Extra Armor Could Have Saved Many Lives, Study Shows

[Charon]

The people that broke the story (picked up by NYT) are the Soldiers for the Truth crowd (SFTT/Defense Watch - a good cause to contribute to if you can spare the change...), the late Hackworth's old organization. They have been covering this for a while. Better armor was availiable, but the perfumed princes and their corporate cronies did another lets retire in style deal. The data they use comes from the Marines, who are shopping for a new solution.

The "Marine Lethal Torso Injuries: Preliminary Findings 8/29/2005" was reportedly made to identify current weaknesses in the product, which was designed and fielded in the nearly billion-dollar joint US Army-USMC Interceptor program that created the controversial body armor. Critics of the Interceptor body armor system complain it is bulky, poorly made, limits mobility, and incorporates a design that leaves the wearer vulnerable to gunshot and shrapnel wounds over large areas of the upper torso to limit production costs.

And, why not? Because we have proof, from the US Marine Corps study in this case, from the government's own files that the Perfumed Princes know now, and have known for substantial time, that America's Grunts have been sent into combat with inferior body armor -- that hundreds have died, who very likely would have been saved, had they been issued the best-available body armor!

This is not a procurement scandal along the lines of the $600 toilet seat that lit up the US Air Force like a bolt of lightening decades ago.

This is a procurement scandal where those most precious from our midst, those willing to fight and die for this great nation, have been knowingly, premeditatedly and cold-heartedly sent into harm's way with inferior equipment that literally meant the several hundred who could have/should have come home carrying their shields, where instead carried home upon those shields.

Is there a fire in hell hot enough for the callous, timid bureaucratic weasels -- both those in uniform and those in civilian dress -- who deprived our warriors of the best-available body armor? I think not.

Oh, and while I consign to the fires of Hades those who sat quietly while their defenders were consigned to roll the lethal dice with the Grim Reaper, let me not forget those in the US Congress who contributed by their willful dereliction of duty. Among this group, John Murtha stands out by virtue of the rank hypocrisy of his recent comments and actions.

It is good enough body armor that nine American generals in Afghanistan are wearing it in place of the standard "Interceptor OTV" armor issued to the troops they command. It offers such great protection that the U.S. Secret Service agents guarding the President of the United States wear it, and it is good enough that a civilian contractor in Iraq was shot eight times in the torso at close range and survived without even suffering soft tissue trauma. But the same armor, already in mass production, is apparently too expensive to provide to the men and women fighting and dying in the Global War on Terror (GWOT) every day.

http://www.sftt.org/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=cmpDefense&htmlCategoryID=29&htmlId=4493
http://www.sftt.org/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=cmpDefense&htmlCategoryID=30&htmlId=4459
http://www.sftt.org/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=cmpIntel&htmlId=4497
http://www.sftt.org/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=cmpArchives&archives=defense&htmlId=4252&HtmlCategoryID=30
http://www.sftt.org/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=cmpArchives&archives=defense&htmlId=4009&HtmlCategoryID=30
http://www.sftt.org/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=cmpArchives&archives=defense&htmlId=4193&HtmlCategoryID=30


Charon

[Toad]

Originally posted by Charon
This is a procurement scandal where those most precious from our midst, those willing to fight and die for this great nation, have been knowingly, premeditatedly and cold-heartedly sent into harm's way with inferior equipment that literally meant the several hundred who could have/should have come home carrying their shields, where instead carried home upon those shields.
Charon

Is there any actual proof of the premeditation?

[lazs2]

I know that there is some better street armor for police that is lighter and more effective but is not certified (threat level) and is not allowed to be used by our police... it would have saved lives too.

lazs

[Charon]

This is a procurement scandal where those most precious from our midst, those willing to fight and die for this great nation, have been knowingly, premeditatedly and cold-heartedly sent into harm's way with inferior equipment that literally meant the several hundred who could have/should have come home carrying their shields, where instead carried home upon those shields.
Charon

First of all, that's not my quote that's an editorial response from SFTT editor Roger Charles: http://www.sftt.org/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=cmpDefense&htmlCategoryID=29&htmlId=4493

He's obviously worked up about American soldiers dying because their lives were worth only about $1000 to DoD/Congress, you me, etc. compared to $5000. Obviously, not everybody values the lives of American soldiers the same way. Me, I agree with him. I say ****can 2 or 3 F22s to keep 100 grunts from needlessly bleeding out on a battlfield. Worth every ****ing penny. Others don't agree.

Budget decisions are premediated by nature. Roger Charles attacks the budget decsions (to include members of congress of all stripes) and the "old boy" network that gets us so little value on the tax $. Cheapest products, design flaws, good old boy relationships thrown in. Read the links. In fact, if you have any questions ask him directly:

SFTT President Roger Charles is an Annapolis graduate, a retired USMC Lt. Col. who commanded an infantry platoon in I Corps during the Vietnam War, is the winner of the prestigious Peabody Award for news coverage, and was a protégée's of the late Col. David H. Hackworth. Rog can be contacted at sfttpres@aol.com. Please send comments to DWFeedback@yahoo.com.

Charon

[Gunslinger]

Originally posted by Silat
Del I like you too..

Over the course of the Bush years the hypocrisy of these boards by the supporters of this admin has been legendary.

My post was sarcastic in the extreme and look at the response.

You didnt find it ridiculous when the Bush supporters on this board blamed unarmored Humvees on Clinton. Or blaming poorly equipped soldiers on Clinton and the dems. All the militarys ills have been blamed on those dems because they are not supporters of the troops.

Now that another report ( non partisan) appears after 4 years of war we see this type of response from the admins supporters... When does this admin get to take responsibility for anything?

As somone who served under clinton I can say this.  We were underfunded and over worked.  Iraq has taken it's toll but of course we are conducting major combat operations.  The clinton admin striped the defense budget while increasing deployments 300% vrs the previous one.

This isn't a scandle this is how the military works.  This is how it has allways worked.  There is no hypocracy here.  It's not as if there's data that's being ignored.  The military conducts study after study after study.  ANd when they are done studying they conduct even more tests.  Then they look at production capabilities and compare it with what the budget can offer them.  It's a long drawn out process.  Allways has been, allways will be.

[Toad]

Charon is your position that you're incensed that the Defense Department can't buy everything they want and has to make decisions to reduce costs somewhere?

And they bought a cheaper vest than one that was:

1) Equally available for production in the same quantities as the Interceptor in the same time frames

2) Provided greater protection

3) Was not chosen based on cost alone?

Is that the case you present using Charles as your source?

If so, if they HAD bought the better vest by canceling two F-22's and in some later conflict a lack of F-22's cost us 10,000 lives when a bomber got through and nuked a division... what would you say then?

Yeah, it's a stretch of a hypothesis, but it could happen. DoD has to consider all that kind of stuff too.

What do you think about Congress giving DoD a much, much larger budget?

[Charon]

And they bought a cheaper vest than one that was:

1) Equally available for production in the same quantities as the Interceptor in the same time frames

2) Provided greater protection

3) Was not chosen based on cost alone?

Is that the case you present using Charles as your source?

It's a long story Toad. Read the links and give me your feed back on the content. Think Mark 14 Torpedo of WW2 with some beltway/Pentagon twists. Point 2 is clearly Yes. Point 3 is a case of cost and "pet project" with some questionable procurement practices after the flaws started to come to light. My impression on point 1. is that they were all in the same boat production wise before the tax dollars started to flow, but that may not be the case.

If so, if they HAD bought the better vest by canceling two F-22's and in some later conflict a lack of F-22's cost us 10,000 lives when a bomber got through and nuked a division... what would you say then?

I would say that Americans are dying right now, with no hypotheticals involved. And most powers that could get a bomber through our air defenses with a nuke would be a bit worried about the vaporization of their population centers should they do so. How many vests would a $2 billion Virginia class attack sub buy at $5000 ea?  

A big issue is that the grunt really doesn't have too many well paid lobbiests in Washington to fight it out in the budget for the low cost, low tech day-to-day survival stuff. SFTT fills that role somewhat, and that's why I contribute to them for my charitable giving.

What do you think about Congress giving DoD a much, much larger budget?

I would rather have serious oversight of the procurement process, and the removal of any "incentives" that may encourage the military decision makers to make decisions based on their next "post military" career. Perhaps prohibit working for defense contractors if you have held procurement-related staffing positions. Not uncommon even in civilian business to have similar non competitive clauses. It's not like a General or Bird Col. has to go on food stamps when they step down. You could also discuss line item vetos and bill riders etc. to cut the pork out of Congress -- but that another, much bigger discussion.

I would like the US Taxpayer to get better than the $ .50 on the dollar I imagine they get out of Washington. How many "cents on the dollar" of true value do you think we got out of the $ billions thrown at Iraq and Homeland Security, etc. ? How many vests  does that represent? This isn't a partisanship issue, plenty of suck to go around, it's Washington as usual only magnified these days.

Charon

[Toad]

One would like to think procurement would be simply buying the best product and using your huge order size as leverage on price.

Doesn't work that way for a lot of reasons, some endemic to the system.

I was involved at the fringe of trying to get the AF to buy a decent pair of boots at one point instead of the "fall apart when soaking wet for a day" they were issuing us. Total can of worms; better boots available at a lower price. Official reply was "they don't come in black, we can't use brown."

True story. As IF the brown manufacturer wouldn't dye boots black if the entire USAF order was at stake.

It isn't a simple process. I simply don't believe, however, that the guys in charge at the Pentagon "knowingly, premeditatedly and cold-heartedly" did not want the best for our troops. There's probably folks in that procurement chain that have sons and daughters in Iraq.

If the guy ever comes up with substantive proof, however, I hope the guilty folks get sent to Iraq with the less protective vests.

[Gunslinger]

The troops are pushing back from this so called scandel

The Pentagon is pushing back hard against allegations soldiers' lives have been lost in Iraq because they were not issued adequate body armor.
"There is nothing more important to the Marine Corps than protecting Marines," Major General William Cato told reporters after a closed briefing on the issue for the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The Pentagon has been under heavy political fire in the wake of recent reports concerning a secret study that found that up to 80 percent of Marines who died in Iraq from upper body wounds could have survived if they had body armor to protect their sides and shoulders. The study prompted outrage from Democrats on Capitol Hill, including from Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who attributed the problem to the Bush Administration's "incompetence."

"To say incompetence I think is probably not accurate," the Army's Major General Jeffrey A. Sorenson told ABC News. "However we have continued to evolve and the evolving of that is an effort that takes an enormous amount of testing, engineering, design to make sure that the soldiers can get what they need."

Sorenson said the Army is constantly improving the body armor for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. He says all of its troops in Iraq have already been issued new shoulder protection. The Army is now placing orders for side armor and says every soldier in Iraq will have it by the end of the year, and many will have it much sooner than that.

The Marines -- who have a much smaller force in Iraq than the Army -- have been able to move more quickly, already equipping 9,200 of their troops have new side armor protection. By the end of April, every Marine will have new side armor.

But whether individual Marines and soldiers actually want to use the new armor is another question.

and

..The Army has already modified its Interceptor vest seven times since the 1990s.
The Marines, who commissioned the medical examiner's study in December 2004, have shipped 9,235 side-plate inserts to Iraq since November; about 19,000 more will be given to troops by April, according to Maj. Gen. William Catto of the Marines' procurement arm.

The delay in the Army program, Pentagon officials say, resulted from shortages of some materials needed to produce the ceramic armor plating and the lack of a single large contractor who can produce mass orders. The Pentagon has also been sensitive to concerns that soldiers, already burdened by 75 pounds of battle gear in a desert war, would refuse to don additional armor.

and

My grandfather was a flight engineer on B-26 Marauders in WWII and often has told me of a similar line of thinking to “New York’s own” Senator Clinton. During the course of the war popular thinking by ground based staff was to add more armament to the aircraft, specifically the packet guns on the fore of the airframe. As my grandfather put it; “All that did was slow us down and make it easier to hit us.”
Could body armor be better? Perhaps. But like any battlefield technology things improve over time. Had congress knee-jerked about initial B-26 casualties in WWII it would have never have become one of the safest medium bombers in the war. It would never have been able to support our troops on a tactical level that it excelled at.

and

President-elect, er, Senator Hillary Clinton criticized President Bush for failing to protect our troops with adequate body armor, calling him “incompetent.” Her gripe was based on a “secret” Pentagon study of 74 Marines who were killed by bullets or shrapnel wounds to areas of their bodies that were unprotected, mainly the torso and shoulders.

Of course, to state the patently obvious, Ms. Clinton’s comments are political in nature. It is not President Bush’s job to make equipment decisions. Perhaps Clinton’s remarks will cause him to pressure the Pentagon, but it is with the Department of Defense that the junior senator from New York has her qualm.

As for not protecting the troops, I must disagree. While too many soldiers and Marines are injured or killed in roadside bomb (IED) attacks in up-armored HMWWVs, the additional armor clearly saves lives and limbs. I have seen bits of shrapnel stuck in HMWWV doors, as well as marks from shrapnel that failed to penetrate, that, without the armor, would have made for a bad day.

Senator Clinton’s criticism revolves around individual body armor (IBA) vests. She insinuated that the Bush Administration has neglected to improve on existing vests in saying that soldiers and Marines lack “adequate” armor. Based on my experience in Iraq, which spanned from January to December of 2005 in places like Karbala and Babil Provinces with an Army brigade and Anbar Province with a Marine regiment, I observed several varieties of body armor. Moreover, I saw no fewer than three upgrades over the course of eleven months.

All soldiers and Marines—and sailors and airmen, for that matter—on the ground in Iraq are issued a basic vest with protective plates. I was personally impressed with the vest, at least compared with what I knew from previous service, which was a full-Kevlar jacket that was uncomfortable at best, heavily burdensome at worst.

Early in the tour, my battalion was issued two upgrades to the IBA vests. The first was a set of shoulder pads, and the second was a pair of torso pads to protect a soldier’s sides. Both additions were made of Kevlar and all soldiers could draw them; however, many soldiers elected not to wear one or both of the additions because they felt the extra padding was too cumbersome.

During the middle of the tour, we received yet a third upgrade: thicker plates. There were not enough plates to go around, so the soldiers who conducted patrols daily had the priority. As an intelligence analyst, I did not travel much, so I had the lowest level of protection, but the men and women who were subject to immediate dangers everyday received the extra protection.

I will say, based on personal observations, that the Marine Corps is not as well-equipped as the Army. For example, I noticed that most Marines carried M-16 rifles as opposed to the newer M-4 rifles, which may only be a matter of preference. Marines had all of the aforementioned equipment, just not as much, which would be a supply issue that does not typically reach the desks of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Not that anyone needed to actually say that Ms. Clinton’s comments are political and based on misrepresentations, but we often state the obvious. Perhaps the senator’s griping will bring about further equipment improvements for our men and women in Iraq, but there is no reason her criticism should go unanswered as truth. The Administration has improved all types of armor for our troops in Iraq, and they will continue to do so.

seems like hillary is trying to make this a rallying point just like the rest of the DNC's failed plans/scandles

[lazs2]

If they had bought the vests that cost twice as much and maybe were better maybe not....  silat would be screaming about "$500 toilet seats".

what cracks me up is that the military is about as far as I want the government to run things... I know they screw it up but war is pretty screwed up anyway... but...

silat feels that they screw up the military but that they would be great to run every other cradle to grave service that he can imagine...  every socialsit program imaginable.   Just insane.

lazs