Ohio State University Gets Armored Military Vehicle, Dodges Questions About It

http://reason.com/blog/2013/09/19/ohio-state-university-gets-armored-milit

by trysomething • 13 years ago

28 22 13 years ago

reason.com

greenyoda• 13 years ago

Q: Why do colleges cost so much these days?

A: All that military hardware is sooooo expensive!

andymcsherry• 13 years ago

Riots after Ohio State/Michigan game get pretty intense, there's usually a fleet of helicopters out already.

dagw• 13 years ago

Why does campus security have to deal with that? If it's really as bad as you claim, shouldn't it be up to the state or city police departments to deal with.

montitro• 13 years ago

The campus security IS the police department. A lot of large state schools have fully-fledged police departments, not private security.

westicle2• 13 years ago

I'd be interested to know more about the actual uses and capabilities of the vehicle. For example, the article states that the military has had problems with using the vehicles off-road and that the vehicle is prone to flip.

Elsewhere it is described as resistant to mines and ambush (how exactly?). I'm wondering what situation a university campus is likely to encounter where this vehicle would be superior to, say, a four-wheel drive.

Moto74512• 13 years ago

My understanding from some of my Iraq war veteran friends is that Humvees lack adequate undercarriage armor and they aren't designed for/can't be properly modified to carry the proper armor. There are newer ones with beefed up engines and suspensions but it's kinda like deciding you want to jump ramps/obstacles in a vehicle and trying to supe up your pickup truck rather than building a race truck[1].

MRAP is not a single vehicle but a class of vehicle[2]. The name kind of says it all: Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected.

My friends were stationed in bases inside Iraq and never really had to do any "off road-ing". They had to convoy between different installations within the country. Typically on poor roads but roads none the less. They worked with the Iraqi Defense Force to transport prisoners, supplies, etc.

This[2] is the kind of stuff that they were scared to death over and why they wanted MRAPs. Apparently Humvees don't take kindly to those sort of explosions or rockets, mines, IEDs, etc.

[1]My buddy and his friends do this with their Tacomas and regularly blow out suspension and drivetrain parts. CVs especially. This is no fault of the Tacoma, they are NOT designed to jump large gaps at speed like a Trophy truck.

[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAP

(GRAPHIC)[3] http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=02b_1189545597 (GRAPHIC)

Edit:

That said, I have NO idea why they'd want these in a city other than the bling/super Ninja Robocop ego factor. Using the same SWAT vehicles as the local PD seems like a better choice since the support network would already exist.

westicle2• 13 years ago

Interesting, thanks for the info.

It still leaves me wondering:

1. Why a university would be expecting vehicle mines or even IEDs on campus; and

2. What value an armoured vehicle responding to that situation would have anyway.

My understanding is that a vehicle mine is pretty useless once you know it is there. This seems like a vehicle designed for regular trips over highly contested or hostile (but reasonably well-maintained) roads.

reycharles• 13 years ago

I remember a discussion on HN where this came up. IIRC someone suggested that it was more about the price - for some reason there was / is a surplus of this kind of vehicle. Unfortunately I can't find the thread again.

I wouldn't call this a tank, though.

trusche• 13 years ago

Might have been this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6186569

Radley Balko discusses this at some length in "Rise of the Warrior Cop", cited in the article. Fascinating, scary read.

anologwintermut• 13 years ago

Colleges of OSU's size have had problems with riots after games and at the end of frat parties ( in fact, I believe OSU has had both, I know they have had football riots [0]). Vehicles, including police cars, get flipped and set on fire.

Since this is likely surplus military equipment from the US draw down in Iraq bought for cheap, perhaps it was a cheap way to get a vehicle for riot control?

Certainly, they aren't expected to drive across IEDs on campus.

Keep in mind, the police forces at large state schools are actual sworn law enforcement officers who carry guns, arrest people, and are responsible for crowd control. OSU is more than 56k people, well past the point where a town would have it's own police force.

Of course, this says nothing about whether any police forces should have this type of equipment.

[0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIHxDZwxloY

gcb12• 13 years ago

when 5+ people are going to pacifically hold signs in some park they have to inform the authorities so they can provide public "protection".

why a game of that proportions is different? i take it that more than 5 people are guaranteed to show up.

gcb12• 13 years ago

at reddit when this showed up weeks ago, ppl in the military were commenting how driving those are the worst thing they did on service. that its dangerously jumpy to the point they would question driving over speed bumps or crosing over sidewalks.

seems that some company developed something for military no-price-limits market that turned out so bad that they started a bargain sale to civilians.

ohio was just the first sucker that had to spend last minute budget to not lose it next year. and knowing how prevalent is this, expect a lot more to pop up.

cynwoody• 13 years ago

ohio was just the first sucker that had to spend last minute budget to not lose it next year.

Spend it† or lose it was my first thought, too.

†And then decide what, if anything, to use it for.

dllthomas2• 13 years ago

I assume the intended use is an invasion of Michigan.

yareally• 13 years ago

Happened once before (sorta) in a dispute over state boundaries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo_War

Ohio ended up getting the area around the Ohio/Michigan state line and Michigan got the upper peninsula.

dllthomas2• 13 years ago

Yup. Was intended as a nod at both that, and the ongoing UM/OSU rivalry.

benologist• 13 years ago

For definitions of 'tank' that include 'armored truck' and exclude a cannon, treads and other features you kind of expect on a tank.

davecyen• 13 years ago

Always keeping it classy in Columbus. Go blue

zero_intp• 13 years ago

Ah, shades of Kent.

Four dead in Ohio.

runarb• 13 years ago

To their defense: there has been a worrying trend recently where the perpetrators of thus shootings have been much better equipped. Until recently thus shootings was mostly done with 9-mm semi-automatic weapons. But for example both the batman theater shooter and Anders Behring Breivik her in Norway did use at least some bullet resisting equipment and assault rifles.

It is totally possible that the next shooter will have full tactical armor and a fully automatic assault rifle with drum magazines. When this happened first responders has to be prepared. They shouldn't have to wait on SWAT while someone is going around shooting others. (This was what happened during the Utøya attack in Norway. The police that first reposted did not have the capability to stop the perpetrator, so they was set to direct traffic instead, while they waited on the national counter-terrorism unit to come to aid them. In the meanwhile Breivik could go around executing children.)

Ohio State University Gets Armored Military Vehicle, Dodges Questions About It

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