Wednesday, Jan 10, 2007 at 14:53
I'm not a ballistics or armour expert or even a guru but as far as I am aware Level 7 will stop 7.62 mm Armour Piercing ammunition. It is also meant to be reasonable protection against VBIED (vehicleborne improvised explosive devices) attack but that is dependant on the amount of explosives used.
The bad guys were (and still are) using artillery rounds as they contain explosives and fragmentation when the bomb detonates. The pics on my profile of the Sept 8 attack show what happens when they change their methods. This car bomb did not use arty rounds. They believe the Corolla contained approx 300 pounds of pure HE (High Explosives) which as you can see easily defeated the armour on the Humvee.
The Corolla was basically vapourised. The engine block, a small section of chassis rail and the front right axle hub were the only sizeable remains of the vehicle and they were located about 40 metres from the detonation point. I won't go into further details on what was found where as this is a family site and many people don't have the stomach for reading that sort of information - just let your imagination do the work.
I was driver of our armoured vehicle at the time. We were sitting approx 200 metres from the blast but there were 2 brick walls about 6 foot high between us and the bomber. Even so our 7 ton vehicle was rocked by the blast wave and we had
debris falling around us and beyond us. One piece of jagged metal about the size of a house brick landed 2 metres from the open door.
The scarey bit is that we only drive the armoured vehicle up and down the road next to the Embassy. When we go off shift and drive back to our accommodation
camp we use soft skin vehicles, mainly 80 series, Surfs, 4 Runners and minivans like a
Tarago ..... no armour protection at all !!!!
Cheers .... Taz
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