A Boring Dystopia

Oh no. Those things were horrible. The 1/2 inch steel plate was better. And yeah I remember driving around in those things. The steel plate is why I still have legs. Eventually though the anti coalition forces just started using something called an Explosively Formed Projectile (EFP). At which point we might as well have driven dune buggies for all the good armor would do. And by eventually, I mean late 2004.

Then there were the mission restrictions for heavily armored Humvees and early MRAPs. Basically they had to stay on asphalt and couldn't handle much in the way of curb hopping or going under bridges. We actually spent most of our second deployment in an old 1025 Humvee (the 1990's armor that wasn't seen as good enough) and had a much higher mission rate because we could go places other units could not.

I understand that from the outside the answer always looks like more armor, but it really isn't. And we made a lot of vehicles that could come through a normal blast just fine, but with a dead crew from over pressure. It wasn't until the M-ATV that we solved that problem. And that thing got made available as fast as possible. It now lives on in the JLTV.

Tl;Dr - Factory uparmored vehicles were a boondoggle sold to reassure civilians. They were less mission capable and did not prevent casualties.

Edit to add - That 9/11 Iraq myth pisses me off so much. I don't know why we went, but it wasn't for 9/11.