why buy armor?

[narwan]

bhutnath said:

One thing I have noticed is that infantry traveling in apc often dies with the apc but infantry traveling in light truck will simply jump out with no or little damage. I find the light tr a much better ride. It doesnt make sense to me? is it a bug??

Dutch troops deployed to Iraq (not there anymore though) and Afghanistan used mostly unarmored transports just for that reason. Armored vehicles keep the blast effects from penetrating hits inside the vehicle (the armor preventing it to escape) causing extensive damage to occupants. That doesn't happen with unarmored vehicles. While those are more vulnerable to for example mg fire, personal body armor meant that casualties from such fire remained low and usually not life threatening. The vehicles were often write offs when receiving lots of fire, but the occupants remained relatively safe.

Narwan