Rolling out: ASLAVs move out for a routine patrol in Iraq.

Life savers
Equipment, training prove worth

By Cpl Damian Shovell

ATTACKS in Iraq are providing some of the best product reliability and SOP tests available and are increasing the confidence of Australian soldiers there.

Having managed to avoid fatal injuries in a number of incidents, good equipment and training is being credited as an undeniable factor in saving lives – especially in the two direct VBIED attacks against ASLAVs and the Secdet truck bombing.

2 Cav Regt CO Lt-Col Roger Noble is one who credits the ASLAV design, with its suite of operational improvements, and the recent improvements in protective equipment, with saving soldiers’ lives.

“The survivability of the vehicle plus the good kit that the soldiers are wearing on their bodies – the new ballistic goggles, body armour and helmets – are keeping them alive,” he said.

The operational improvements to the ASLAVs in Iraq include the recently introduced Bar Armour System, enhanced protection against anything that penetrates the armour and the Remote Weapon Station on all the PCs in Iraq.

“And the fact that they [the soldiers] are surviving these bombs – I’ve spoken to them in the compound and spoken to most of the guys who have been through the bombs now – they now understand that if they do things properly, they wear their gear properly, they use their TTPs, they’re hard to kill - and that’s amazing for their confidence.”

Lt-Col Noble spoke to one returned soldier who had just been issued the new combat body armour when the truck bomb went off and afterwards found his neck guard full of shrapnel.

Doctors have since credited it for saving his life. Lt-Col Noble said minimising the risk to crew members as they drove around Baghdad had been a top priority, but driving in “closed down” positions in the vehicle was only possible for the driver, because the need to communicate with other road users was equally important.

“When [crew members] are exposed they wear body armour, ballistic goggles and carry a weapon.

“We could drive around completely closed down and you could do it, but you’d find your situational awareness drops right off, you’re just a big armoured metal box, people can’t see you, you have no interaction with people and your actual capacity to drive through other traffic - you could do it, but it’s not good for all the other road users,.

“So it’s a mission thing and it’s sensible, but it’s mitigated by wearing good gear and then making sure you’ve got the minimum exposure necessary.”