Obama DHS Purchases 2,700 Light-Armored Tanks

Discussion in 'Conspiracy Theories' started by JIMV, Mar 4, 2013.

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  1. SFJEFF

    SFJEFF New Member

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  2. Pregnar Kraps

    Pregnar Kraps New Member Past Donor

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  3. Jango

    Jango New Member

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    Saw this tonight:

    Why The Heck Is DHS Buying More Than A Billion Bullets Plus Thousands Of Guns And Mine-Resistant Armored Vehicles?

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybe...f-guns-and-mine-resistant-armored-vehicles/2/
     
  4. Jango

    Jango New Member

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    Saw this today:

    1.6 Billion Rounds Of Ammo For Homeland Security? It's Time For A National Conversation

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbe...ecurity-its-time-for-a-national-conversation/
     
  5. SFJEFF

    SFJEFF New Member

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    If you look at the rest of the thread, this rumor that the DHS is buying these vehicles has been shown to be just a false rumor- DHS has I think 16 of them - the big purchase is for the Marines I believe.
     
  6. JIMV

    JIMV Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It appears the base number is 16...ie; they already have 16 of the things. The new contract appears to be about 2717 vehicles being overhauled for the marines, though there also appears to be a DHS interest...I would not be surprised to hear they get some fo this total but nothing like the numbers originally reported.

    Far more troubling than folk getting upset about the false story that the DHS was becoming an armored service with thousands of armored vehicles is the large number of folk who seemed to have no problem with the idea, the same folk who have no problem with the DHS buying more ammo than we would use in 20 years of ops in Afghanistan.
     
  7. tomfoo13ry

    tomfoo13ry Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Not only did they have no problem with it, some in this thread were openly supporting and cheering the idea of the DHS having thousands of armored vehicles. For some people, there is no such thing as an overstep by government...at least when it is their "team" doing the stepping. It is truly disturbing.
     
  8. Jango

    Jango New Member

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    A lot of speculation in your post, Jeff. Forbes is a credible source, I'll go with them.
     
  9. Dark Star

    Dark Star Senior Admin Staff Member Donor

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    I hate to always be the wet blanket in this thread, but the writer of the Forbes piece links directly back to the same source that all the other articles link back to - that one guy who posted the rumor on his blog last September. They're all just repeating each other.

    I still hope somebody finds something more concrete on this, if it's really happening. Because if there turns out to be anything substantive to this, it's pretty damned alarming.
     
  10. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Granny says...
    :grandma:
    ... mebbe dey gonna use `em...

    ... to secure the southern border.
     
  11. KSigMason

    KSigMason Banned at Members Request Past Donor

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    Even as skeptical I am of conspiracy theorists, this makes me wonder.

    :roflol:
     
  12. SFJEFF

    SFJEFF New Member

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    I think it is far more troubling that people would be starting threads with claims like this, without ever wondering "Is this story true"?

    Face it- there is a subset of folks who desperately want the government to be conspiring to send in the troops to take their bunkers so that they can start their armed resistance.
     
  13. JIMV

    JIMV Well-Known Member Past Donor

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  14. Dark Star

    Dark Star Senior Admin Staff Member Donor

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    Ya know, I really hate to say this, but I'm curious myself. I just drove cross country last week, about a 2000 mile round trip. I've never seen more individual military vehicles on hauler trucks in my life. One, sometimes two at a time, tactical wheeled vehicles on civilian haulers. Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana... must have seen about a dozen, maybe 15. 4 partial days of traveling, and I saw at least a few tactical vehicles every day, going in one direction or another. Usually when they're doing guard exercises, there are small convoys or groups of haulers, but these were all by themselves.

    I wondered about it several times. Probably just a coincidence, but if others are noticing it and finding it unusual as well, then I guess I wonder what it was all about. Maybe some sort of multi-state guard drill in the Midwest? I'm not accustomed to driving in that region, maybe it's not uncommon there.
     
  15. Iriemon

    Iriemon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You, or whoever wrote that, obviously are completely oblivious to history.
     
  16. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    One glaring obvious fact that all of those "fearmongers" completely fail to mention is that the DHS also now includes the US Coast Guard. Between annual qualification and everything else the USCG does, that is probably several hundred million rounds per year.

    And no, it is not "20 years of ops in Afghanistan". In fact, it is not even 1 year.

    http://jonathanturley.org/2011/01/10/gao-u-s-has-fired-250000-rounds-for-every-insurgent-killed/
    (bold is mine)

    And as you can see, this report was made in 2011, so it does not even cover the huge amounts of rounds spent during the height of fighting, so don't even bother to try that deflection.

    Facts, they are an amazing thing when you bother to even try to look for them, instead of making them up or simply pull them out of your... never mind.

    MRAPs, 5 ton trucks, 5 ton kingpin trucks, looks like the vehicles of the Army on the move. And since this is in Arizona, I am guessing they are moving to-from either 29 Palms, Fort Irwin, or Fort Bliss. And trust me, I have seen such movements all the time. You should see how badly the traffic in El Paso got whenever the 1st AD was going to or from Fort Irwin, and their traincars were blocking all the intersections.

    Or heck, watch the mess when you get almost an entire Brigade of PATRIOT equipment goes on it's 2 times a year training exercises in Yuma. Seen that too.

    And what are a "few hundred thousand rounds" of pistol ammo good for? Trust me, at a base like Fort Bliss, that would be enough to qualify maybe 1/4 of the officers for their 2 times a year qualification.
     
  17. Dark Star

    Dark Star Senior Admin Staff Member Donor

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    Mushroom, I don't know if you saw my post above regarding all the MRAPs I saw being trucked around on civilian haulers in the Midwest last week, but something occurred to me. With all the drawdowns overseas, is it just that much more likely that we're going to see a lot more military equipment being hauled around on trains and trucks stateside? A trainload of Strykers in Arizona - is that just a brigade coming home from Afghanistan? A few MRAPs on flatbeds driving down the interstate in Wisconsin - just a guard unit coming home? Do you think that's what we're all seeing here?
     
  18. JIMV

    JIMV Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Actually, no...the Contracts in question identify the agencies the ammo is purchased for and the Coast Guard is armed through a separate source.
     
  19. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    No, it is not a Brigade coming home from Afghanistan, that equipment remains in place and is then used by the Brigade that replaces it. When a unit goes overseas (unless it is part of an initial push), it takes over the equipment form the unit it replaces, and then leaves that equipment for the next unit that will take their place. It is simply to expensive and makes no sense to move so much equipment from one place to another.

    Odds are what you have seen is units going to and from training, or new or replacement going to those units. Such movements happen all the time. When I went to Seattle last summer on vacation, I passed a large convoy of military trucks. At a rest area I stopped at they pulled in, and one of them told me they had picked them up in Portland and was taking them to their unit at Fort Lewis.

    And when large units go for training (like Armored Brigades), they often have their equipment shipped by train because it is simply cheaper for the Government then having them all driven or loaded onto trucks. Like everything else in the Government, they operate off of budgets. And sometimes the actual training exercise is simply to relocate long distances.

    There is a large marshaling yard at Fort Bliss, and several times I have seen huge numbers of vehicles loaded onto them, just to be moved 50 miles away and then unloaded. Then loaded back up again and moved back.

    https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=31.846284,-106.408017&spn=0.012759,0.01929&t=h&z=16

    That is the Fort Bliss Marshalling Yard. And look, there are what looks like Strykers and what appears to be 5 ton Kingpin Haulers loaded onto flatcars. And if you notice, it is just north of the Army Airfield. If you ever ask anybody that drives down Railroad Blvd, they can surely tell you of times we see the area lit up like a football stadium, with soldiers and civilians everywhere loading vehicles onto and off of train cars there. In fact, a few years ago it was a real mess while they were bringing in most of the equipment from the 1st AD when it was first moving in from Germany.

    And any equipment brought here from overseas is first going to be going to ports, then shipped by train (most likely to places like the Red River Army Depot (NE Texas), where it will be given a complete overhaul before it is put into storage or re-issued to another unit.

    Generally, when a piece of equipment returns from overseas, it needs extensive work before it can be used again. Years of operating at a high intensity operation tempo under those conditions does a lot of damage, not counting any combat damage. Therefore they generally get "Depot Level Refresh" maintenance done, basically being totally stripped down and rebuilt from the ground up.

    Based on one thing I saw on that train, I do not think those were either from a returning unit, or from a unit returning from Afghanistan. And it becomes obvious if you go back and look at that video again.

    Think about it, what color were the trucks?

    Well, most of them were tan. Almost all of the 5 tons were green. And others were tan with green hoods.

    This is typical of CONUS equipment. A hodge-podge of colors and patterns, basically whatever it was that was shipped to them (the stock number for an M-998 in tan is the same stock number for an M-998 that is green, you just order one and whatever color the depot ships you, you get). The same with hoods. Scroll around Fort Bliss there, and you will see motor pools with a large variety of colors. And you will even see vehicles like that, with all colors of doors, hoods and the like. When we need a new hood or cover, often times the color we request is not in stock, so we get one in a different color.

    About 3 years ago I remember our new CO ordering us to go around all of our vehicles and make a list of colors that did not match. Then he had us spend a week swapping parts from one vehicle to another when possible, to try to get them all to match up. At the time I was assigned an M-998 HMMWV, green body with 1 tan cloth door and a tan cloth cover in the back. The next day I had all green, and helped one of the other guys swap the hood of his with another vehicle that was similarly reversed.

    The equipment returning from downrange is all tan. None of it is green, it is all tan. Therefore, this is your typical CONUS (Continental US) military unit.

    And do you have proof of this?

    Look, you have already shown you really do not know very much about this, such as taking a less then 1 year supply of ammo and trying to claim it would last for over 20 years in Afghanistan. So can you prove the ammo for the Coast Guard comes from another source?

    Well, I'm waiting.
     

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