V-hull trucks.

• Position: Hit

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* The MRAP--mine resistant ambush protected vehicle--is a fortress on wheels. When the U.S. military invaded Iraq in 2003, there were only a handful of these vehicles in the inventory. Now, the Defense Department is on track to acquire several thousand. The hulking MRAPs--which have V-shaped hulls--are the only military vehicles other than the Abrams tank that can protect occupants from the roadside bomb attacks that have killed and maimed thousands of U.S. troops. Unfortunately the Pentagon didn't start buying them in large numbers until 2006. Thanks in part to the MRAP, by June 2008, fatalities from roadside bombs had dropped by 90 percent. Stories abound of troops being hit by an IED and living to tell about it because they had the protection of an MRAP. The...