Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Didn't See This One Coming

Oh wait. A lot of us have (search for up-armor in Google among the mil-bloggers for more).

Terrorists have figured out how to blow up armored vehicles with increasing regularity. A while back some members of Congress were busy complaining that Humvees were being deployed with insufficient armor, which was a joke considering that they were never designed to be armored in the first place. That we're armoring them (and Congress had authorized their up-armor well before the kerfuffle broke) never crossed their minds.

Neither did the fact that up-armoring would lead to other consequences - namely that the terrorists would simply change tactics and build bigger and more efficient bombs. Offense always beats defense in these matters. If a bomber wants to blow something up, all he needs is sufficient explosives. It doesn't matter if you're in a tank or a Humvee.

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