Marines shore up vehicles

[thedrifter]

Marines shore up vehicles
Chuck Mueller, Staff Writer
San Bernardino County Sun
Article Launched:01/06/2007 12:00:00 AM PST

BARSTOW - Sixteen light- armored vehicles, reinforced with extra armor to protect Marines in combat, are on their way to Camp Pendleton to accompany troops bound for Iraq.

The 11-ton all-terrain LAVs, each of which can carry up to seven people, were refitted with additional armor plating at the Marine Corps Maintenance Center near Barstow.

The center, part of the Marine Corps Logistics Base, expects to receive and upgrade more than 100 of the vehicles during the year ahead.

Officials at the center, who hosted a tour of the 10-acre, enclosed-maintenance facility Friday, said the extra armor shielding will save lives. The steel plating is expected to protect troops from the force of powerful improvised explosive devices, they said.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Barstow finishes upgrade of first war-worn vehicle

11:32 PM PST on Friday, January 5, 2007

By JOE VARGO
The Press-Enterprise

BARSTOW - Marine repair center officials rolled the first of 16 newly armored troop carriers off the assembly line Friday and said the vehicles will soon be hauling troops in Iraq.

By month's end, the refurbished vehicles will make their way on tractor-trailers to Camp Pendleton for use by the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, which fought in Baghdad, Tikrit and Fallujah and more recently conducted security operations in western Iraq.

The Pentagon shipped the versatile light transports to Barstow so they could be upgraded with plating, enabling them to better withstand roadside bombs and other attacks that continue to inflict casualties almost daily.

Project manager Scott Stevens announced Friday that the Marine Corps Logistics Base has begun work on another batch of vehicles. In all, 98 vehicles will be armored and refurbished by early next year. Those personnel carriers, which will arrive at the rate of about eight a month, are slated for Marine units around the globe.

"This is like installing an armored protection vest for the vehicle," Stevens said. "Each one is a custom-fit job. Every vehicle undergoes quite a transformation."

Marine Corps engineers visited the Barstow base in recent months, inspecting bomb and battle damage on vehicles just back from combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, Stevens said Those inspections played a key role in helping the Marines develop the protective plating now going on each vehicle.

Base officials won't say what the plating is made of or how much goes on each vehicle, saying such specifics are classified and that releasing them would aid insurgents.

"Let's just say the armor is robust," Stevens said.

Improving Survivability

The Pentagon is in the midst of a $24 billion effort to repair battle-damaged equipment from Iraq and Afghanistan. That means installing armor on Humvees, light transports and other combat vehicles serving with the Army and Marines on the front lines. It's a project that began three years ago to improve the survivability of troop transports, some of which went into battle with unprotected floorboards and canvas doors.

The transport vehicles -- known as light armored vehicles in military parlance -- can carry as many as nine people, hit speeds of 62 mph, navigate through water and pack a punch with their 25 mm cannons and machine guns. The vehicles come to Barstow from all over the world. And like the Marines who ride in them, some have completed tours in Iraq and are battle-weary.

Mechanic Gary Morgan said he knows firsthand the importance of the job he's doing every day.

Morgan, 25, completed two tours in Iraq as a mechanic on the light armored transport vehicle, which is designed to stop a machine gun bullet but not bombs.

Morgan said he survived several roadside bomb blasts, one that left him with perforated eardrums. The shock wave from another knocked him down from 200 yards away. He said he lost six buddies to roadside bombs and thinks about them often as he works to make the vehicles stouter.

He talked about two of the dead friends he knew as "Crazy Eyes" and "Shrek," while walking the assembly line on Friday.

Bombs Are Feared Most

"This is a godsend," said Morgan, who spent four years in the Marines. "There is no video, no picture, no story that can describe what you feel or experience when a roadside bomb goes off. It's like being hit with a Mack truck. It's awe-inspiring and really scary."

Combat troops fear roadside bombs more than anything else in Iraq, Morgan said As the war has gone on, those explosives have gotten increasingly more powerful and sophisticated. When he arrived in Iraq, roadside bombs consisted of soda cans packed with BBs. Later, artillery shells were packed with ball bearings. Insurgents even planted a bomb inside the carcass of a dog, Morgan said.

"This armor will ensure that lots of Marines will return home unscathed with good stories to tell," he said.

First of Many Complete

Workers on the assembly line watched as the first new armored vehicle, freshly painted green and sporting new tires, fired up its engine Friday. There was no formal ceremony to mark its completion, because many more will follow this year.

Ordinarily, it takes 120 days to refurbish and repair a light vehicle. For this project, that time has been cut to about 80 days.

The armoring project is one of the base's top priorities, said Col. Scott Dalke, commander of the Marine Corps Maintenance Center. About 75 to 80 workers are involved in the project at Barstow, which has a staff of nearly 1,200.

"We're excited," said supervisor Bobby Cardenas, 55. "We started from scratch and now it's ready to roll."

Dalke said he is pleased at the speed in which workers tackled the initial repair project and said lessons learned early on will expedite the larger work load.

"There is no doubt that our efforts will make a difference to our war fighters deployed in harm's way," he said.

Reach Joe Vargo at 951-567-2407 or jvargo@PE.com

Ellie