The Star Ledger February 13, 2006
Picatinny's nonlethal response
By Kristen Alloway
The M113 Armored Personnel Carrier is one mean machine. Equipped with a machine gun or towing missiles and mortars, it has hauled soldiers through combat zones for four decades.
Now the tank-like vehicle is showing its softer side.
Engineers at Picatinny Arsenal in Morris County have created a less deadly version -- designed to discourage and repel, but not kill -- that recently was sent to Iraq's Camp Bucca, one of the largest prisons in the world. They are readying three more they expect to deploy to Iraq later this year.
The M113 is the latest nonlethal system to be designed by the 6,500-acre weapons research and development facility in Rockaway Township, which calls itself "The Home of American Firepower."
The request for it came from Camp Bucca last spring, a few months after four Iraqi prisoners were killed during a riot. Soldiers had used warnings and nonlethal weapons, and when that failed to calm the uprising, they turned to lethal force, according to news reports.
"They asked for better protection," said Army Maj. Dwight Hunt, who directed the project at Picatinny. "They have to walk into the camp and put the riot down."
About 8,000 detainees are held at Camp Bucca, near the Kuwaiti border in southern Iraq. The camp is divided into 12 compounds, and prisoners live in trailer-like quarters on the sprawling campus, military spokesman Lt. Col. Guy Rudisill said from Iraq.
With detainees hurling rocks or launching them from makeshift slingshots, soldiers at the camp wanted something more than the standard riot gear -- helmet, plastic shield, baton -- when they confronted them, Hunt said.
"They make weapons out of just about anything you can think of. ... Like David and Goliath," Rudisill said. "It's no different from guarding prisoners back in the states."
The goal for Picatinny engineers was to get the guards closer to the prisoners safely, Hunt said.
In just a few months, a team of about 15 Picatinny engineers and technicians overhauled and tested the armored vehicle, swapping out its lethal weapons for less deadly ones.
They cut holes in the sides and back to add super-strong windows, called transparent armor, that can withstand small-arms fire. In place of the M113's machine gun, they mounted shotguns that fire rubber bullets. Along the sides they added claymore mines that spray rubber pellets.
In November, the $150,000 revamped M113, dubbed the Rapid Entry Vehicle, was headed for Iraq.
But nonlethal weapons do not always live up to their name.
If fired at a vulnerable part of the body, such as the head, or at close range, they can kill. At too great a distance -- effective range for nonlethal shotguns is between 50 to 75 yards -- or if the subjects are armored, they often do not work.
"You're facing a narrow band between ineffective and lethal," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense and security Web site based in Virginia.
One criticism of nonlethal weapons is soldiers could opt to use force, even nonlethal force, too quickly.
"The issue becomes how do you use it and make sure you're not jumping to it because you have it handy," said Alan Pearson of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. "You need steps to make sure that doesn't happen."
Human rights advocates agree.
"It's a matter of having proper training and proper rules for use and making sure those aren't abused," said Steve Goose, director of the arms division of Human Rights Watch.
The military is working out those details, and the REV has not yet been used at Camp Bucca, Hunt and Rudisill said. While the camp guards and military brass were enthusiastic about the vehicle, they are still determining how it should be deployed, Hunt said.
"Until soldiers and airmen are trained up on it ... they cannot use it," Rudisill said.
For now, Hunt said, his team is focused on addressing the soldiers' initial suggestions.
Future upgrades include adding a bulldozer-like blade to push away makeshift prisoner barricades and a spinning auger to unearth escape tunnels.
Last year, Camp Bucca guards discovered a 600-foot tunnel that stretched beyond the compound fence; no one had yet escaped.
Picatinny engineers also have to figure out how to vent the ammonia-like fumes that build up inside the vehicle when rubber bullets are fired, Hunt said.
And with temperatures in the region often above 120 degrees, air conditioning was a popular request. But that may be too costly, Hunt said.
Although the REV has not rolled into the camp, Hunt said detainees have seen it through a fence.
"Maybe we've shaped their behavior just by having it parked at the gate," Hunt said. "If that saves a solider from getting injured -- it's not sexy, nobody's going to get a Purple Heart -- you've done what you intended to do."
© Copyright 2006, The Star Ledger
