Photo gallery: ISIS' car bomb stash captured by Iraq in Mosul.

Captured ISIS car bombs. Daily Mail/Reuters. 

It's not often I link to The Daily Mail but in this case I will make an exception. They have an article up showing pictures of an entire fleet of captured car bombs. The up-armored car bombs were captured in the battle of Mosul from ISIS and will be disposed of by Iraqi forces. 

It's really amazing how much ISIS was able to modify and armor these cars. You can hardly tell that they were mostly civilian vehicles before ISIS modified them. Most of them are SUV's or sedans and all of them would have been deadly if they had reached their targets. 

The armor that these vehicles had would have made them very resistant to small arms fire. I am guessing heavier rifle calibers could probably punch through the armor and, of course, heavy weapons like RPG's and cannons could annihilate them. Given the close in fighting during the battle of Mosul, this makeshift armor would probably be enough. The streets were tight and the heavier weapons that could defeat his armor would be very hard to deploy. I have quite a bit of appreciation for the Iraqi soldiers that had to put up with these attacks. 

Still, I have to say that the choice of vehicles shows how far ISIS has fallen in terms of military technology. After the first battle of Mosul where ISIS took control of the city they captured hundreds of military vehicles, mostly Humvees, but some heavy armor like main battle tanks and armored personal carriers. Those vehicles were even more formidable when used in a VBIED, and were used as such throughout the war. The fact that none of these captured car bomb platforms were military vehicles just goes to show how bad the attrition was for ISIS in the last couple of years.