From: Jeff Shultz 

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 17:14:58 -0500, Mark wrote:

> "Note that I'm not saying this is a Bush problem, it's purely military in
> a transition phase type problem, but it doesn't seem they're learning from
> past mistakes nearly enough."
>
> One Gen. Halley (ret) is on Fox News explaining that they used the same
> vehicles in Gulf War I and had no issues regarding the lack of armor at
> the time. As the conditions changed this time (i.e. they ran and hid and
> are doing their ongoing attacks instead), they started armoring up and now
> have the Hummers at 78% armored vs. a small number a year ago.
>
> They also reported that the new secretary of the Army contacted one of the
> armor companies and is upping their contract by an additional 100 vehicles
> (worth of armor for installation, or installed on new, don't remember
> which) per month. It could be argued that this should have been done at
> the outset, but it's really tough to come down really hard from a Monday
> morning point of view.  of Halliburton, so won't take heat for no bids on the extra hundred a
> month>

I'm told that the bottleneck isn't in the capacity of AM General to make
Humvees, or the armor company to armor them - but in the outfit that is
making the ceramic plates - they're just now bringing a new furnace that
was ordered last year online. It's not exactly a mass assembly item.

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