | shittytechnicals | View on Reddit | 120 comments
lelelelte@reddit
My dad taught metals shop. I’ll never forget overhearing him receiving a call from a former student in Iraq in ‘04 asking his advice on how to best attach extra steel plate to their vehicles
Duct_TapeOrWD40@reddit
Many NATO member had veteran peacekeepers from Yougoslavia, Kosovo, Cyprus missions, but Iraq and Afghanistan was different. Let's say they were less interested in a "Western style" peace.
IronWarhorses@reddit
calling the operation in Yugoslavia a PKO is amazing. didn'y you blow up their electrical grid?
Duct_TapeOrWD40@reddit
Indeed. And it ended the Kosovo War, and made peace. Serbia sarted no offensive against it's neighbours since that.
Occams_Razor42@reddit
Well also more one involved invading another nation, the others we're piece keeping in the midst of genocides etc. Like Saddam was evil, but we didn't bomb municipal infrastructure in those other places I don't think?
Plump_Apparatus@reddit
Iraq cannot even keep their electrical grid up.
Iraq's infrastructure was fucked up during the Iraq-Iran war, it's part of what led to the First Gulf War. The US and coalition deliberately targeted Iraqi infrastructure during the First Gulf War as part of a shock and awe campaign. Their entire power grid was virtually destroyed, along with the telephone network, refineries, etc, along with over hundred bridges.
Then the Second Gulf War, over WMDs that didn't exist. For which infrastructure was fucked up again.
So is ISIL/ISIS, which would have never of gained power if Saddam wasn't executed.
ItchySnitch@reddit
IS would have existed anyway in the Syrian civil war. And the Arab spring revolution would’ve hit Iraq too. So both countries would’ve been destabilized by revolution, which is the breeding ground for IS
Illustrious-Sky-4631@reddit
There's something to add , it wasn't just the 2 gulf wars and Iran that completely fucked that place up , between 1991 up to 2000 the US and some NATO nation were actively carrying on military strikes on "logistics" at the same time negation were going on ,
The logistics on questions were the leftovers infrastructures they didn't annihilation in the gulf war
After this they alongside Iran settled one of the most corrupt governments in modern history alongside writing new constitution ensuring said government would stay in power for half a century at minimum ( if you do a quick Google search you'd find out the same politics from 2004 era are still ruling the country in a semi dictatorship state )
blackhawk905@reddit
Was the Chinese embassy a municipal structure?
BoringNYer@reddit
It contained remains of the F-117
iwannaberockstar@reddit
I didn't know that! Was it proven?
Lapsed__Pacifist@reddit
Do you not think the US had peacekeepers in former Yugoslavia? Or Somalia? Or Haiti? Or the Siani?
MajesticNectarine204@reddit
And here we all are, laughing at the Russians for their 'improvised field modifications'.
IronWarhorses@reddit
WHAT I WAS GOING TO SAY.
VonNeumannsProbe@reddit
Honestly we would be doing it too.
It's funny but drones are legitimately a dreadnought effect moment in the history of warfare.
ItchySnitch@reddit
It’s rather sending infantry marching lines against machine guns type of thing. US just wouldnt adapt to modern warfare.
Rest of western world are developing very good anti drone tech now. Ukraine Cant really, cause they getting bombed and under massive strain.
MajesticNectarine204@reddit
Well yeah. We did in the early 2000's with insurgency warfare. And the way things are going, we might have to again soon..
RuthlessIndecision@reddit
dang, hope it went well for the former student.
Shermantank10@reddit
Actually a kinda cool, and sad story
IronWarhorses@reddit
"hahaha Russia bad hurrr"
dude, that's a US humvee, you can't make that joke.
Houtaku@reddit
I did that. Not this humvee specifically, but I was in one of that last convoys of support troops to drive from Kuwait to Baghdad in 2004. Soon after they started loading vehicles on semis and flying the troops in.
We were mounting torch-cut sections of plate steel on the hinges and handles designed for light canvas doors. We stacked sandbags on the floor anywhere they would fit and put chicken wire over any gaps on top so grenades dropped from overpasses would roll off.
Shit was Mad Max, yo. And of course nothing happened.
Limekill@reddit
So more of a max max halloween dress up than a Logistical Sustainment Movement via a Tactical Convoy Operation (TCO) mission from CFLCC ?
borg359@reddit
“You go to war with what you got”
Sawfish1212@reddit
When the media edit a soundbite into a lie. What they edited out was the whole part about moving every vehicle with armor they could to the region, to make it seem like he didn't care about the troops
borg359@reddit
Leave it to Reddit to find Donald Rumsfeld’s only defender. 😂
Sawfish1212@reddit
Lol! The full, unedited soundbite is still easily found. I'm not sure why Rumsfeld is responsible for congress failing to provide the necessary funding to buy the correct equipment for the military. It had been requested, but the actual purchase amount kept getting reduced by congress
TristanDeAlwis@reddit
Classic Donald Rumsfeld quote.
astray488@reddit
fuck if that isn't true looking back, man... hmph.
PlasmaMatus@reddit
That's why some crews up-armored their Humwee themselves before deploying in Irak.
JeebusChristBalls@reddit
I remember riding through the desert with a humvee with the doors off and then came the "mad maxification" of humvees where they started adding hundreds of pounds of pig iron all around them. Then came the up armored humvees that hopefully the AC worked in...
JuggernautOfWar@reddit
A/C in a Humvee? I don't think any I've been in were even equipped with the option at all. Our A/C was volunteering to be in the center turret with our heads exposed to the desert air.
JeebusChristBalls@reddit
There was a "cooling system" in some uparmored humvees, but if they work or not, is another story.
L3ath3rHanD@reddit
I remember those days. I was in Mosul in '03. Lots of old 'Nam era flak jackets zip tied to canvas doors and sandbags down by our feet. I also remember some HMMWVs with homebrew sound systems and spray painted hot rod flames. Truly an interesting time to be in theater
Duct_TapeOrWD40@reddit
Coalition forces welded metal poles to the front bumper to cut any "gunner -killer" cable. Thye used expired bulettproof vests and metal plates cut from Iraqui APCs
I loved those Mad-Max armors and countermeasures. Especially the fact these were somewhat effective. insurgents shifted to IEDs as these (and air-suport, artillery support, snipers, etc..... ) actually worked.
iwannaberockstar@reddit
TIL that bulletproof vest apparantly expire
Big-Station-2283@reddit
Kevlar and ceramics do. Steel doesn't really expire.
ordo259@reddit
The adhesive keeping the layers together breaks down so it loses effectiveness
Oberst_Reziik@reddit
Well the metal pole was used in WW2 jeeps and works really well, it's a shame that armies are equipped for the last war, even if the current one as been raging for years as it is the situation now
Raguleader@reddit
A lot of helicopters feature similar devices to protect the rotor hub and skids from snagging wires and other similar hazards.
BobCharlie@reddit
I've seen a few higher end civilian models have cable cutters too.
theaviationhistorian@reddit
They do, especially medevacs considering they have to land anywhere and wires tend to be less visible or lack visual warnings as those near airports (high-vis sphere markers).
Duct_TapeOrWD40@reddit
In case of medevacs, even civilan air ambulances and firefighters I'd keep the cable cutters too, as there is a good chance to hit a "civilan" cable too.
theaviationhistorian@reddit
Specifically them. To explain what I stated, air ambulances and aerial firefighters don't have a fixed flightplan where you know where the hazards are and/or are clearly marked. Both flight crews have to go to certain areas where hazards are unknown or hard to see. One has to make their own landing pad finding an area clear of hazards.
Another is flying against wildfires, turbulence created by it, and low visibility from the smoke while avoiding hazards as they go along. It's why aerial tankers have a smaller aircraft guiding them because the navigator there ensures the big birds can drop their payload without hitting a mountain or hidden power lines within the smoke.
Duct_TapeOrWD40@reddit
Many of these metal wires were actually planted against German motorcyclists, howewer French resistance made no map or inventory of their traps, so if Germans retreated on other roads, the first unlucky GI got killed instead.
RaymondLuxury-Yacht@reddit
He's just waiting for his mail-order turret to come in. Hopefully before they step off.
Crazy that people in LA were taking their dog to the dog cappuccino stand and they had to invade another country driving ghetto hoopdees.
AmbitionOfPhilipJFry@reddit
In the times when lived Funny Mustached Men and Roosevelt, battlefields had open air jeeps.
And, lo, soldiers were killed or maimed; but, as this was the way it was suppose to be, this was good.
And, for a time, it was good.
Then came armor that could stop bullets.
Surviving soldiers did send a cry, saying, lord government, please give us protection.
And lo, the gouvernent in its infinite wisdom did ignored the cry.
But, then so also did Defense contractors cry out, think of the missing profits!
And lo, the government gave the defense Contractors more money to build armored vehicles.
Thus, shareholders' (sacred be thine seed money) value increased.
And, for a time, it was good.
Then the 90s came, and a wall in Berlin fell mightily.
Lo, the government said in its infinite wisdom to the soldiers, thy armor wastes gas in a budget year, thyself must do better.
And so the armor was stripped out, and milage went up while defense contractors profited by servicing contracts.
The government looked, saw that the murder machine was slightly more efficient, and shareholders' (sacred be thine seed money) value had increased.
And lo, there was much rejoicing.
And, for a time, it was good.
But then came the unintended Consequences of Actions.
Thus two towers were struck blows, and did fall.
The lord government cried out, who will admit to this?
Twas I, declared Al Quaeda.
And so, the government in its infinite wisdom, did invade an uninvolved country with many troops and unarmored vehicles.
And there was much in the way of killing and maiming soldiers.
Once more came a cry from the surviving soldiers, lord government, please give us protection!
And, then, the cry fell upon deaf ears of lord government .
Thus did soldiers scavange and welded steel like space orks, and for a time, it was mostly good, depending on how the bullets hit.
Here endeth the parable of reactive policy decisions guiding the lord government's military equipment.
May his noodley appendages touch us all, and guide our thoughts towards always increasing our shareholders' (sacred by thine seed money) value.
Ramen.
PurpD420@reddit
Absolutely fantastic gospel
AmbitionOfPhilipJFry@reddit
Kinda really wish it wasn't 😕
Ghost4000@reddit
Such a fantastic show.
TxtC27@reddit
Pour one out for Ray
RaymondLuxury-Yacht@reddit
Well, the actor that played him.
LostOnTheWay2College@reddit
Damn, only just found this out. Always think of him when I hear Avril Levigne complicated
TxtC27@reddit
Oh shit you're right, thanks for the correction
Straydog8744@reddit
Actually the actor that played him did die late last year unfortunately.
jason_abacabb@reddit
We replaced the soft doors with cut steel , attached to the body where it made sense, and put steel boxes in the back, welded old welding gas bottles to the new floor and put a pintle on those for guns.
The people sitting in chairs got actual Kevlar seat pads and sandbags under their feet.
It was great when we got to inherit factory up armor from a departing unit.
Ksp-or-GTFO@reddit
I really feel like this highlights how little our defense budget actually gets us. It took some teenagers in the actual theater to upgrade these. Not the defense companies we throw over a trillion dollars at.
Starfireaw11@reddit
To be fair, they were originally supposed to be a soft-skinned replacement for the Jeep, a job that they did pretty well.
ManWhoisAlsoNurse@reddit
We eventually did the same, but the first convoy we did we had stupid amounts of sandbags
Confident_Row1447@reddit
Yeah the invading force is the real victim here.
Wolvenworks@reddit
Any armor is better than no armor. At least, for mental confidence.
Oberst_Reziik@reddit
Imagine the Cope cages they'll create in Iran, and the Porcupine Abrams that they'll have to make to survive because they ignored the Ukrainians for 4 years. "Not our war" they say.
mcd3424@reddit
The Trump administration would not allow those modifications because it would make the military look “weak”
Baconaise@reddit
Yeah, we should line up side by side like we did in the 1600s. /s
Healter-Skelter@reddit
And I’ll have none of that sniping nonsense in my army! Take away their scopes. Sniping is a cowards tactic
iwannaberockstar@reddit
A WARFIGHTER fights with his teeth and nails!
Baconaise@reddit
A real man looks another in the whites of his eye and tells em Trump sent em.
ElCiclope1@reddit
1600s? Try 1900s.
Baconaise@reddit
---- The joke ---->
You
CyberSoldat21@reddit
At least an Abrams would give you better odds than a T-72
Duct_TapeOrWD40@reddit
For mission completion? Well, they were designed against a completely different war. For crew survival? Absolutely. Both MBT 70 successor (M1 Abrams, and Leopard II) were extremely robust against basically anything to this day.
M1s were so well armoured the frontal and most of the side armor was impenetrable against it's own gun. Only the later variants with Rheinmetall Rh-120 guns were able to give M1 crews a chance to destroy an other inoperable M1. It even happened the 1st during Gulf war and they needed airstrike.
opman4@reddit
How's the turret top armor or the engine deck? That's where the drones are gonna be aiming for.
Duct_TapeOrWD40@reddit
Blowout panels makes sure the crew has good chance to survive. A mission failed, a crew survived to fight an other day.
iwannaberockstar@reddit
Blowout panels might help in case of an ammo cookoff.
Not in case when anti-tank grenade drones would shoot molten jets of metal through the tank compartment...
CyberSoldat21@reddit
It’s a solid chunk of shit is what I’d like to call it
astray488@reddit
Why not be at least grateful the US has given them the most fucking military support anyways out of anyone and everyone else? Yes, truly its truly ignoring them. Let's just discount it all the last four years.
Oberst_Reziik@reddit
Grateful? The US betrayed Ukraine and thr EU and now they are saying they expected help
astray488@reddit
Indeed and that's how its going to be.
As a courtesy I wanted to mention you mixed up the position of the words "US" and "allies" in your last sentence. Also, replace "allies" with "rest of NATO". Fix both of those and your sentence reads properly in English for native speakers.
qtippinthescales@reddit
For almost $200 billion given to Ukraine for their war efforts, sure seems like we didn’t ignore them.
Duct_TapeOrWD40@reddit
I'm pretty sure the next generation of tanks and APCs wil "create and enforce" No FLY zones around them, against "anything without IFF"
Ukrainian crews had plenty of experience with Flakpanzer Gepard and ZSU23 AA vehicles too. And as far as I know Ukraine already sent experts to it's allies to share it.
AdjunctFunktopus@reddit
russia already has a system “Arena-M”. They first developed them to counter the RPG threat in Afghanistan in the 70s. I think the U.S. was actually trying to buy it 15 years ago.
It worked by having Doppler radar detect incoming threats and then it would launch an explosive at them.
The downside being that it’s pretty rough on any infantry that happen to be supporting the tank at the time.
Gibberish45@reddit
[in Ralph Wiggum’s voice] “The ‘M’ stands for murder!”
Oberst_Reziik@reddit
Russia has nothing of the kind... Their army now consists of T62, T72 and T80 war time modernizations and new T90 builds but also simplified for wartime shortages.
In theory they had, never materialized in the real fleet.
T14 is not a real tank, it has never entered combat
theaviationhistorian@reddit
And even if they did, they wouldn't have had much considering how much corruption was crippling their military.
TacTurtle@reddit
US has the Trophy Active Protection System - it is an Israeli-developed countermeasure for RPGs, rockets, and recoilless rifles that detects incoming threats and shoots them down.
Empires69@reddit
Its tough to be a crunchy sometimes.
Duct_TapeOrWD40@reddit
If it's so good, Then why don't we see it in ukraine.
AdjunctFunktopus@reddit
It’s expensive.
It kills any friendly troops caught in the blast.
russia can barely field tanks any more. And those that can be fielded are barely modernized relics.
Cope cages are probably more effective against drones.
TheCockKnight@reddit
APS is reallllly expensive
Brendissimo@reddit
Yeah I'm picturing a mix of standard issue jammers and electronic warfare devices built into every price of armor, along with some kind of automated turret or other hard kill system
Duct_TapeOrWD40@reddit
Not a complete protection. some drones flew on 10 000 feet on tests. so you either have a huge jammer jams a medium city block on every APC, or prepare to freefall bombs randomly dropped into the clolumns and bases (As drones won't really effectively aim from such a distance).
Brendissimo@reddit
Well, no protection is complete, but yes, that wasn't an exhaustive list of the things they might make standard. Roof screens are already becoming standard issue in a number of armed forces, for example.
Duct_TapeOrWD40@reddit
A sturdy roof screen can make the difference between a damaged vehicle with concussed crew and a destroyed one with dead crew in case of a drone dropped light bomb
theaviationhistorian@reddit
And for affordable effectiveness, they went back to the old and trusted 4x Maxim guns for larger drones.
Rivetmuncher@reddit
There's no shortage of examples of armies ignoring allies' recent experiences, and stumbling ass-first into a massacre.
I expect an incredibly advanced IFF system that will be turned off so it doesn't mulch friendly infantry over an errant stray round.
^(It will, of course, not be turned back on when the infantry is safely away/inside.)
Duct_TapeOrWD40@reddit
Fun thing it needn't be hardkill. Airsoft games have strict restrictions if the game use drones. From reverse point of view even a stray Airsoft round can kill a drone.
Now comes the fun part. There is a huge variety of pellet guns, ratshot rounds, rubber rounds which are considered less lethal even against an unarmoured human.
Rivetmuncher@reddit
If it can't also kill an ATGM or the guy next to it, you've just slightly impeded the payload fraction of a minimim-viable drone.
Oberst_Reziik@reddit
except in airsoft you are not afraid of dying
annon8595@reddit
Im pretty sure making an already expensive piece of equipment even more expensive isnt effective in the new generation of drone warfare.
The new meta is: who can overwhelm enemy with cheap drones, if they fight back = bankruptcy, if they don't = they get eliminated.
theaviationhistorian@reddit
Only a handful of armed forces are ready for the next war. In May '25, Ukrainians armed with drone swarms annihilated 2 NATO battalions in a war exercise. I feel our guys are going to get the same experience Russia got in Ukraine if we go take the Iranian islands, let alone the mainland.
In another sub, some were joking about images from Iranian troops preparing for the assault having old off-the-shelf drones. Ukrainians did a lot of damage with those kinds of drones, wtf?
RuthlessIndecision@reddit
better than the alternative
Great_White_Sharky@reddit (OP)
Also note how they didnt even bother to paint it in desert camo, apparently that was very common with the Humvees used early on
thosearecoolbeans@reddit
Did anyone happen to remember they were invading a DESERT country?
joec_95123@reddit
It's because the equipment had been made to fight the Russian army in Europe and hadn't been updated to keep up with the shift in focus.
pants_mcgee@reddit
It was more of an “Oops we caused a civil war and insurgency and our unarmored trucks are unarmored.”
ManWhoisAlsoNurse@reddit
We wrecked so many suspensions lol.
RedblackPirate@reddit
Armor made of pre-Temu bodyarmor, hopes and prayers
wastedsanitythefirst@reddit
I know I'm late but I had a hilarious idea for a meme using this
https://imgur.com/a/ecDZk2f
kontemplador@reddit
A comic from that time. AI enhanced.
szatrob@reddit
When Marines invade a foreign country, we've gotta buy all our own shit. Me and Brad spent 500 dollars of our own money just fixing up the Humvee. Bought our own antennas, filters, these cammie nets. We even painted it ourselves.
Sunnyjim333@reddit
So shameful that our troops had to do this. Beige paint doesn't suddenly make a vehicle "military spec".
Duct_TapeOrWD40@reddit
Others had other problems. Some forces even used UAZ ans Land Rover jeeps at the begining, when even the APCs needed extra armor against RPG hits.
gwhh@reddit
OD duck tape solves ALL problems.
Deflocks@reddit
EVERY problem!
dasmikkimats@reddit
Still better than an open top Humvee like in Generation Kill
PerfectionOfaMistake@reddit
Looks like what soviets did in afghanistam too on unarmored uaz vehicles.
sicksixgamer@reddit
Don't forget your floor Sandbags! To remove what little legroom the Humvee came with.
frankieknucks@reddit
Never forget what the pedo class thinks of the men and women who fight for this country.
Simplyspent@reddit
Hillbilly Armor! American ingenuity at its best!
ISleepyBI@reddit
Here is a modern variation the concept.
Fluid_Lingonberry467@reddit
Mission accomplished