Here's good news: the nearby Stewart & Stevenson plant is ramping up its production of armored truck cabs for the military.
Deadly rebel attacks on supply convoys in Iraq sent the Army scrambling to bolster the number of armored vehicles there, and a Sealy military truck maker will respond by tripling production of its heavily fortified truck cabs.Stewart & Stevenson currently is producing five of the hardened cabs a day at its manufacturing facility in Sealy, about 50 miles west of Houston. Early next year, the company will start assembling 15 of the cabs a day with an angled design that makes them harder for radars to detect.
"As fast as we make these cabs, they want them overseas," said Dennis Dellinger, president and chief operating officer of Stewart & Stevenson Tactical Vehicle Systems.
Army officials say they are doing the best they can to adjust to a threat environment that has changed dramatically since major combat was declared over in May 2003.
As of Wednesday, at least 1,298 members of the U.S. military have been killed since the war in Iraq began in March 2003, according to the Defense Department. Of those, hundreds were killed or injured by insurgent attacks on convoys, according to the military.
The Army plans to spend $4 billion on additional armored vehicles and to upgrade others with "armor kits."
To date, only 10 percent of the 4,800 medium-weight military trucks and 15 percent of the 4,300 heavy-weight military trucks in Iraq are equipped with armored cabs, according to the House Armed Services Committee. Of the nearly 19,900 Humvees operating in Iraq, 78 percent are armored.
This leaves plenty of work for Stewart & Stevenson.
Stewart & Stevenson dedicates 500,000 square feet of covered space to build the armored cabs. It plans to add a second line, multiple shifts and up to 50 workers to handle increased production.
The Army requested the production increase in November. It could have started before next year, the company said, but the Army gives Humvees top priority for the metal used to make armor. Until recently, the metal was hard to come by in large enough quantities for Stewart & Stevenson to apply it to truck cabs.
Dellinger has since secured metal suppliers from around the world. He is hopeful it's enough to do the job.
At 15 cabs a day, Stewart & Stevenson will process 1.2 million pounds of armor metal each month, up from 400,000 pounds.
"When you're asking people to work overtime or on a holiday, it comes easier when they know it's for a soldier over there who's fighting for our freedom," he said.
The armored cabs feature machine-gun mounts and inches-thick bulletproof glass. They are designed to protect crews from AK-47 assault rifle rounds, 12- to 16-pound land mines and artillery fragments.
New features for the cabs are angular gun ports on the driver's and passenger's sides. More.
Related:
• Stewart & Stevenson - Tactical Vehicle Systems, LP - Sealy, Texas