102first_hussars
Tech Sergeant
- The Canadian army is spending $36 million to improve the armour plating on its relatively thin-skinned reconnaissance vehicles and trucks destined for duty in war-torn Afghanistan.
A team of seven specialists spent several weeks adding bolt-on armour to dozens of half-tonne trucks, Bison troop carriers, Coyote reconnaissance vehicles and Light Armoured Vehicles, otherwise known as LAV3s.
The plating is meant to protect soldiers from rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs favoured by insurgents around the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.
The upgrade comes as Canada ramps up its commitment to the region. By February, as many as 1,500 Canadian troops will be on the ground, helping coalition forces rebuild the area.
"Most of the vehicles there (now) have add-on armour," said Maj. James Atkins, who is in charge of equipment for armoured vehicles.
"Part of the (force) expansion includes more vehicles. So as much as possible we're trying to up-armour those vehicles. As a rule of thumb, we'd like to up-armour all of them, but there is a cost factor here."
Adding the extra plating costs about $100,000 per vehicle.
On Tuesday, police in Kabul blamed al-Qaida for twin suicide bombings against NATO peacekeepers in the Afghan capital.
Nine people, including a German peacekeeper and two suicide attackers, were killed.
If al-Qaida involvement is confirmed, it would reinforce fears that the terror network is still working with the Taliban, which U.S.-led forces ousted from power in 2001.
No Canadians were reported involved in Monday's deadly blast, which was the first major attack on foreign troops in Kabul in a year.
Meanwhile, there have been persistent concerns about the level of protection offered by Canadian patrol vehicles.
Two soldiers were killed when their Iltis jeep struck a land mine in the fall of 2003 near Kabul and a third trooper died when a suicide bomber threw himself on the hood of another vehicle a few months later.
The tragedies prompted the army to speed up the replacement of the much-maligned Iltis with new, heavier Mercedes-Benz G-wagons, one of which survived a recent roadside bomb attack near Kandahar with virtually no damage.
The extra armour plating - essentially pre-cut sheets of aluminum and ceramic tile - is purchased in kits and takes several hours to bolt to each vehicle.
Last month, the federal Conservatives accused the Liberal government of "failing to properly equip Canadian troops before they were deployed on a dangerous, high-risk mission in Kandahar."
But Atkins said soldiers are not being put unnecessarily at risk and unarmoured vehicles will likely be banned from leaving camp in Kandahar.
Improvements in the quality of armour-piercing ammunition, which easily punctures metal, left many countries scurrying in the 1990s to reinforce their troop carriers and tanks.
In 1994-95, the Canadian army undertook a program to strengthen the protection of the armoured personnel carriers being used for peacekeeping in Bosnia and Croatia.
An add-on armour kit that used cut-paste, ceramic-like tiles was used, as opposed to the current bolt-on system.
The use of the cut-paste kits was discontinued a few years ago, said Atkins.
"We used it for several years in Bosnia, (but) it wasn't entirely satisfactory for us," he said, noting that some of the tiles fell off when vehicles bumped against trees or buildings.
In 2000, health concerns were raised about the cut-paste kits.
Warrant Officer Michael Peace, of Gagetown, N.B., claimed that the cutting and pasting of the tiles created dust that made him and other members of his platoon sick.
The 20-year army veteran died of a brain tumour in October 2000, five years after his unit of the Royal Canadian Regiment was based in an abandoned Visoko factory where the army added cut-paste plating to 82 armoured personnel carriers.
During a subsequent military inquiry, 34 other soldiers came forward to say they were suffering from a variety of unexplained illnesses.
The inquiry concluded there was no link between the vehicle modifications and soldiers' illnesses.
Atkins said the switch to bolt-on armour was made for technical reasons.
A team of seven specialists spent several weeks adding bolt-on armour to dozens of half-tonne trucks, Bison troop carriers, Coyote reconnaissance vehicles and Light Armoured Vehicles, otherwise known as LAV3s.
The plating is meant to protect soldiers from rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs favoured by insurgents around the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.
The upgrade comes as Canada ramps up its commitment to the region. By February, as many as 1,500 Canadian troops will be on the ground, helping coalition forces rebuild the area.
"Most of the vehicles there (now) have add-on armour," said Maj. James Atkins, who is in charge of equipment for armoured vehicles.
"Part of the (force) expansion includes more vehicles. So as much as possible we're trying to up-armour those vehicles. As a rule of thumb, we'd like to up-armour all of them, but there is a cost factor here."
Adding the extra plating costs about $100,000 per vehicle.
On Tuesday, police in Kabul blamed al-Qaida for twin suicide bombings against NATO peacekeepers in the Afghan capital.
Nine people, including a German peacekeeper and two suicide attackers, were killed.
If al-Qaida involvement is confirmed, it would reinforce fears that the terror network is still working with the Taliban, which U.S.-led forces ousted from power in 2001.
No Canadians were reported involved in Monday's deadly blast, which was the first major attack on foreign troops in Kabul in a year.
Meanwhile, there have been persistent concerns about the level of protection offered by Canadian patrol vehicles.
Two soldiers were killed when their Iltis jeep struck a land mine in the fall of 2003 near Kabul and a third trooper died when a suicide bomber threw himself on the hood of another vehicle a few months later.
The tragedies prompted the army to speed up the replacement of the much-maligned Iltis with new, heavier Mercedes-Benz G-wagons, one of which survived a recent roadside bomb attack near Kandahar with virtually no damage.
The extra armour plating - essentially pre-cut sheets of aluminum and ceramic tile - is purchased in kits and takes several hours to bolt to each vehicle.
Last month, the federal Conservatives accused the Liberal government of "failing to properly equip Canadian troops before they were deployed on a dangerous, high-risk mission in Kandahar."
But Atkins said soldiers are not being put unnecessarily at risk and unarmoured vehicles will likely be banned from leaving camp in Kandahar.
Improvements in the quality of armour-piercing ammunition, which easily punctures metal, left many countries scurrying in the 1990s to reinforce their troop carriers and tanks.
In 1994-95, the Canadian army undertook a program to strengthen the protection of the armoured personnel carriers being used for peacekeeping in Bosnia and Croatia.
An add-on armour kit that used cut-paste, ceramic-like tiles was used, as opposed to the current bolt-on system.
The use of the cut-paste kits was discontinued a few years ago, said Atkins.
"We used it for several years in Bosnia, (but) it wasn't entirely satisfactory for us," he said, noting that some of the tiles fell off when vehicles bumped against trees or buildings.
In 2000, health concerns were raised about the cut-paste kits.
Warrant Officer Michael Peace, of Gagetown, N.B., claimed that the cutting and pasting of the tiles created dust that made him and other members of his platoon sick.
The 20-year army veteran died of a brain tumour in October 2000, five years after his unit of the Royal Canadian Regiment was based in an abandoned Visoko factory where the army added cut-paste plating to 82 armoured personnel carriers.
During a subsequent military inquiry, 34 other soldiers came forward to say they were suffering from a variety of unexplained illnesses.
The inquiry concluded there was no link between the vehicle modifications and soldiers' illnesses.
Atkins said the switch to bolt-on armour was made for technical reasons.
