A bomb attack on allied forces in Afghanistan on Tuesday marked the first time the Taliban has been able to effectively strike the heavily armored Mastiff personnel carrier, British officials said.You might nod your head and state that any vehicle can be penetrated if the bomb is big enough but if you do then you're missing the point.
“It’s the first time personnel inside a Mastiff have been killed by an IED [improvised explosive device],” a Ministry of Defense official said.
Based on the Cougar mine-resistant vehicle made by U.S. defense giant General Dynamics, the Mastiff is designed specifically to protect soldiers from improvised explosive devices and rocket-propelled grenades, the firm says on its website.
The company says the 21-ton Cougar vehicle has “withstood literally thousands of IED/landmine attacks” in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A General Dynamics spokesman in the U.S. declined to comment, saying he would defer to Britain's defense ministry.
The ministry declined to give details of the incident, though it said in a statement that the three British soldiers who were killed were inside the vehicle and that they "received immediate medical attention" and were airlifted to a military hospital "but could not be saved."
The Brits took a standard Cougar MRAP and added even MORE armor to it. Short of the enormous Buffalo, this is probably the most heavily armored MRAP ever to see action. Additionally it kept ever hallmark of the MRAP in its up armoring ..high ground clearance, a vee shaped hull and of course all the jamming devices known to the free world.
It still didn't work.
This leads to the next question. If its practically impossible to achieve a balanced iron triangle...one in which you still maintain mobility but still have heavy armor protection to defeat the average IED, then is it even worth attempting?
I say no. Gain cross country mobility to be where they ain't and get aggressive in the maneuver again. Its really the only solution.
