thedrifter
02-18-08, 08:11 AM
IRAQ: Warily we roll along
The untutored might mistake it for the kind of farm machinery seen rolling down roads in California's Imperial and Central valleys, a hay baler maybe. It's not.
That long gizmo with multiple tires attached to the front of the lead vehicle in some Marine convoys is a "mine roller," meant to detonate pressure-plate mines in front of the vehicle instead of beneath, thus decreasing the chances of death and injury.
The Marine Corps bought 150 of them for $14.35 million from General Dynamics Land Systems in Sterling Heights, Mich.
The biggest killer of Marines in Iraq is the roadside bomb. Rare is the outpost that doesn't keep in a prominent place a list of Marines and Navy corpsmen killed that way.
Humvee drivers say the land roller makes the vehicle harder to steer but that the enhanced "survivability" is worth the extra effort.
—Tony Perry in Al Asad
Ellie
The untutored might mistake it for the kind of farm machinery seen rolling down roads in California's Imperial and Central valleys, a hay baler maybe. It's not.
That long gizmo with multiple tires attached to the front of the lead vehicle in some Marine convoys is a "mine roller," meant to detonate pressure-plate mines in front of the vehicle instead of beneath, thus decreasing the chances of death and injury.
The Marine Corps bought 150 of them for $14.35 million from General Dynamics Land Systems in Sterling Heights, Mich.
The biggest killer of Marines in Iraq is the roadside bomb. Rare is the outpost that doesn't keep in a prominent place a list of Marines and Navy corpsmen killed that way.
Humvee drivers say the land roller makes the vehicle harder to steer but that the enhanced "survivability" is worth the extra effort.
—Tony Perry in Al Asad
Ellie