Philippine Armored Vehicles with ad-hoc wood slat armor

While searching for Philippine armored vehicles for the updates being done for both the blog and the Facebook page I chanced upon images of Philippine Army and Marine armor assets covered with thick wood planks as slat armor for protection from rocket propelled grenades. This caught the eyes of Popular Mechanics who published an article last June 8th just for this subject.

From the Popular Mechanics Article

According to the article,

Wood armor on armored vehicles won't save them from ISIS rockets.

Not sure, I'll leave that to the actual reports from the Philippine Military in using wood as an ad hoc protection for rpg's, but yes this is only during emergencies. The Philippine Army and Philippine Marines should employ or use the real add-on armors currently in the market for armored vehicle protection. Or they could just simply buy new thicker-armored vehicles to be used for front-line operations and have the old vehicles to be used in secondary missions or as support vehicles.

From the Popular Mechanics Article

Nonetheless the fast-thinking of our military personnel to address situations like these have saved lives and would commend them for their ingenuity. I hope the upper ranks, the defense officials, and our politicians would be kind enough to give away a huge chunk of their "development funds" for the modernization of our armed forces.

Photo by Photo by Bbobby Lagsa/Rappler, but this comes from the SouthFront.org article

The photo above is a Philippine Marine V300 (for verification) employing ad-hoc armor in a different way. Not sure what they were using but those are surely for additional armor.

Embed from Getty Images

This image from Getty Images caught my attention the most because it has the "Free Wifi" spray painted on the wood armor. I would definitely need that free wifi specially if it is LTE.

A Rappler article titled "Marawi tanks with graffiti are talk of the town" gave me more information regarding not just about the wood armor but also for the graffiti on it. According to the article, aside from being a comic relief in the war-torn city, soldiers have said that it is effective.

Photo by Bobby Lagsa/Rapper

According to Lieutenant Colonel Jo-ar Herrera, spokesman of the Joint Task Force Marawi, "they have proven effective in the battlefield."

It's not foolproof but the wooden planks have been able to trigger the explosion of some RPGs, keeping troops inside the tanks safe, according to Herrera.

The article also noted that it became viral online and was dubbed as Filipino soldiers' 'do-it-yourself' armor.

Another photo taken of the Philippine Army Simba "Pangasinan" from the Japan Times article.

 Asia Times also got hold of an image of a Philippine Marine V150 with wood armor.

Photo: Reuters/Romeo Ranoco

Another photo found in the Defence Forum India has the "Mad Max" painted on the front, thanks to Brahmos.

Kudos to the uploader of this photo.

A more recent article about the Philippine Army's Mechanized Infantry Division by Northbound Philippines News Online also has an image of a Simba armored personnel carrier with wood armor.

Reddit user boxtactics also shared this photo.

Now that the peace in Marawi has been restored, I hope that the Philippine military will upgrade all armored assets with add-on armors that is available on the market. The recently delivered M113's should be a good starting point as these have available add-on armors on the market. Hoping that both the army and the marines will include that in their respective Christmas and New Year wish list.



Thank you to the respective owners of the images:
Getty Images
Rappler.com
Reuters 
Asia Times 
Northbound Philippines News Online