Improvised vehicle armour is vehicle armour added in the field that was not originally part of the design or centrally planned.
Improvised vehicle armour has appeared on the battlefield for as long as there have been armoured vehicles in existence. In World War II, U.S. tank crews welded spare strips of tank track to the hulls of their Sherman, Grant, and Stuart tanks. In the Vietnam War, U.S. "gun trucks" were reinforced with sandbags and locally fabricated steel armour plate.
More recently, U.S. troops in Iraq have armoured their Humvees and various military transport vehicles with scrap materials: this came to be known as "hillbilly armor" by the Americans, or sometimes "hajji armour" when installed by Iraqi contractors.
Read more about Improvised Vehicle Armour: World War I, World War II, Vietnam War, Iraq War, Libyan Civil War, Non-military Use
Famous quotes containing the words improvised, vehicle and/or armour:
“Many a time I have seen my mother leap up from the dinner table to engage the swarming flies with an improvised punkah, and heard her rejoice and give humble thanks simultaneously that Baltimore was not the sinkhole that Washington was.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“How strange a vehicle it is, coming down unchanged from times of old romance, and so characteristically black, the way no other thing is black except a coffin—a vehicle evoking lawless adventures in the plashing stillness of night, and still more strongly evoking death itself, the bier, the dark obsequies, the last silent journey!”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another’s will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!”
—Sir Henry Wotton (1568–1639)