A new mine-resistant truck is foiling roadside bombs so well in Iraq that the Pentagon is pressing Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Truck to churn out hundreds more ASAP.
Not one Marine has died while riding in one of the 200 prototypes deployed in Iraq since 2004. The Pentagon likes those numbers. "This is the best vehicle available for safety and survivability," a Marine Corps spokesperson said. More than 70 percent of injuries and deaths suffered by U.S. military personnel have been caused by roadside bombs.
Unlike the flat undersurfaces of the much-criticized Humvee, the Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) truck's V-shaped steel body flares like a boat's hull. "The shape channels the full force of a blast up the sides of the vehicle rather than through the floor," said Joachin Salas of Oshkosh Truck. "It's all physics."
The trucks come in three sizes. The smallest weighs 7 tons — more than twice the weight of an H3 — and carries six passengers; the largest weighs 22 and a half tons and carries 12.
[Source: AP]
