New LAVS for Afghanistan have more armour, less punch
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"We took those 66 LAVs and built on the lessons of Afghanistan," Lt.-Gen. Leslie said, adding that as well as more belly plating, there was shock frame seating and straps to hold soldiers in place like fighter pilots in a cockpit.
There will not only be frank political discussions about what role Canada intends to play in Afghanistan when the current combat mission ends in July 2011 when Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the NATO commander, meets this Thursday in Ottawa with senior Canadian officials. Among the many military issues to be discussed, none has a higher priority than how to reduce the number of coalition deaths and catastrophic injuries caused by IEDs.
Canada and the U.S. have both established anti-armour task forces to examine this vital issue. The U.S. spent more than $26 billion to develop (mine-resistance ambush protected) vehicles, but as Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell explained to McClatchy Newspapers last month, there had still been "real problems . . . off road in Afghanistan" recently, so another $5 billion has been spent on a new variant that is more manoeuvrable.
The U.S. army's 5th Stryker Brigade, which uses a high-tech version of the Canadian-designed light armoured vehicle, also quickly ran into difficulties when it deployed to Kandahar this summer, losing more than a dozen soldiers to IED strikes in a few weeks.
The changes to the new Canadian LAVs entering Afghan service "sacrifice a bit of weapon power" in return for "the most up-to-date armour," said Capt. Olivier Sylvain of Montreal, who as chief of battle damage assessment for Task Force Afghanistan is a forensic specialist of sorts on IEDs.
nationalpost.com
Jim |
