Army to expand array of armored vehicles in Iraq.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.

A mid a wave of violence in Iraq, U.S. military commanders there are requesting additional armored vehicles, particularly large ones that can transport a dozen or more passengers.

The Army has shipped more than 10,000 armored Humvees to Iraq, but these only can fit four passengers. To move larger numbers of troops, commanders have limited options.

One is a gun-truck armor kit that is installed on 5-ton vehicles, with machine guns mounted around the cargo box. The gun-truck kit was dubbed "Hunter Box" after Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who earmarked funds for the project. Researchers at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory designed the kit.

To date, some 31 trucks have been outfitted with the armor protection kits and added to U.S. convoys. In recent weeks, the Army has allocated $2 million, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency $1.5 million to produce gun-box armor kits for 80 more trucks, said a Lawrence Livermore spokesman.

The project's main contractor is Plate Fabrication and Machining of Philadelphia, Pa., and two other firms--Waco Composites, of Waco, Texas, and Protective Armored Systems, of Lenoxdale, Mass.--were added as subcontractors.

Gun trucks were popular during the Vietnam War. Livermore researchers designed the kit with input from Vietnam-era gun truck veterans, the spokesman said, and updated it to reflect the environment in which troops operate in Iraq.

Although the Livermore gun trucks received glowing reviews by some units in Iraq, they are considered a less-than-ideal solution because they expose troops to overhead fire and put passengers at risk in rollover accidents.

"We are trying to find other alternatives, primarily because they [the Hunter Boxes] don't have overhead protection," said a U.S. Army official in charge of evaluating equipment in Iraq. "However, I've heard they might be able to put overhead protection on them in the near future."

A more sophisticated armored cargo carrier, also mounted on a 5-ton truck, currently is being tested as a possible addition to the motor pool.

The armored compartment--called the multipurpose troop transport and carrier (MTTCS)--was designed by Science Applications International Corporation. The company funded the development, and the Army Rapid Equipping Force sponsored a series of tests at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., where the system's ceramic armor plates proved they could survive attacks by a wide range of explosives, said Michael Lowe, SAIC's...