Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Armor Holdings Inc.'s order from the U.S. Army last week to accelerate monthly production of heavily armored Humvee military vehicles won't increase the total number of the vehicles destined for Iraq, the Army said.

The Army's plan is to complete 8,105 ``up-armored'' Humvees by March 2005, unchanged from before the Dec. 10 order, Army spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Pamela Hart said in an e-mailed response to questions from Bloomberg News. Jacksonville, Florida- based Armor Holdings said Dec. 10 the Army had asked it to raise monthly output to 550 vehicles by March, from 450 now.

``We're increasing the rate of production, not the total number of vehicles,'' Hart said. She declined to provide additional information.

More than half of the more than 1,200 U.S. troops killed and more than 9,000 wounded in Iraq have come from insurgent attacks on the vehicles with homemade bombs and rocket-propelled grenades. Some Humvees to which the Army has added armor are vulnerable to bombs planted on roads because the underside is unarmored.

Last week, Army Specialist Thomas Wilson, a soldier at Camp Buehring in Kuwait, confronted U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during a ``town meeting'' event. ``Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles,'' Wilson asked Rumsfeld on Dec. 8.

`Physics,' Not Money

Rumsfeld replied that ``you have to go to war with the Army you have,'' and said that providing more of the vehicles was ``a matter of physics, not a matter of money.''

The day after Rumsfeld's comments, Robert Mecredy, president of Armor Holding's aerospace and defense group, said the company could increase production by 22 percent, or 100 vehicles per month. The Army's total order will be completed by March.

Members of both houses of Congress have said protecting soldiers should be the military's highest priority.

``I think there was the ability to increase production significantly if they wanted to,'' said Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on Dec. 10. The Pentagon was ``saying, `Don't put the money in the budget, because we can't spend it, we can't produce them.' It turns out, they can produce a lot more.''

2,000 Pounds of Steel

South Bend, Indiana-based AM General LLC builds the vehicles and Armor Holdings adds about 2,000 pounds of steel plate and bulletproof glass instead of the standard zip-up windows. The work is done in Fairfield, Ohio.

The ``up-armored'' vehicles can stop armor-piercing 7.62- millimeter rounds, provide protection from the blast of a 155- millimeter shell exploding overhead and could withstand a 12- pound mine detonation under the front axle.

The Army says 5,910 of the 8,105 newly manufactured, or ``up- armored'' Humvees have been delivered to Iraq and Kuwait.

The Army says it wants 12,372 add-on armor kits for existing Humvees in Iraq and Kuwait of which 9,135 have been delivered to the region.

Armor Holdings has made 7,500 of the kits so far, Mecredy said last week. The armor kits provide less protection from bullets and blasts than the ``up-armored'' version direct from the factory, he said. He said he couldn't give details on the different level of protection offered by each.

`Do Whatever You Need'

``The clear message from our committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee is to do whatever you need for our troops,'' Representative Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Democrat and member of the House Armed Services Committee, said on Dec. 10. ``The uniformed military has always done a better job in estimating the threat than Rumsfeld. I think they've been intimidated into not asking for more troops and not demanding more equipment.''

Armor Holdings' Dec. 10 statement had only indicated monthly production would increase, without reference to the total number of vehicles on order. In a Dec. 10 interview, Michael Fox, spokesman for Armor Holdings at Integrated Corporate Relations, Inc. had declined to disclose financial terms of the Army's announcement.

Fox didn't immediately return calls to his office on Dec. 11 and Dec. 12.

To contact the reporter on this story: Edmond Lococo in Boston at elococo@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: December 13, 2004 01:18 EST