I was having a perfectly good post-homebrewing drinking session when I caught wind of this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
The Army is rejecting a system designed to protect vehicles from RPG's. Is it because the system is too expensive? Not by Army standards it isn't. Is it ineffective? Nope. The Pentagon's own testing demonstrated a 96-100% success rate at defeating RPG's. Can't be deployed due to some practical limitations? Nope. The Pentagon is ready to begin battlefield trials...i.e. as far as they can tell it's ready to deploy.
The problem with this Israeli system is that it didn't come from Raytheon who has a contract to come up with just such a system. Problem is they are years away from a solution and our guys are getting nailed by RPG's every day. If this makes you as mad as me, write your Congressperson and shame Raytheon into telling the Army to deploy this system NOW. More info, ranting and general disorderliness beyond...
According to Raytheon's web site they are located at:
Raytheon Company
870 Winter Street
Waltham, MA 02451-1449
Making Edward Markey (D) the Congresscritter most affected by Raytheon's influence. I wrote him a letter and hope you'll do the same. My letter looked like this:
I'm not a denizen of your district, but I am a Democrat deeply concerned for the safety of members of our military and the success of their assigned mission. I am writing to bring an issue to your attention that concerns a major corporation headquartered (according to their web site) in your district. I'm speaking of major military contractor Raytheon. While I have nothing particular against military contractors (Boeing paid most of my bills growing up) it enrages me to think that any American, let alone an American firm making millions off the public, should prefer to endanger our soldiers to losing a contract. Raytheon appears to be doing just that. Please refer to this article concerning an Israeli weapons system that would threaten a Raytheon program:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
I hope that nobody at Raytheon is pushing the Army to reject this system, but I fear that they likely are. Our loyalty must be to those serving on the battlefield, not the stock price of one of our corporations.
I hope you'll look past the fact that this is kind of a whiz-bang military hardware buff issue and realize that it pertains mostly to keeping our guys safe from the bad guys and the fact that the Army is more interested in keeping Raytheon in the black. It makes me sick and Raytheon needs to be put to public shame for placing their bottom line ahead of troop safety and the success of our war effort.