Forces' new armour-plated vehicles withstood force of fatal explosion

[daleo]

MOSCOW -- An explosion that killed a 10-year-old boy, injured a farmer and shook up a convoy of Canadian soldiers has given the troops in southern Afghanistan some confidence in the armour plating on their vehicles.

Yesterday's blast scattered pieces of the suicide bomber's jeep hundreds of metres away, cut electrical lines and showered nomads in the desert nearby with a rain of shrapnel.

But only a few metres away from the blackened crater on Highway 4 outside of Kandahar, the Canadians' modified sport-utility vehicles were barely damaged. One of the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagons suffered a broken bumper, a smashed headlight and other scratches and dents.

A gunner in one of the vehicle's armoured turrets was slightly injured, and two other soldiers reported minor aches and pains.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051006/AFGHAN06/TPInternational/TopStories

[acmejack]

1. Picture of G-wagon

[daleo]

2. Mainly posted it because Canadians haven't been targeted too much

So, the Taliban (or whomever) may be widening the resistance from the U.S. troops to NATO in general. I think these guys were awfully lucky. Not the boy and farmer, though, unfortunately.

[tocqueville]

3. never occured to you that the protection of the G-Wagon

might be better than the Humvee ? According to the report it was not a little blast.

Besides it's not the first time NATO troops have been targeted.

[Realityhack]

4. They probobly are...

but they said the gunner who was presumably fairly exposed was not hurt. Also it said nothing about it being a shaped charge which could mean quite a lot. They may well be BOTH better protected AND lucky.

I bet it is a bit better than the hummers as the armored hummers (at least the original ones) reportedly don't even stand up to AK-47 rounds which they were specked to stop.

[daleo]

5. True, it is not the first time.

In fact a Canadian soldier was killed by a roadside bomb last year.

But attacks on NATO troops have generally been less frequent, it has seemed to me. This may be because of where they were stationed, though i.e. mostly around Kabul until recently.

As for the G-Wagon's protective ability, the article didn't really convince me. The article said that the vehicle didn't sustain that much outer damage, so the blast may have been directed away from the G-wagon, by the luck of the draw (for example the engine block of the suicide vehicle may have blocked some of the force in that direction). It is just a hunch from the way the article read, though.