The Science To Protect Soldiers From Bombs

A member of the U.S. Army's explosive ordinance disposal (EOD) unit scans the area around a burning M-ATV armored vehicle after it struck an improvised explosive device (IED) near Combat Outpost Nolen in the Arghandab Valley north of Kandahar July 23, 2010. REUTERS/BOB STRONG

New York Times: To Protect Soldiers From Bombs, Military Scientists Build a Better Dummy

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, MARYLAND — As sometimes happens in rural America, someone has shot up a road sign. Given the gape of the hole and the fact that the road traverses Aberdeen Proving Ground, there’s a good chance it wasn’t made by a bullet.

A proving ground is a spread of high-security acreage set aside for testing weapons and the vehicles meant to withstand them. I’m headed for Aberdeen’s Building 336, where combat vehicles come to be up-armored — as the military likes to up-say — against the latest threats.

Mark Roman, my host this morning, oversees the Stryker “family” of armored combat vehicles. He’ll be using them for an impromptu tutorial in personnel vulnerability: the art and science of keeping people safe in a vehicle that other people are trying to blow up.

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WNU Editor: This will always be a work in progress.