Laterite is a red clay that dries brick hard in sandbags and is prone to pot holes on roads made from it. It was easy to booby trap roads and that was done frequently in our area. Vietnamese roads were not made to carry our heavy trucks, tanks and APCs. This jeep has a slotted steel bar extended forward from the front bumper that was designed to trigger trip-wire booby traps. In rice paddy country very few high anythings that could support an elevated trip wire were available and lowered the chances of this particular booby-trap trigger being used in our area.