We have known about HMMWV gunner shields for some time now.  But the insurgents have known that they can toss a fragmentation grenade into the turret of a HMMWV, and cause a lot of damage.

A vehicle is an confined space.  As post-9/11 war planning was being done for Afghanistan, I sent a letter to a number of different recipients in the Department of Defense advocating the use of weapons that capitalized on the use of caves as a confined space.  As anyone in industry is aware (chemical, nuclear, steel, etc.), a confined space is dangerous, since there is no rapid means of egress.  I had recommended that we use long-burning oxygen-consuming weapons at the mouths of caves, thereby suffocating the inhabitants.  In other words, take the strength of the enemy’s habitatation and use it against them.

The insurgents have used the HMMWV confined space against U.S. troops, until, that is, American boys unleashed their adaptive powers.  Chicken wire.  Build a wire mesh around HMMWV turrets, as a sort of hemisphere of protection, where fragmentation grenades simply bounce off of the mesh and land on the street.

Presto.  Protection from confined space vulnerabilities.  Once again proving that American troops are the most adaptive and innovative in the world.  God bless them.  Isn’t America a great nation?