The army is beefing up its armoured vehicles in Afghanistan with help from Halifax's navy dockyard.

The light armoured vehicle (LAV) is the army's backbone in Afghanistan, used for patrols and in combat. But its weakness has led to injuries and deaths among Canadian soldiers.

Shields assembled in Halifax are sent to Afghanistan, where they're attached to the Canadian LAVs.
(CBC)

The Canadian LAV was created to fight on the battlefields of Europe. It was designed during the Cold War, long before suicide bombers in cars became a major threat.

The army has developed a quick fix to protect soldiers by adding heavy armour shields to the LAVs. Workers at the dockyard in Halifax are churning out dozens of these shields.

"Each unit consists of about 65 pieces of steel when we start," dockyard foreman Ray Beazle said. "When it's completely done you have four main components."

It takes about 18 hours to build a shield. Each piece is painted, then sent to Afghanistan, where navy technicians fit them onto the LAVs.

The soldiers who get the most protection are the aerial sentries, who stand guard in open hatches and look for potential car bombers.

Critics say the LAV is too thin-skinned.
(CBC)

"It's to protect those crew members that are sitting above the hatch, and it provides protection around them from explosion," said Commander Don Flemming, Canadian navy project manager.

In a background briefing with CBC News, army officials confirmed that several soldiers have been killed and an unspecified number have been injured because of the lack of armour plating in the LAV.

Because an immediate solution was required, the project was not put out to public tender but rather handled internally, with help from the air force and the navy.

"It's truly a joint operation," Flemming said.

The army won't say how many LAVs will be fitted with the new armor, but the project is a top priority and has attracted the interest of the United States army, which uses the Canadian-built LAV in Iraq.