The strain is likely to grow more acute as the government depends on helicopter gunships to extend its reach to parts of the country rendered impassable to logistics convoys and even armored vehicles by the rebels' improvised bombs.
But interviews with ex-cops, the few attorneys granted a measure of access, and one person who was detained inside for nearly an entire day describe an unusual, secretive police compound, complete with armored vehicles, surveillance gear and places to hold people for interrogation.
Most days they travel out in convoys of brown armored trucks, posting letters at night in the villages to assure the local Afghans they are there to protect them, collecting fingerprints from would-be mine planters, resolving tribal disputes, meeting elders and trying to gain their trust so the villagers will pass on information when the fighting season begins in earnest.
If their target is a van full of the enemy, it does not matter if there is a school bus nearby, as that bus better learn to get the hell out of the way when a fully armored kill-bot tank is on scene spraying the area with radioactive ordinance.
Midway through Sunday, Ukraine's interior minister announced that new armored vehicles were being sent to reinforce soldiers on the front.
It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets.
They're like armored squirrels.
As terrifying as the ancient armored vehicles were, the Romans soon adopted responses to them (simply stepping aside and allowing them to pass through the massed Roman ranks was an effective technique).
Armoured vehicle, armoured also spelled armored, military vehicle that is fitted with partial or complete armour plating for protection against bullets, shell fragments, and other projectiles.
Since 1940 Fort Knox has been the U.S. Army Armor Headquarters with various training schools; all U.S. Army armored soldiers serve there at least once during their enlistment.
The last convoy of MRAPs, heavily armored personnel carriers, made a largely uneventful journey out except for a few equipment malfunctions along the way.
