first hard numbers on equipment losses

[MikeyD]

A posting borrowed from another chat board. Note that it states 20 Strykers have been lost in Iraq to date. I was a bit surprised with all the IEDs going off every day they claim 'only' 250 Hummers lost!

I bought a 20 February Army Times this morning here on post and page 16 had a huge write up on armor, vehicle, and helicopter losses in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001. Here are some numbers from that article;

The Army has lost 85 helicopters broken down as;

-27 Apache's

-21 Black Hawks

-14 Chinooks

-23 Kiowa's

Armor and wheeled vehicles are as follows;

-20 M1 Tanks

-50 Bradley's

-20 Strykers

-20 M113's

-250 Humvees

-500 Medium/Heavy Trucks, FOX recon, mine clearers, and trailers

Additional numbers in the article are;

- 230 M1 were rebuilt in 2005, the number will top 700 in 2006.

- 318 Bradleys rebuilt in 2005, the number will top 600 in 2006.

- 219 M113's in 2005, the number will top 614 in 2006.

- 5,000 Humvees in 2005, the number will top 9,000 in 2006.

- 44 aircraft in 2005, the number will be close to 85 in 2006.

The Army has ordered 16 new Apaches, and 5 new Black Hawks. But cannot replace the 27 Kiowas because production lines are no longer open.

Quote- "There are thousands of small arms, radios, and generators that require major repair and overhaul. The repair backlog includes almost every major equipment item, from 50 caliber machine guns to hundreds of thousands of pads for tank tracks".

There are currently 30,000 Humvees in theater, once the war is over, 6,000 will be "washed out" upon return to the states, the rest will be repaired and overhauled.

Every M1 thats being repaired or overhauled comes out as a M1A2 (SEP) at a cost of 7 million each. The upgrades will reduce the M1 versions from 5 to 2, (M1A1 AIM and the M1A2 SEP). Bradleys will also be reduced to just 2 versions.

Army workshops have cranked up capacity from 11 million man hours in 2002, to 20 million hours in 2005. AMC sends half its repair work to private-sector firms to help with the load.

Crunch those numbers, pretty staggering. Just thought you all might be interested.

[ February 21, 2006, 02:01 PM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

[Abbott]

Crunch those numbers, pretty staggering. Just thought you all might be interested.

Thanks for the post Mike. While I did not find the numbers staggering I did read your post with interest.

[Michael Dorosh]

"There are thousands of small arms, radios, and generators that require major repair and overhaul. The repair backlog includes almost every major equipment item, from 50 caliber machine guns to hundreds of thousands of pads for tank tracks".

Wouldn't a lot of that equipment need to be "refurbished" anyway, due to use in training exercises in the States? Statistics don't always tell the whole story. I am sure some staggering numbers are generated by peacetime armies as well.

We upgraded our 100+ Leopard Is to incorporate brand new turrets, and a year later or so mothballed the entire fleet in favor of the wheeled MGS and LAV systems.

[MikeyD]

As to overhaul, i believe a Styker Brigade commander once said that one year of combat operations equals seven years normal use. I don't know if this applies to the duscussion, but I couldn't help think D-Day to V-E Day (WWII) was a mere eleven months and that theater had gobbled-up equipment at an astounding rate!

Someone on the other board commented that this looked like a only month's worth of carnage from back during the good-old-days of Vietnam! Only difference, of course, would be the pricetag. This 'little' war' has some mighty 'big war' funding numbers attached to it.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

230 M1 were rebuilt in 2005, the number will top 700 in 2006.

It would be interesting to know how many of these rebuilds are due to battle damage, how many to normal wear & tear, and how many to some kind of upgrade/modification.

Michael

[Abbott]

This 'little' war' has some mighty 'big war' funding numbers attached to it.

Yeah, the Contractors are coming out of the woodwork to grab their share of the Defense budget. The same as every war, today’s dollars huh? Greed sucks but it is here to stay. Thank God we have farsighted people like Mel Brooks who foretold us about Jews in space. That should keep the world safe for others but the price tag will be staggering .

[Battlefront.com]

Yeah, I wish the numbers were broken down by cause as well as timeframe. For example, I don't think the US has lost many, if any, Apache helos to hostile fire since the opening phase of OIF.

The amount of equipment on this list is not surprising. The 1:7 ratio for peacetime:wartime is perhaps an understatement. In peacetime most of the stuff sits around in motorpools day in and day out for months on end. Not so in a combat zone. They might be idle for a few days, then extremely active for extended periods of time that would rival months of peacetime use.

Steve

[MikeyD]

I thought the last helo to go down due to enemy fire in Iraq was an Apache just a couple weeks(?) ago. Of course my 'due to enemy fire' info is an NPR morning radio correspondent quoting an iraqi reporter quoting a villlager who thought he might've seen something. After the Apache's been dragged back to base for official inspection its a bit late in the news cycle to confirm or deny the shoot-down claim on the air.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

...I don't think the US has lost many, if any, Apache helos to hostile fire since the opening phase of OIF.

There was that little debacle for the 11th. Attack Helicopter Regiment up around Karbala. I don't know if you place that in the opening phase or not though. Mostly there seems to have been a small but steady erosion, mostly operational losses, but maybe a few due to enemy fire.

Michael

[ng cavscout]

Speaking of pricetags. I was talking with a civilian mechanic at a base north of Baghdad, he is a contractor with one of the major service providers over here. He is a line mechanic in a HMMWV service and support center, he will earning approximately $130,000 this year.

Contrast that with a TCN (third country national) truck driver, in one of the convoys we escort every day. He is from usually Pakistan, Egypt, or India. He makes on average $600 a month. There are huge waiting lists for those jobs as well. Some of these men were university professors back in their home countries, but came here to drive trucks in Iraq....

And no, I am not naive enough to think they are doing it because of love for the US, or for love of the Iraqi people. The simple fact is that that equals about 3 times what a well paid truck driver in Egypt can expect to make in a month.

I am very grateful to of been born American.

[Wisbech_lad]

Damn, sure I remember reading somewhere the ratios of accidents for British Army/ RAF for peacetime/ peacetime exercise/ deployment.

Basically, goes up by quite a large factor, as fatigue and general wear & tear take their toll.

[Redwolf]

How the hell do they lose all the Apaches?

While far from bulletproof it is built to withstand 23mm hit with a not prefect but good chance.

At the same time it is extreme standoff, 4-5 km for missiles fire, with the Longbow not even having to be in line of sight. The autocannon doesn't have to be very close either.

The number migt be inflacted by that one big shootup of an Apache battalion during the actual invasion.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Redwolf:

How the hell do they lose all the Apaches?

Accidents. You know, they get mixed up with the previous day's newspapers and out they go with the morning trash.

Seriously though, flying a helo in a sandstorm is no picnic.

Michael

[MikeyD]

And Apaches were never the most reliable flying machines anyway. A mechanic said they'd often break just sitting there on the tarmac. At least during the first Gulf War it was a rare Apache that took off with its systems and subsystems working all at the same time.

As for Apache's stand-off range, remember in a city the size of Baghdad, being 4km downrange of your target means hovering over someone else's house! This was Apache's achilles heel during the invasion, just to get to the designated target they had to run a gauntlet of small arms fire.

[Wicky]

Lynx helicopters combat shifting sands in Iraq

Chatting to an Army Air corp engineer and the engines have to be replaced and overhauled every 30 hours flying time

[MikeyD]

"How the hell do they lose all the Apaches?"

I'm reminded of the F4 Phantom pilot over N. Vietnam who got equipment damage on his flight back to the carrier, just barely managing to get the plane home. When the aircraft was inspected they found a rifle round had hit the electronics! Some poor village farmer with a hunting rifle came VERY close to bagging a Phantom!

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

I'm reminded of the F4 Phantom pilot over N. Vietnam who got equipment damage on his flight back to the carrier, just barely managing to get the plane home. When the aircraft was inspected they found a rifle round had hit the electronics! Some poor village farmer with a hunting rifle came VERY close to bagging a Phantom!

In the case of the Apache it was propaganda to motivate the population to shoot with rifles at flying monster with hellfires and autocannons.

When the coalition secured the area with the wreck they found a whole lot of 23mm hits. The photos were all over the Internet.

[ February 23, 2006, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: Redwolf ]

[Kwazydog]

Heya Rewolf. If you keep an eye on military the news you actually do see an attack chopper going down every 2-3 months (this includes marine choppers too)...Ive noticed this as Ive found it suprising.

I read an article a little while back that said that in general they had proven to be more vulnerable to small arms fire in the current situation in Iraq than was hoped, and Im betting mechanical failure has a lot to do with it too. On top of that the article noted that some 2000 shoulder launched SAM's were still unaccounted for (as an interesting note, that is the number considered unaccounted for world wide...pre-Iraq the number was apparently 9, though thats hard to beleive).

Dan

[Dirtweasle]

What's the SOP now on protecting the blades against sand pitting and erosion?

I recall reading that early on they were debating between using tape or paint. So, am curious if either method has proven to be better or another better solution was has replaced tape or paint?

[Peter Cairns]

Interesting reports in the UK press today about the attrition effects of the war on the UK.

Guardianunlimited

Good background reports on the same site too. John you'll like the LSD one.

Peter.

[Battlefront.com]

Yeah, the attrition of military hardware in general is starting to get a lot of attention here in the US as well. We're starting to get to the point where pretty much every piece of equipment deployed in Iraq over the last 3 years will have been replaced, majorly overhauled, or deadlined at least once. I just read about the Pentagon getting $2.6 Billion to fix/replace helos since the war started against Afghanistan. Even this money isn't enough to replace the losses. It just keeps the losses from getting worse.

Steve

[Peter Cairns]

Steve,

This in a way points back to the 105mm v TOW debate, in that if you use a $50,000 missile when a $200 shell would do, you are going to have an expensive war.

When you look it, you can probably do as much good in Iraq with a ARH as an Apache, except that you can buy three ARH for one Apache and it's a lot easier and cheaper to maintain and keep flying with a few systems out.

Again as with the Stryker arguement, when it comes to a long war, the lower initial costs, cheaper maintainance and smaller logistic footprint all start to add up when compared with a Abrams/Bradley mix.

As to the comments on the strength of the US economy despite the war, well I saw the last set of figures that had the housing boom still running at 13% ( in some areas over 30%), and now almost a full quarter with the saving rate at zero.

Expanding... Yes, Sustainable.... NO WAY.

Peter.