The $87 billion Manned Ground Vehicle Program will probably be killed this week, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey told the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee Tuesday morning.
Army Secretary Pete Geren also clarified one point that is sure to raise the hackles of Sen. James Inhofe — the Non Line of Sight Cannon was killed as well. Inhofe had the NLOC made a separate program in large part to protect it from any cuts made to FCS. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the decision that killing MGV also meant killing the NLOS-C, Geren said today.
An Acquisition Decision Memorandum should be out this week, splitting the Manned ground Vehicle from the rest of the FCS program and killing MGV, Casey told the subcommittee. He said they have already instructed Training and Doctrine Command to being drawing up new requirements. A new program outline for a new ground vehicle should be ready “after Labor Day,” Casey said. The military will consider foreign vehicles, though Casey seemed reluctant to commit to the idea of buying one should it look tempting. (While the Army has bought excellent equipment from overseas in the past, it has been badly burned before over buying from foreign suppliers — remember those black berets made in China…. ) The first vehicles should roll out of the plant within five to seven years.
Sec. Gates and his budget experts have made very clear they expect MRAP will be a major part of the new approach to FCS. Casey and Geren were very cautious in responding to reporters questions about this after the hearing. “We are working to incorporate the MRAP” into whatever approach the Army comes up with, Geren said. And Casey said the Army is already putting networked MRAPs — with other FCS spinouts — into testing at Fort Bliss.
One thing may stay the same with the new ground combat vehicle — a single chassis, which Casey said had clear logistics payoffs.
Finally, one of my colleagues asked Casey whether he would provide an unfunded requirements list to Congress. Gates has made clear he does not want to be blindsided by the lists — a perennial favorite of both Congress and the services since it allows the services to circumvent the budget process and OSD in asking for money — and Casey expressed admirable frustration with the process. “I’m almost at the point where I’m ready to kill that whole idea,” Casey said. “Almost?” I asked. “Almost,” Casey said to appreciative laughter from the gaggle. Look for an unfunded requirements list from the Army, coming soon.
One thing I'm curious about is what Gates said this week on the Army's vehicle modernization program and, specifically, his line:
"The current vehicle program, developed nine years ago, does not include a role for our recent $25 billion investment in the MRAP vehicles being used to good effect in today’s conflicts."
In canceling the FCS ground vehicle program, Gates seemed to be saying there would be a role for the MRAP as a replacement for some FCS ground vehicle variants. That worries me a bit because as has been well documented here, the MRAP is of very limited use in most tactical situations and can be more of a detriment to a counterinsurgency than a help.
There's been some more scuttle butt on this over at a well known loop that I'm not able to reveal to protect sources, but the back and forth has been whether the MRAP could be replaced by more Strykers. Michael Yon is arguing that the Stryker fits the bill in most of the situations that MRAPs were used for in Iraq and now in Afghanistan with more firepower and better all-terrain capability.
As someone who's spent some time in Iraq in Strykers (and Bradleys) in Iraq I'd have to agree with Yon that the vehicle is pretty damned awesome and adaptable as heck. I agree with Yon that the MRAP could have a role in securing and convoy escort along MSRS and other LOCs. But I also see an enduring role for up-armored Humvees and the coming era of the JLTV. Of all the tactical vehicle modernization programs in the works, it's the JLTV that I believe has the most promise and enduring effect.
Buy more Strykers with the latest bad-ass weapons systems, armor and C2 gear; kick up the JLTV program and keep the MRAPs for route clearance and escort and we should be good until it's time to replace the Bradleys and M1s...and those should be fun ones to watch.
PS-- I have contacted the Army on when it will release its service budget with specific programs and dollar figures. Apparently, Gates' announcement was just that -- an announcement of "priorities" and not the formal budget roll-out which officials say will come in early-to-mid May. Then we'll get the R1s, P1s and other documents with specifics on who gets what.
And a source tells me he thinks the services might be going back to the drawing board:
Looks like SECDEF is going to force their hand. Frankly, I think both services are probably reviewing their plans in light of SECDEF’s budget announcement this week, the upcoming QDR, and fiscal pressures that will call into question any major acquisition program.
-- Christian
Life Can Go On -- JLTV Protest Denied
The Pentagon’s acquisition community breathed a huge sigh of relief when the Government Accountability denied protests to the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle Program award by Northrop Grumman and Textron.
If this major program protest had been upheld it might well have brought Pentagon acquisition efforts to a slow and painful grind, even slower and more painful than they already suffer from, according to several senior acquisition officials with whom I’ve spoken over the last several weeks.
The prose from the Joint Light Tactical vehicle program office’s Wednesday afternoon press release was bland. “The Government Accountability Office (GAO), today, denied the protests of Northrop Grumman and Textron Marine & Land Systems against the awards of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) Technology Development (TD) contracts.”
But the prose from some Army sources was vibrant. You could hear — literally — some in the Army whooping it up that the GAO had found in their favor. However, the Army still faces a very fundamental problem, one it shares with the Marines. It does not have a clear and viable vehicle strategy. The J-8 is working on the issue but the budget is being rebuilt as we speak and the two services are buying an insupportable range of vehicles — up-armored Humvees, MRAPs, FCS and JLTVs. And the move to Afghanistan will force purchase of a fairly large quantity of vehicles, leaving the services with less flexibility to make a rational, long-term decision.
The Marine Corps is starting to deploy a jeeplike vehicle called the Growler, 10 years after conception and at twice the contract price, after delays that were caused by changing concepts and problems in contracting, development and testing, according to two reports...
The inspector general report said that the average cost of a single Growler has risen 120 percent, from about $94,000 when the contract was awarded in 2004 to $209,000 in 2008. The unit cost for the vehicle with mortar and ammunition trailer has grown 86 percent, from $579,000 to $1,078,000...
The first six mortar and ammunition systems have been sent to Marine units, as have about 20 ITVs.
The Army has 81 ITVs under contract and is awaiting bids on 70 more; there are 12 mortar and ammunition trailer systems under contract and 20 more out for bids...
I covered the ITV pretty closely back in the day (before I was largely shut out of Systems Command) and I'm conflicted by the troubled program. On the one hand, I'm still skeptical about the selection of the actual "Growler" vehicle -- essentially a tricked out WWII-era Jeep. It looks vulnerable and doesn't seem to meet a wider need within the Marine Corps. Did the Corps really need a vehicle that could be transported by the Osprey and tow a 120mm mortar? Or did the Osprey need it to convince skeptics that the bird could be used for aerial raids so the Corps concocted this program?
Clearly the selection of American Growler was a poor one. I'm a big fan of the underdog like anyone else here, but with a price tag of $209,000 for a tricked out CJ6 smacks of cost growth and programmatic problems. And just leave it to a defense giant like GD to double the cost in 10 years...
Troubles with the two systems started in 2004 during the final competition between two bidders for the vehicle contract. One bidder was a team of the giant defense contractor General Dynamics Corp. and a small company called American Growler Inc. of Ocala, Fla., known primarily for building a successful dune buggy using surplus, customized Army M151A2s, a popular version of the military jeep. The other was a contractor in Michigan called Rae-Beck Automotive LLC, which built a popular neighborhood electric car.
By choosing General Dynamics and American Growler, the Marines were able to procure an existing vehicle that was equipped with components that could be purchased "off the shelf," avoiding costs of research and developing an entirely new vehicle. While the Rae-Beck entry was found to be superior in some tests, the Growler, according to[SYSCOM spokesman]Garner, was better "in the most important ones."
On the other hand, I have seen the IFAV (the Interim Fast Attack Vehicle, a bad ass Mercedes jeep the size of a Suzuki Samurai) in use by Recon Marines in combat and they love it. It's small, light, holds a ton of gear and can go just about anywhere. Perfect for the Recon mission. And if I know Marines -- and after 10 years of covering them in a wide range of operational environments, I think I do -- they will LOVE the Growler. It just looks like something a Marine could take through the gates of Hell and still come out the other end with the tires melting, the grill smoking but the engine still running.
In short, I think it's a useful exercise to give Pincus's story a look...it's important to remind ourselves of this program and I do think it's worth giving the vehicle a chance. There's a part of me that believes when the Marines finally get their hands on this thing they're going to do some amazing stuff with it.
-- Christian
Vehicle Makers Work on Weight Reduction
This article first appeared in AviationWeek.com.
Modern warfare -- where the battlefield is a mix of actors, motivations and weapons -- is in part defined by its rapidly changing threat scenarios and multiple layers of high- and low-tech on-the-fly innovations, all of which demand real-time responses.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, this has been especially true of armor protection for ground vehicles, which have been battered by all manner of increasingly powerful pressure plate and remotely controlled improvised explosive devices and explosively formed penetrators; weapons which morph as U.S. armor technology learns how to counter each successive generation of explosive.
This catch-as-catch can approach has produced fleets of hulking Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAPs), intriguing designs for Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTVs) -- currently hung up in industry protests -- and calls for the Multipurpose All-Terrain Vehicle (MATV), or "MRAP Lite" as some are calling it. But what's next for the armor field? Militaries want lighter vehicles, and despite the hulking size of the original MRAPs, successive generations of the vehicle will by necessity be lighter, and more maneuverable.
Damon Walsh, executive vice president of customer operation at armor and vehicle maker Force Protection, says his company, while always working on new armor solutions, is also focusing on ways to defeat and detect the threat before the vehicles encounter it. "One of the things that we're keen on," he says, "is not just passive armor systems to stop threats, but also more sophisticated active protection systems. The idea is "don't just rely on armor, try and defeat the threat earlier before you get hit."
In reflecting on the last several years, it's not surprising that Walsh says that "we've had one of the largest demands that I've ever seen in the industry...for increased protection levels in real time. The threat changed in the past three years so many times that we were in the labs over the weekends trying to create solutions based on intel given by the customer for real-time changes."
Tony Russell, vice president of vehicle armor BAE, which has supplied over 5,000 MRAPs to the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in recent years, sees one of the challenges of the future being the sustainment of the relatively expensive MRAP fleet, now that new orders have waned. But he's also got his eye on the prize that other armor makers like Force Protection are gunning for -- you've got to find "ways to defeat and detect the threat before you even get to it," he says.
The Army announced yesterday that it had awarded contracts worth $166 million to three industry teams to develop the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, also variously known as the Humvee replacement, although this vehicle will be much more than the ubiquitous Humvee. The winners are Lockheed Martin; General Tactical Vehicles (a joint venture between General Dynamics Land Systems and AM General, manufacturer of the Humvee); and BAE Systems.
The contracts are for the technology development phase of the protracted DOD production process, expected to take 27 months, when each team will produce at least seven prototypes. The idea is to build a “family” of JLTV’s sharing common parts but available in different configurations such as a six seat infantry carrier, a four seat recon, command and control, heavy weapons carrier and ambulance. Once the prototypes are tested, the Army will hold yet another competition to down select one or more winners for the System Development and Demonstration phase. Full scale production is expected in 2013.
The Army and Marines have not finalized the total number of JLTV’s they ultimately want to buy, but an Army press release said the request for proposals included a projected production quantity of 60,000 over eight years. The ultimate production number will almost certainly be much higher. Former Army Vice Chief Gen. Richard Cody, in an appearance before a House appropriations subcommittee last year, said the Army intends for the JLTV to replace 130,000 of the service’s Humvees. Australia decided this week to join the JLTV program and might buy up to 4,200 vehicles.
The joint Army-Marine Corps JLTV will strike a balance between performance, payload and protection, said Col. John Myers, Project Manager with the Army’s Joint Combat Support Services, in the Army press release. Unlike the Humvee, which was originally designed as a rear area and garrison vehicle and was converted into a passable fighting vehicle by slapping armor and weapons onto it, the JLTV will be designed from the ground up as a fighting vehicle incorporating lessons learned from the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Whereas the costly and lumbering MRAP vehicles (versions of which cost up to $1.2 million each) were always viewed as stop-gap to provide better protection against the scourge of roadside bombs in Iraq, the Army and Marines view JLTV as a long-term solution. To please the expeditionary focused Marines, the JLTV will be lighter than the Humvee, weighing between 3,500 and 5,100 pounds. A fully armored Humvee weighs 12,000 pounds and more. The JLTV is expected to be more resistant to mine blasts than the Humvee, will ride higher off the ground to provide added clearance and will incorporate a V-shaped hull that deflects blasts outward.
The vehicles must be light and compact enough to be carried underneath the Army’s CH-47 Chinook workhorse cargo lifter and the Marine’s CH-53 Super Stallion heavy lifter, and two JLTV vehicles must fit inside the Air Force’s C-130. The target cost per vehicle is $200,000 to $250,000, according to a May 2006 Office of Naval Research JLTV industry day conference finding. An armored Humvee costs around $150,000.
You might remember a few months back -- as many lawmakers got themselves into a lather, treating the MRAP as the solution to every problem with the Iraq War -- we raised some questions about the pace at which they were being fielded and how they were going to be employed effectively during a counter-insurgency campaign.
Well, the dust is starting to clear from the stampede of those who were out to prove they love the troops more than the next congressman, and lo and behold, their zeal caused a few unintended consequences.
Here's an excerpt from the story running at Military.com:
The accelerated pace the military has used to buy and deploy thousands of heavily armored mine resistant vehicles for Iraq and Afghanistan could lead to problems with maintenance and cost overruns on the top priority project, according to congressional investigators.
Congress has appropriated $22 billion to acquire more than 15,000 mine resistant ambush protected vehicles, also known as MRAPs, to protect troops from roadside bombs and other insurgent ambushes, according to the Government Accountability Office report. Defense Secretary Robert Gates designated the program as the department's highest priority acquisition last year.
That meant testing of safety and performance occurred while the vehicles were being bought, raising the possibility costly errors would be uncovered after the fact. More than 100 vehicles the military paid for were not fielded because of problems discovered after their purchase, according to the GAO report made public Wednesday.
"While the department's concurrent approach to producing, testing, and fielding the vehicles has provided an urgently needed operational capability, it has also increased performance, sustainability and cost risks," the GAO concluded.
Gizmodo has an item about a new miracle paint that makes whatever it coats invisible to radar:
A German inventor has developed a paint called AR 1 that can hide a vehicle from radar, and most importantly, "all militarily relevant frequencies." How it works is unclear, though one test researcher proposes it's either by reflecting radar waves in a pattern so they cancel one another out, or by utilizing microscopic magnets to absorb radar radiation. And no, it won't get you out of speeding tickets.
The inventor's story is an interesting one, involving thousands of hours of lab trial and error, as well as international military interest in his product ... that far outshined the response from his own country's military.
But apparently the most promising and equitable use for such a paint could be civilian. Airport towers and buildings have a long history of interfering with flight control radars. And to simply make them disappear would be quite useful—as opposed to calling hangar 12 in for a landing or something.
(Gouge: CM)
-- Ward
Humvee Maker Submits JLTV Design
I just received this release from Humvee manufacturer AM General describing its team concept for the development of the next-generation tactical transport: the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle.
As you all know, I think the JLTV project is a long time coming and is an exciting opportunity to leverage armor, powerplant, mechanical, vehicle systems and weapons advances since the design and fielding of the Humvee.
Its good to see some many companies jump into the program -- and there's a part of me that's glad to see AM General isn't fighting for the services to cling to its current technology, but is instead getting on the bandwagon with a strong effort on JLTV.
From "General Tactical Vehicles (a conglomerate of AM General and GD Land Systems):
Leveraging over 120 years of combined experience in the design, production and support of more than one million combat and tactical vehicles, General Tactical Vehicles has submitted its proposal for the Technology Development phase of the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program.
GTV's offer for the JLTV optimizes survivability while maximizing power and payload. The approach focuses on commonality of systems and components along with modular armor, resulting in an innovative and agile vehicle system that will provide enhanced crew protection, considerable cargo capacity, ready transportability and unprecedented networked mobility.
"Our JLTV will provide America's Soldiers and Marines a vehicle with the strong performance, flexibility, protection and sustainability they need across the full range of missions, locations and operational scenarios," said Don Howe, GTV's JLTV program director. "GTV's JLTV will give our armed forces the rapid deployability, reliability, networking capabilities and survivability they need today and in the decades ahead."
General Tactical Vehicles applies proven technologies along with a modular design that will accommodate continuing advances in armor and vehicle systems. "While it's a significant advancement in design, it's also affordable and practical," said Howe. "Combined with manufacturing readiness that allows an accelerated path to production, our design will make the JLTV program a smart, low-risk investment for America's armed forces and taxpayers."
Innovative features of the GTV design include:
Lightweight hybrid hull structure which provides a low-profile and blast-resistant vehicle designed to survive current and future threats
Parallel arm adjustable height suspension to give the vehicle increased mine blast protection without jeopardizing air and sea transportability;
Semi-active suspension ensuring safety enhanced mobility and crew comfort
Proven propulsion systems with a high horsepower-to-weight ratio to maximize payload, plus a driveline that gives the vehicle tough off road capabilities
Digital cockpit with C4I technologies connecting the crew to other units and systems
A unique modular and scalable trailer that has mobility equal to the JLTV vehicle itself.
General Tactical Vehicles is a joint venture between AM General and General Dynamics Land Systems, a business unit of General Dynamics formed to provide the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps a low-risk, affordable, technically advanced and economically sustainable solution to their Joint Light Tactical Vehicle requirements. In 2006, both AM General and General Dynamics were awarded JLTV "Best Technical Approach" trade studies by the Office of Naval Research.
I've asked AM General for a photo or artist's rendition of the vehicle, but I'm intrigued by this idea of a "modular and scalable trailer." [Sounds like their making the vehicle itself smaller to generate a lower profile and adding a trailer for gear and other stuff. I wonder how well this is going to go over with the Army and Marine Corps. They could read it as just something else to break]...
EDITOR: good call dear readers, indeed a trailer is probably part of the RFP. I understand the need and the compatibility issues Ed, roger all and good input. Thanks!
-- Christian
MRAP Review
Here's a great first-person review of the MRAP from my good friend who posts as "Slab" on OpFor.
In January, my team traded out our well-worn M1114 Up-armored HMMWV for a 4X4 JERRV, one of the models of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles purchased by the Marine Corps. We were pretty excited to have the new vehicle, especially after our first look inside. I mean, the thing looks like the Cadillac Escalade of tactical vehicles. The IED threat in our little slice of Al Anbar had long since dropped to non-existent, but it felt good to have something that was specifically engineered to combat the threat, you know? It didn't take long for the novelty to wear off, however, and by the end of the deployment we had taken to operating mainly from a Humvee again. The MRAP is a superb EOD and convoy security vehicle (the acronym JERRV stands for Joint EOD Rapid Response Vehicle), but it is merely a passable utility and/or fighting vehicle. The thing was obviously designed with the EOD mission in mind, and if any operator input was incorporated into the design, it clearly did not come from the infantry community.
On the good side, it is obviously better equipped to resist blast-type mines and IEDs than any other vehicle in the inventory. On top of the increased protection, the MRAP has a fantastic communications system installed, much better than what we had in our Humvee. Most ANGLICO Humvees look like Monster Garage rejects - additional antennas installed in weird places, additional radios installed in all sorts of unauthorized fashion, all trying to maximize the communications capability of our vehicles. Here we had a vehicle that came with brand new multiband radios, all tied in to an intercommunications system. Although many of the comm capabilities are completely unnecessary for most units, it almost seemed like this thing was made for ANGLICO. In addition, the designers were definitely looking to improve crew comfort in these things - the seats are much more comfortable than the ones in a Humvee, the Vehicle Commander's (VC) seat was MUCH roomier than in a Humvee (even my 155 lb ass ends up wedged between the door and the Blue Force Tracker mount in a Humvee), the air conditioning system was top-notch, etc.
For a motorized infantry mission, however, the MRAP's shortcomings are many. It handles atrociously offroad. The suspension is incredibly stiff, with the end result being that you must be tightly strapped in to survive the jostling in the back of the vehicle. Well, my radio operator sits in the back, and those wonderful radios I mentioned before are placed in such a way that the only person who can readily access them is the gunner. Someone that I would prefer keep his attention oriented, you know, outside the vehicle. My radio guy can certainly reach around the gunner's legs and work on the radios, but not if he's tightly strapped in trying to survive the ride.
Because we frequently live and fight from our vehicle, we have to carry an assortment of odds and ends for our radios, weapons, and ourselves. Things like water, MREs, ammunition, spare barrels for the machinegun, and spare items for the radios. The jostling that I just mentioned makes it nearly impossible to store any of these items in the interior of the vehicle without significant modification. We tried removing one of the seats and putting in a wooden box with space for some of these items, but many items were tossed completely out of the box and ended up strewn about the floor of the vehicle. There is a complete lack of weapons stowage for passengers in the rear of the vehicle, and the weapons racks for the driver and VC are designed for M16s, not M4s. One aspect that seems to elude many tactical vehicle designers is that motorized infantry typically store their sustainment load (i.e. rucksacks) externally (see below). This allows the vehicle's internal space to be utilized for items that I mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph, which must be readily accessible throughout the day. Sustainment items can typically wait until a long halt of some sort before they are needed. Yet, the MRAP has no provision for strapping a rucksack to the outside of the vehicle.
The MRAP is a vehicle that is well-suited for a particular niche, but due to pressure from people such as our lawmakers in Congress, it has been pressed into service in roles that it is not suited for. For a unit that never leaves a paved surface, and rarely spends more than 24 hours outside of some sort of operating base at a time, the MRAP's protection and communications capabilities make it a superb asset. For units that must remain expeditionary, be able to operate in a wide variety of terrain and pursue the enemy wherever he is found, the MRAP is ultimately a poor choice, and I in retrospect I am very glad that Gen Conway is reducing the number of these vehicles on order. Personally, if given the choice, I would take an M1114 or M1152 HMMWV over the JERRV 4X4, and would seek other means to reduce the IED threat through such things as tribal leader engagement and refining mounted patrol TTPs.
For more reading on the subject, try Defense Tech. As you can see, Christian has been leveling similar criticism since last year. Christian's article is one of the more down-to-earth articles I've seen on the subject. He and I had a good discussion about personal body armor at the Milbloggies last year, it looks like we are of generally the same opinion on the MRAP issue as well.
The number of deliveries by sea now exceeds those airlifted into Iraq by heavy transports, which makes a heck of a lot more sense (and costs less). I remember during my stop over at al Asad airbase seeing those contracted AN-124 Condor (Ukrainian transports) flying in and out all day delivering the IED-resistant vehicles to western Iraq.
It's interesting the see the raging back and forth over the MRAP (partly stoked by yours truly) Peter out as of late. In fact, I hear the Marine Corps is quietly trying to duck out of the "program executive office" role for MRAPs, hoping to hand over the politically radioactive and costly program to the big boys in the Army to deal with.
The Marines have always been more jazzed about the JLTV anyway, so let's give them the breathing room to execute that badly needed program.
You know, I spent some time with Army units over there, but didn't roll in MRAPs with them. Still spent a lot of time in the latest up-armored Humvees. If anyone's got some inside gouge on where these 5,200 MRAPs are operating, I'd like to post it here. Maybe they're mostly around Baghdad.
Well, in the interest of giving each side their due, I’m going post some comments sent to me this weekend from another MGS platoon sergeant who was quoted in the Bloomberg story I cited in my story.
At this time in my opinion am one of the most combat experienced MGS vehicle commanders in the army today. I have fired 58 rounds in a combat situation...none of them were just for fun rounds. I have used the MGS in every manner possible and used it for things it was not tatically supposed to be used for. It pisses me of that only 1 or 2 guys were asked about this vehicle in 4-9 INF, 4/2bde.
And later he wrote me...
I just want the vehicle to get a fair chance and for people who think it a waste of tax dollars to realize that we now control the battlefield both cross country and urban.
The MGS platoon sergeant also pointed me in the direction of some YouTube videos featuring the MSG. Here’s one, and a link to the others.
So, take a look for yourself. All I can say is the crew with whom I talked in Baqubah hated the vehicle and argued it was rushed too soon to combat. Our new source says something completely different, and it’s totally fair to argue that my story was based on the opinions of just a handful of people.
We’ll follow up with any further disclosures on the MGS from all sides.
And, PS: I’m back from the Sandbox. A hearty thanks to my dear leader, Ward Carroll, for hosting the blog in my absence. He did a first rate job and I can see you all enjoyed his aimless blathering...
-- Christian
New Stryker Sucking
BAQUBAH, Iraq - The newest version of the Army’s popular Stryker combat vehicle is garnering poor reviews here from Soldiers assigned to man its tank-like hull.
The General Dynamics Corp.-built Mobile Gun System looks like a typical eight-wheeled Stryker, except for a massive 105mm gun mounted on its roof. The gun fires three different types of projectiles, including explosive rounds, tank-busters and a "canister round" that ejects hundreds of steel pellets similar to a shotgun shell.
But while the system looks good on paper and the Army’s all for it, Soldiers with the 4th Battalion of the 9th Infantry Regiment -- one of the first units to receive the new vehicle for their deployment to Iraq -- don’t have a lot of good things to say about it.
"I wish [the enemy] would just blow mine up so I could be done with it," said Spec. Kyle Handrahan, 22, of Anaheim, Calif., a tanker assigned to Alpha Company, 4/9’s MGS platoon.
"It’s a piece," another MGS platoon member chimed in. "Nothing works on it."
Hey, folks, greetings from O'Hare airport. My connecting flight to Kansas City is delayed a couple of hours (I discovered after running from one terminal to the other like OJ back in the old Hertz commercials), so I have a little time on my hands here.
Here's an item Military.com reported on a few days back that I thought would be worthy of a discussion among the DT clan. Our man Eric Daniel relays that it's important to note that the Soldier killed was seated in the most vulnerable position in the MRAP and that an IED that size would've taken out everyone in a Humvee. Also, it's unclear if the gunner died from the blast or the MRAP's subsequent roll. But, still, this casualty is a surprise since most considered the MRAP to be IED-proof altogether.
Here's a bit of the report:
A Soldier killed over the weekend south of Baghdad was the first American casualty in a roadside bomb attack on a newly introduced, heavily armored vehicle, a military spokeswoman said Jan. 22.
The V-shaped hull of the huge MRAP - Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected - truck is designed to deflect blasts from roadside bombs, a weapon that has killed more American Soldiers than any other tactic used by Sunni insurgents and militia fighters in Iraq.
The Soldier who died Jan. 19 was the gunner who sits atop the MRAP vehicle. Three crew members tucked inside the cabin were wounded. The vehicle rolled over after the blast and it was not clear how the gunner died - from wounds in the explosion or in the subsequent roll-over.
Maj. Alayne P. Conway, deputy spokeswoman for the 3rd Infantry Division, said the attack and the death were under investigation.
There now are more than 1,500 of the costly vehicles in service in Iraq and the Pentagon is working to get at least 12,000 more, using $21 billion provided by Congress. MRAPs cost between $500,000 and $1 million, depending on their size and how they are equipped.
The cycle of war continues . . .
-- Ward
Secret Service Whoop Ass
Mount a mini-gun on a hard SUV and what do you get? I'm not sure but it sure does have a high rate of fire. Heads up, Code Pink bad people who could be viewed as a threat to state officials . . .
-- Ward
Getting Sideways at the DARPA Derby
The U.S. military's sprawling logistics system has always been its most vulnerable flank. Two years ago Iraqi insurgents figured that out. In 2004 and 2005, attacks on supply trucks killed hundreds of U.S. troops. More escorts and thicker armor eventually trumped insurgent attacks - for now - but the military hasn't forgotten just how hairy it got. In typical American fashion, the military decided one of the best ways to protect logistics troops was to fire them, and make supply convoys autonomous.
It's freezing cold this morning at an abandoned U.S. Air Force base near Victorville, California. In just a few minutes, officials from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will fire the gun to begin the 60-mile, 6-hour Urban Challenge robot race. The idea: to demonstrate the technology that might one day result in fully robotic supply trucks that can find their way through intersections, maneuver around obstacles, change lanes and stop on a dime when some kid runs across the road. The prize: a $3.5 million check from Uncle Sam.
Two weeks ago, there were 35 teams from universities and industry vying for a spot in the final race. After rigorous testing, during which the robots were required to adhere to California traffic laws, only 11 teams are left. One disqualified robot plowed into a human-driven Darpa car. Others freaked out at intersections, parking lots or left turns.
Read the rest of David Axe's brief from Aviation Week HERE.
MRAP is an unusual program that involves rolling purchases of a wide range of vehicle types, all meeting the same basic mobility and protection requirements.
The requirements do not specify how a vehicle should meet them, so manufacturers take different approaches, with some embracing a monocoque style that combines the hull and chassis in a single piece, and others bolting an armored hull to a separate chassis, perhaps with a "belly plate" to protect the drive train. All hull designs are V-shaped, though some are flatter than others to maximize interior space.
The manufacturers give their vehicles model names like "Cougar" and "Alpha," but the MRAP program office tends to refer to them only by category. The three categories in the program each describe a different weight class and size and are intended for different missions. The roughly 7,800 vehicles ordered as of August are split between the four main military services and Special Operations Command.
The following is a summary of the categories, vehicle types, key performance specifications, design strengths and weaknesses, and mission information for the MRAP vehicles procured by the Pentagon.
Category I: approximately 7-15 tons; at least 4 passengers, plus 2 crew; urban transport.
Category II: approximately 15-25 tons; up to 8 passengers, plus 2 crew; road escort, ambulance and bomb-disposal missions.
Category III: approximately 25 tons; at least 4 passengers, plus 2 crew; bomb disposal.
Category I
Cougar H 4 X 4: Force Protection Industries Inc. (Ladson, S.C.). Weight: 16 tons. Passengers: 4 + 2 crew. MRAP I orders: 785 + several for testing. Cost: $475,000. Features: Monocoque, flattened V-shaped hull extended to engine compartment; 330-hp. engine; dual air conditioners; rear door.
Reality check: Widely considered the "gold standard" of MRAP designs, the Cougar enjoyed considerable sales success even before MRAP. Force Protection built a small number of Tempest vehicles-basically early Cougars-for British Army engineers in 2002, followed by several hundred Cougars for the U.S. military between 2003 and 2006, mostly for engineer and bomb-disposal units. In April, Force Protection, citing military statistics, claimed that despite some 300 attacks targeting Cougars in Iraq, not one Marine died while riding in one. Force Protection builds Cougars at its main factory in Ladson as well as in a new facility in North Carolina, and has signed co-production agreements with General Dynamics and BAE Systems (for Iraqi army Cougars). The vehicle's major weakness is poor off-road mobility, a consequence of its relatively heavy weight resulting from a high degree of protection. The design minimizes the use of glass to improve survivability, at the cost of passenger visibility.
RG-33 4 X 4: BAE Systems North America (Rockville, Md.). Weight: 14 tons. Passengers: 4 + 2 crew. MRAP I orders: 201 + several for testing. Cost: approximately $300,000. Features: Monocoque, flattened V-shaped hull that stops short of engine compartment; rear door.
Reality check: The RG-33 is a cousin of the RG-31, which itself is based on the South African Mamba design that incorporates a German-designed Unimog chassis. The RG series of vehicles makes extensive use of armored glass to improve visibility, with a slight penalty in survivability. Perhaps the design's greatest weakness is its vulnerability to a "mobility kill" that destroys the lightly armored engine and leaves the crew stranded. RG-33s are manufactured on two lines in York, Pa., another in Texas and a fourth at a BAE-owned factory in South Africa. BAE's acquisition of Armor Holdings LLC this summer significantly boosted the company's ability to "up-armor" its MRAP designs. BAE representative Doug Coffey says that live-fire testing at Aberdeen, Md., proved the RG-33 to be the overall most survivable MRAP vehicle. He added that stockpiling adequate raw materials, especially armor-grade steel, was the biggest obstacle to fulfilling orders. RG-33 has an extensive combat record. U.S. Army and Marine Corps units use the vehicle in Iraq and Afghanistan for bomb-disposal and route-clearance missions.
MaxxPro 4 X 4: International Military and Government LLC (Warrenville, Ill.). Weight: 16 tons. Passengers: 4 + 2 crew. MRAP I orders: 1,955 + several for testing. Cost: $548,000. Features: Commercial truck chassis with a bolt-on V-shaped armored hull; 330-hp. engine; rear door.
Reality check: Commercial truck-maker International was a surprise winner in the first round of MRAP purchases; MaxxPro scored more orders than any other type. Assistant General Manager Bob Walsh credits the company's huge factory capacity and support base, as well as MaxxPro's two-piece design. "It does a very good job of redirecting energy [from bomb blasts]." Repairability: "Being cab-on-chassis, you're able to pull off this body and slide a new chassis in." The successful German Dingo vehicle embraces a similar design philosophy, but there's a reason most MRAP types feature single-piece monocoque hulls: On a bolt-on design, a powerful blast might separate the hull from the chassis, resulting in a mobility kill that strands the crew. MaxxPro chassis are manufactured in Garland, Tex.; hulls are made in West Point, Miss.
Caiman 4 X 4: Armor Holdings LLC (Jacksonville, Fla.). Weight: 14 tons. Passengers: 4 + 2 crew. MRAP I orders: 1,154 + several for testing. Cost: $443,000. Features: Family of medium tactical vehicle (FMTV) chassis with a V-shaped armored hull; rear door.
Reality check: Armor Holdings has released few details about the Caiman design, stressing only that it is lighter than many MRAPs. Caiman has chassis components common to the FMTV utility truck, a feature that should simplify maintenance and support. The design reportedly boasts better off-road performance than the heavier Cougar. Work is performed in Sealy, Tex., and Fairfield, Ohio.
Alpha 4 X 4: Oshkosh Truck (Oshkosh, Wis.). Weight: 13 tons. Passengers: 6 + 2 crew. MRAP I orders: 100 + several for testing. Cost: $306,000. Features: Monocoque layout with V-shaped armored hull; rear door.
Reality check: Despite being one of the biggest builders of military utility trucks, Oshkosh designs have fared poorly in the MRAP competition. Alpha was intended to be a smaller, lighter MRAP in order to facilitate rapid shipping and improve urban maneuverability. But testing at Aberdeen, as well as limited field testing with combat units, proved Alpha to be more vulnerable than other designs-this despite special armor co-developed by Battelle and Protected Vehicles Inc. The Marine Corps informed Oshkosh that it would not order more than the initial batch of 100.
RG-31 Mk 5 4 X 4: General Dynamics Land Systems Canada (London, Ont.). Weight: 9 tons. Passengers: 10 + 2 crew. MRAP I orders: 10 + several for testing. Cost: approximately $300,000. Features: Monocoque, flattened V-shaped hull that stops short of engine compartment; rear door.
Reality check: The U.S. Army and Canadian forces used the relatively lightweight RG-31 in Iraq and Afghanistan, where it has proved popular but somewhat less survivable than the Cougar. Canadian RG-31s have been involved in several fatal bombings and have suffered mechanical problems. Mechanical faults also drove the British Army to retire a handful of RG-31s it purchased in the 1990s. GDLS is partnered with BAE in South Africa on RG-31 production. The Army continues to purchase the model for route clearance outside of the MRAP program. RG-31s in Iraq have been fitted with cage armor to protect against rocket-propelled grenades.
M1117 4 X 4: Textron (Providence, R.I.). Weight: 12 tons. Passengers: 8 + 3 crew. MRAP I orders: 4 for testing. Features: Flattened V-shaped hull; side door; 260-hp. engine. Cost: $690,000.
Reality check: Textron pitched this stretched variant of its successful Armored Security Vehicle, more than 1,000 of which have been ordered by the U.S. Army for convoy escort duty in Iraq. The M1117 is lighter and has a flatter hull bottom than the other contenders, and these liabilities apparently doomed the vehicle. The Marine Corps bought only four test examples. The New Orleans factory that makes ASVs was heavily damaged in Hurricane Katrina in 2005; there were doubts that Textron could increase production to meet MRAP demand, even if the vehicle had proved survivable enough. The M1117 also is more expensive than other Category I MRAPs.
Category II
Cougar HE 6 X 6: Force Protection Industries Inc. (Ladson, S.C.). Weight: 24 tons. Passengers: 10 + 2 crew. MRAP I orders: 920 + several for testing. Cost: $644,000. Features: Monocoque, flattened V-shaped hull extended to engine compartment; dual air conditioners; rear door.
Reality check: The roomier six-wheeled Cougar variant is prized by bomb squads for its ability to carry an ordnance-disposal robot and controls with room to spare; many of the pre-MRAP 6 X 6 orders were placed by the Navy on behalf of the military bomb-disposal community. The British and Iraqi armies were first to embrace the 6 X 6 for other missions. In 2006, Force Protection sold 400 Cougar HE variants to the Iraqi army and 108 to the British Army. The British "Mastiffs," as they are called, reportedly boast superior protection against explosively formed penetrator bombs.
RG-33L 6 X 6: BAE Systems North America (Rockville, Md.). Weight: 22 tons. Passengers: 12 + 2 crew. MRAP I orders: 330 + several for testing. Cost: approximately $630,000. Features: Monocoque, flattened V-shaped hull that stops short of engine compartment; rear door, exportable power; robotic claw arm.
Reality check: This stretched and widened RG-33 variant is fitted for the same roles as the Cougar HE, with the addition of a robotic arm like that on the larger Buffalo MRAP, used to probe suspected explosive devices. The RG-33's lower height compared to the Buffalo will probably make it an inferior arm platform.
RG-31E 6 X 6: General Dynamics Land Systems Canada (London, Ont.). Weight: approximately 20 tons. Passengers: at least 10 + 2 crew. MRAP I orders: 610 + several for testing. Cost: $559,000. Features: Monocoque, flattened V-shaped hull that stops short of engine compartment; rear door.
Reality check: A stretched RG-31 variant, the E model has yet to appear in public and the manufacturer has released only basic details, but it should be broadly similar to the RG-33L.
MaxxPro XL 4 X 4: International Military and Government LLC (Warrenville, Ill.). Weight: 18 tons. Passengers: 10 + 2 crew. MRAP I orders: 16 + several for testing. Cost: $540,000. Features: Commercial truck chassis with a bolt-on V-shaped armored hull; rear door.
Reality check: A heavier, stretched MaxxPro. As with many Category II MRAPs, the MaxxPro XL uses the same engine as its smaller, lighter Category I counterpart, meaning slightly degraded performance.
Golan 4 X 4: Protected Vehicles Inc. (North Charleston, S.C.). Weight: 15 tons. Passengers: 10 + 2 crew. MRAP I orders: 60 + several for testing. Cost: $623,000. Features: Monocoque, V-shaped armored hull; rear door.
Reality check: PVI was a subcontractor to Oshkosh on that company's failed Alpha MRAP; PVI's own Golan has fared little better. There has been no indication that the Pentagon will order any beyond the initial batch of 60. While awaiting orders, PVI has cut its work force in half, and is currently fighting a lawsuit relating to issues about the departure of PVI founder Garth Barrett from rival Force Protection Inc., where he was president. Force Protection claims Barrett stole a hard drive containing confidential data. Barrett is countersuing. Executive representative Drew Felty says the lack of interest in Golan is not due to survivability. "We have what we call a triad solution: we've got protection against IEDs-including fragmentation, EFP (explosively formed penetrator) and RPG, all in one vehicle." The design features modular armor blocks on the sides and cage armor over the windows. PVI has the advantage of being located near the Navy's SPAWAR Systems Center, which integrates turrets and electronics in MRAPs, and Charleston AFB, where many MRAPs embark for flights to Iraq.
Caiman 6 X 6: Armor Holdings LLC (Jacksonville, Fla.). Weight: 24 tons. Passengers: approximately 10 + 2 crew. MRAP I orders: 16 + several for testing. Cost: approximately $600,000. Features: FMTV chassis with a V-shaped armored hull; rear door.
Reality check: As with the Category I Caiman, Armor Holdings has released few details about this vehicle, only stressing its FMTV utility truck chassis.
Category III
Buffalo 6 X 6: Force Protection Industries Inc. (Ladson, S.C.). Weight: 25 tons. Passengers: 4 + 2 crew. MRAP I orders: 58 + several for testing. Cost: $856,000. Features: Monocoque, flattened V-shaped hull extended to engine compartment; 400-hp. engine; rear door; robotic claw arm.
Reality check: The Buffalo is the only vehicle qualifying for MRAP Category III, owing to its unique features: greater size, weight and height, which make it cumbersome but extremely survivable, and an excellent platform for the robotic arm used to prod suspected bombs. Buffaloes in Iraq have been seen fitted with cage armor to protect against RPGs. Buffalo is a direct descendant of the South African Casspir design that is in widespread military and civil use for mine-clearance.
Marine commanders in Iraq are asking the Pentagon to slow down deployment of IED-resistant vehicles in order to give them more time to figure out how best to employ the heavily-armored trucks, a top Corps official Wednesday.
Congress and the Pentagon have devoted billions to a crash program to field so-called Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles that are said to protect troops from deadly roadside bombs more effectively than up-armored Humvees. But the vehicles are more than four times heavier than an armored Humvee and may require different tactics for their use.
"I would say 'relax,' we don't know how we're going to use them, nobody does," said Brig. Gen. select Larry Nicholson, deputy commander of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command based in Quantico, Va. "And anyone who says ... 'this is exactly how many we need and this is exactly how we're going to use them' is not being truthful."
Commanders in Iraq are asking military officials in the U.S. to send "a few more" MRAPs, "then let us figure it out," Nicholson said during a panel discussion on the future of the MRAP, sponsored by the non-partisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a defense think tank with close Pentagon ties.
I found this comment interesting, and I pressed Nicholson on it, remarking that it sounded to me like these vehicles had been imposed upon Iraq commanders rather than requested by them. Nicholson responded that the commanders issued the first tanks didn't necessarily know how they were going to employ them and in what numbers - a point to which Andy Krepinevich, CSBA chief, agreed, remembering that the Wermacht figured 400 tanks would be needed in a Panzer division, but later decided a mix of vehicles with fewer tanks would be needed. I found Nicholson's analogy unconvincing. If commanders were really asking for the vehicles, they'd know damned well how they needed to use them.
The push-back from the field stands in sharp contrast to Pentagon moves to field more than 15,000 MRAPs over the next two years, including 1,500 by the end of 2007. The Marine Corps has an estimated 380 MRAPs in service with II Marine Expeditionary Force in al Anbar province so far, and the service is forecasted to receive a total of 3,700 MRAPs.
Nicholson strongly advocated the deployment of MRAPs for Marine operations in Iraq; despite his caution on the rate they'd be fielded.
The MRAP "is a vehicle that allows us to get to, and circulate amongst, the population better," he said. "The continued introduction of the MRAP as the primary transport vehicle will not change the way we conduct counterinsurgency."
The other thing Nicholson said was to remark on the incredible progress won by the Marines in Anbar. He noted that 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines had just left Ramadi and that during their seven month deployment there had zero KIA. That's incredible. The first night I arrived in Ramadi in December 2005, an IED attack killed three Marines and wounded several more. I was on the QRF that responded to the hit and helped pick boots up off the ground with shredded feet still in them. But I wondered why the MRAP was so urgently needed when the success in Anbar had been realized with those vehicles being used solely as EOD platforms. He didn't have a good argument for that.
But analysts with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, who sponsored the Oct. 16 event on Capitol Hill, said the MRAP has yet to prove its place in future service equipment plans. The gas-guzzling MRAP could impose a strain on logistics, suck funding away from needed vehicle upgrades in the future and could run counter to the intent of counter-insurgency doctrine, which stresses close contact with the population.
"Our concern is there seems to be this rush to judgment on spending a fairly large amount of money on a program that hadn't been planned for and not much discussion about how you actually plan to operationalize this and incorporate it into the force," said Dakota Wood, former Marine transport officer and co-author of the CSBA analysis report "Of MRAPs and IEDs: Force Protection in Complex Irregular Operations."
MRAPs are said to cost as much as $800,000 per vehicle, he added, with up-armored Humvees coming in at about $150,000 each - leading Wood to call the MRAP a "million dollar Kleenex."
The Pentagon plans to spend nearly $25 billion on MRAP buys.
Other experts disagreed with the CSBA report, however, saying MRAP use today hasn't precluded troops from dismounting their vehicles and interacting with the Iraqi people.
"I generally agree with the purchase of MRAPs in large numbers," said retired Army Col. Bob Killebrew, a former Special Forces officer and frequent Pentagon consultant, during the panel discussion. "I find unpersuasive the argument that MRAP will have some kind of doctrinal impact on the conduct of the war in Iraq."
"It will have no effect at all on the current tactics of putting troops out on the beat and on their feet taking on insurgents in Baghdad and elsewhere," Killebrew added.
To be honest, I found both sides of the argument persuasive, though the retirees' rejoinders had a whiff of Old School, Heavy Forces, I told you so rhetorical overtones to them. I have great respect for formers, but sometimes they get a little hidebound in their thinking and more political than practical. The experts' rejection of the notion of an expeditionary revolution was dead wrong, but their contention that MRAPs would not serve as "armored cocoons" I think was spot on when I remembered the success Stryker brigades are having in Iraq.
While the CSBA report cautioned that the heavy MRAP vehicle would overburden an Army and Marine Corps aiming toward a more expeditionary future, others countered that the lust for lightness has been proven empty given the difficulties of counterinsurgency operations.
"This slow building of alliances and the confrontation of growing terrorist threats by other people's armies who have more at stake in it than us is going to be the next military strategy of the United States," Killebrew said. "We should build as many [MRAPs] as we need now to protect our troops in Iraq, and we should be prepared, as we withdraw eventually, to turn over MRAPs to people who are going to live in that area and who are going to have to continue to contend with the war."
You all know I’ve been pretty bummed lately about the overzealous adoption of the MRAP and its inevitable influence on the demise of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle program.
We’ve already reported here that the Pentagon ordered a reassessment of the program, in effect delaying it until the DoD is interested – and has the money to devote to it - again. I have a problem with this because it’s well past time to replace the Humvee and there are a lot of great companies with great ideas out there chomping at the bit to build the Jeep of the future for the military.
While I was at the Modern Day Marine expo last week I spoke with Rod Millen, a renowned international rally racer and vehicle designer. His Tustin, Calif.-based company, Millenworks, has developed a series of manned and unmanned military tactical vehicles and his company is working with the Army to develop the MULE unmanned cargo carrier for FCS.
But at the show, his most impressive piece of gear was the Light Utility Vehicle, or LUV.
With both electric and diesel drive trains, and a top speed of 76 mph, the LUV cuts a clearly rally car-inspired line. Its huge ground clearance, a three-seat-across front cockpit (with center driver consol) and scalable armor packages Millenworks has definitely put forth a pretty strong candidate for the JLTV program.
Too bad there really isn’t one anymore.
-- Christian
Amazing MRAP Survival Photos
I’ve caught a lot of flak for my lack of enthusiasm with the MRAP vehicle. Some readers have maligned my intent, experience, reporting and general understanding of the issue without considering my argument carefully and reading closely to what I say.
I recognize that my stance on the MRAP debate is controversial and contrarian, but I see that as part of my job as DefenseTech editor – to seed the conversation.
One thing I have never argued is the protective capability of the MRAP. Its construction and design run circles around the Humvee if protecting the pax and crew is your sole priority. It’s an amazing vehicle that can really take a pounding.
DefenseTech ran across these pictures that attest to the MRAP’s survivability.
As you can see, the entire Marine convoy is comprised of MRAPs, and the Cougar which was hit by the IED gets truly banged up. But no one inside was killed and everyone escaped with only minor injuries. (Check out the engine blown 100 yards away)...
I don’t necessarily agree with the idea that all Humvees in Iraq should be replaced with MRAPs. But seeing these photos has me almost convinced.
The diesel-electric hybrid hype has met its match: the U.S. Army. After focusing on hydrogen fuel cells in its original version of “The Aggressor,” a high-performance, off-road Alternative Mobility Vehicle (AMV) for military ground exploration and scouting missions, the Pentagon is now going the way of Detroit -- with batteries.
The new, second-generation prototype will still utilize the same basic chassis and exterior design for light-duty capacity. But the Army’s auto research arm -- part of the Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) -- has developed a battery-dominant, hybrid-electric drivetrain with a diesel engine-generator. That could make the new Aggressor the first hybrid to hit the streets of Baghdad en masse.
(Note: You may have noticed we're posting more and more stuff from Popular Mechanics these days, which is because that magazine's great staff has agreed to let us feature their best defense-related content. Look for it here and at Military.com.)
-- Ward
MRAPs Settle In - And Head to the Field
Over the last two days, the Pentagon has presented a detailed plan to the public on how it intends to equip troops in Iraq with Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles. As many DT readers know, the MRAP debate is a hot topic on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers try to earn their “support the troops” stripes by thundering headlong into a massive replacement program of the Humvee with the MRAP.
Fortunately – though Pentagon chief Robert Gates claims the MRAP program is his highest priority – cooler heads have prevailed at the DoD over the fielding and use of the MRAP. The Pentagon’s top R&D official, John Young, explained that the Joint Requirements Oversight Council had finally gotten its arms around the fielding plan and decided to hold off replacing every single Humvee in the entire fleet with MRAPS – which could have questionable utility in another combat environment.
The Congress has clearly leaned forward to help us on this program. Through the end of June, the Defense Department used those funds to order 3,765 MRAPs. Approximately 2,400 of these MRAPs under contract as of the end of June are expected to deliver by 31 December of 2007. Yesterday, we asked the Congress to approve the reprogramming of an additional $1.2 billion into the program.
With all of the funds the Congress has provided and the reprogramming of an additional $1.2 billion into the MRAP program, the Defense Department, as Geoff said, can now purchase an additional 2,650 MRAPs, increasing our total on order to 6,415.
All of the 6,415 will deliver by March of 2008. Under this acceleration, DOD expects to receive an additional 1,500 MRAPs by 31 December, a 63 percent increase over that 2,400 I've told you about to a total of 3,900 MRAPs delivered from industry to the Defense Department by December, December 31st. The reprogramming is urgent because, as you all can see, the rates of production are ramping significantly. We believe 30 to 45 vehicles per day will slip into 2008 if we delay.
Under our MRAP acceleration plan, the rate of MRAP production will rise from June's production of 82 vehicles to 489 vehicles in October and roughly 1,300 per month in December that I mentioned to you earlier. So as you can see, it is important that we work with the Congress quickly to get these funds for the additional MRAPs and put these vehicles under contract. The use of available funds for the department and the reprogramming action will give the MRAP Joint Program Office $5.4 billion to immediately put on contract in 2007 for MRAPs. The level -- this level of funding makes MRAP the 3rd largest 2007 DOD acquisition program, only behind missile defense and Joint Strike Fighter.
Though Young is pushing to produce vehicles as quickly – and smartly – as he can, he and the JROC recognize that the MRAP is not the magic force field many seem to think it is. And it is not a replacement for the Humvee, says the Corps’ top money guy, Lt. Gen. John Castellaw, who’s service is only buying around 4,000 of the massive trucks...
But I've got to tell you, you know, operational requirements still trump the -- the up-armored HUMVEE will not go away. There will be operational reasons that we will want to use it in addition to the MRAP. So what this does is gives us a very important element in our operational tool bag that we'll be using along with a lot of others to ensure that our forces are protected the best they can, and also, as importantly, that they can do the job that we're asking them to do.
And Young adds…
I mean, that gets to be a tough issue about which areas really need MRAPs. I think you heard General Castellaw say up-armored HUMVEES are very effective in many areas in-theater. They're going to continue to be used. MRAPs need to go in the priority places first.
You know, this is a delicate balancing act, and I apologize. It's hard to have this discussion with you. But I'd go back to the comment I made earlier too of -- a very small fraction of attacks are underbody, underbelly IEDs, and then an even smaller fraction are EFPs right now. That may change over time. That will lead us to make adjustments.
Some of those adjustments are tactics as well as vehicles. Because a key point of this is if we're trying to protect our soldiers and Marines at the point where they IED went off, we're late. We're going to do that, because MRAP -- and MRAPs help with that significantly, and we are making that our highest priority.
But we have a number of other efforts and significant dollars going into trying to stop that IED from ever being planted, to stop it from ever being built, to stop the people that are deciding to build and plant those IEDs. And that's where a significantly greater chance of success exists to stop all those pieces of the chain. We're going to take this step because we can't afford to lose people once the detonation goes off. But we will be far more successful if we can stop the detonation from ever occurring.
And thank goodness the Pentagon is keeping its eye on the ball with regard to the development on the next-generation Humvee. The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle holds great promise for increasing and tailoring protection, reducing power consumption while increasing power output, up-arming and up-armoring the military’s tactical vehicle fleet at a fraction of the weight of the MRAP.
Right now we're at -- 3,700 is our number. We got somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 plus over there now. We'll expect to have somewhere above a thousand by the end of this year, and that'll go to the units that are in the closest combat.
We are continually looking at what our future's going to be in terms of our ground mobility. We've got some assessments under way now. Surely MRAP will play a role in there. We're not exactly sure what it will be in the future. We know that such programs as JLTV will play a role. So as we continue to assist this, then we'll make resource and decisions and forward them to OSD.
And the Army’s Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes adds…
We recognize right now that priority is protection of soldiers and Marines in combat -- that's what MRAP is designed to do. We have some important questions that we'll have to answer: How much can we pull the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle Program forward? Can we get the combination of performance, payload and protection that all of us want in a more manageable package? None of us want a vehicle that weighs between 40,000 and 60,000 pounds. So what we'd like to do is see capability provided sooner that has more flexibility and more operational capability in a variety of spectrums as you identified.
Defense Tech is keeping its eye on MRAP developments and we’ll report back the take-aways of an upcoming press conference at the Pentagon this morning. But we wanted to pass along a couple things to our readers in the interim.
First, the Pentagon asked Congress yesterday for permission to shift $1.3 billion in 2007 funds to buy MRAP vehicles more quickly. The vehicle program’s manager, John Young, and the Army and Marine Corps’ top MRAP officials, Lt. Gen. Speakes and Brig. Gen. Brogan, will address the shift and program pace at the presser today.
In other MRAP news, DT received a release from BAE Systems yesterday describing a product they’ve developed for the Army and Marine Corps MRAP fleet called the Lightweight RPG Protection Kit, or LROD. I’ll leave DT readers to draw their own conclusions on this, but it seems interesting that a vehicle that is supposed to protect troops against powerful roadside bombs needs to wear a cage around it for RPG protection. But then again, so does the Stryker, which is a highly protective vehicle in its own right.
The BAE release follows:
LROD is a lightweight, modular bar-armor system composed of an aluminium alloy that provides protection against RPGs without compromising the operational capabilities of the vehicle. Weighing less than half of comparable steel designs, LROD bolts onto the vehicle without welding or cutting, and can be repaired in the field.
The Army will procure 12 additional LROD kits for delivery this year to operational units in response to an Army Operational Need Statement. The Army has expressed interest in procuring additional kits for the entire RG31 and RG31A1 fleet. The RG31 was developed by BAE Systems in South Africa.
“The LROD system provides lightweight, low-cost RPG protection that is easily adapted to virtually any armored vehicle,” said Dr. Jim Galambos, director of business development for BAE Systems’ Advanced Technologies.
LROD was developed in response to increased threats from rocket-propelled grenades in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. It also is a candidate for use on the DoD’s mine-resistant, ambush-protected family of vehicles.
BAE Systems originally developed the system as part of a fast-response Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program to provide RPG protection for high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles. Army officials conducted more than 50 live-fire tests to validate the performance and optimize the engineering design. The modular design proved effective at preserving the integrity of the vehicle and safety of the crew in those tests.
Based on its success with Army and Marine Corps combat units, BAE Systems is designing LROD kits for other combat vehicles, including the Light Armored Vehicle BV-206 and the Amphibious Assault Vehicle both manufactured by the company. Small boats also could be protected by the LROD system.
LROD is standard equipment on the Army Buffalo explosive ordnance disposal vehicle. BAE Systems has delivered more than 100 LROD kits to the Army, with additional kits slated for the Marine Corps’ Buffalo vehicles. BAE Systems also is completing LROD designs for the company's RG33-series mine-protected vehicles.
Stay tuned for further MRAP updates...
-- Christian
MRAPs Under Scrutiny
This morning, Military.com posted a story on the findings of a Pentagon Inspector General investigation into the awarding of contracts for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles.
Defense Tech warned about this issue several weeks ago, writing that the rush to field these vehicles would pose problems for companies unaccustomed to the high-volume orders that have been mandated by Congress.
The Associated Press reports:
The Defense Department put U.S. troops in Iraq at risk by awarding contracts for badly needed armored vehicles to companies that failed to deliver them on time, according to a review by the Pentagon's inspector general.
The June 27 report, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, examined 15 contracts worth $2.2 billion awarded since 2000 to Force Protection Inc. and Armor Holdings Inc.
The contracts were issued without the normal competition for government work because the military determined these companies were the only ones capable of supplying the vehicles fast enough to meet the demands of deployed troops.
Yet the inspector general's report concluded otherwise.
Overall, Force Protection of Ladson, S.C., received 11 contracts from the Army and Marine Corps worth $417 million for a variety of vehicles, including its Buffalo and Cougar mine-resistant trucks.
Force Protection failed to meet all delivery schedules, according to the report, and acquisition officials knew there were other manufacturers that might have supplied some of the vehicles in a more timely fashion. The report does not provide the names of those possible alternative sources.
Mike Aldrich, a Force Protection vice president, acknowledged the delays and said the problems were caused by an inability to get essential manufacturing materials.
The company's production and delivery schedules have improved greatly in recent months, Aldrich added, noting that 100 of the Buffalo vehicles have been delivered.
"Government reports are largely written by lawyers and look intimidating when you pick them up," Aldrich said. "But our vehicles perform well in theater and have saved the lives of troops."
The inspector general's report agreed that Force Protection's vehicles have been of substantial value since they arrived.
The report, not yet publicly released, also criticizes the Army's award of a $266 million contract for crew protection kits to Simula Aerospace and Defense Group, a subsidiary of Armor Holdings of Jacksonville, Fla.
Simula lacked the internal controls necessary to ensure delivery of the kits, which were needed to make military vehicles less vulnerable to roadside bombs and small-arms fire, according to the report.
The Army received kits "with missing and unusable components, which increased installation time and required additional reinspection of kits," according to the report.
In describing the scope of the problem, the report said that some of the Simula kits delivered to the troops had two left doors, were missing side plates and contained brackets that needed re-welding.
Overall, the problems "resulted in increased risk to the lives of Soldiers," the report states.
Armor Holdings received three other contracts worth $1.5 billion for armored Humvees and armor kits to strengthen older-model vehicles.
Spokesman Michael Fox said the company had not seen the report and had no immediate comment.
In written comments to the inspector general, the Marine Corps defended its acquisition decisions for the vehicles.
The armored vehicle contracts "were executed within the law, spirit and intent of the current acquisition rules and regulations," according the comments.
In separate written comments, the Army did not object to the report's findings.
It’s cool for a July day in the nation’s capital, so I’m ready to do a few laps in a pot of boiling oil!
Inside Washington Publishers – which publishes the best-known defense newsletters dubbed colloquially “The Insides” – has been following the development of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle and the explosion of interest in this lifesaver since it erupted with the new congress in January.
For the record, as our readers will certainly remember, Defense Tech has voiced skepticism over the utility of the MRAP vehicles and the wisdom of procuring tens of thousands of these vehicles instead of using the resources to build a future Humvee with innovations in armor, power, armament, communications and crew comfort/protection that will last as long as the current one (remember the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle Program?).
Well, The Insides have been tracking each iteration of the MRAP program very closely and have published some interesting findings recently that shows the services may be backing away from the rush to procure so many of the vehicles that will have only limited utility as America’s involvement in Iraq draws down as the 2008 approaches.
From Inside Defense:
A high-level Pentagon panel avoided locking the Army into a long-term, and very expensive, commitment to acquire all of the entire 17,700 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles sought by commanders in Baghdad, opting instead to back aggressive near-term acquisition strategy coupled with periodic reviews of the situation in Iraq to curtail purchases as conditions permit.
In what participants described an unorthodox approach, the Joint Requirements Oversight Council -- headed by the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the four service vice chiefs -- on June 28 endorsed in principle the Army's need for more than 2,500 MRAP vehicles acknowledging that the service may eventually need enough of the blast-resistant vehicles to equip 20 brigades.
However, participants in the meeting said the requirements panel did not formally recalibrate the MRAP requirement, which currently is 7,774, to the possible 23,044 vehicles, had the Army's entire requirement been adopted.
"They are still working toward what the right number is," said Lt. Col. Gary Tallman, a Joint Staff spokesman.
And earlier, outgoing vice chief of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, downplayed the MRAP’s ability to resist the most lethal threats in Iraq, Inside Defense reports.
One of the U.S. military's most senior officers is concerned that the intense focus on acquiring a new fleet of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles designed to protect against the blast effects of roadside bombs has created an unrealistic expectation that everyone who rides in one will be protected from a catastrophic hit.
Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was a regular passenger in MRAP-like vehicles on recent trips to Iraq, aimed in an interview to lower public expectations for the ability of the new vehicles with v-shaped chassis to protect all troops from insurgent attacks.
"No matter how much armor you put out there, all of this stuff at one point or another can be defeated," said Giambastiani, who is retiring this summer, in a June 5 interview with InsideDefense.com. "What we don't want to do is make the expectation out there that we're going to save every single individual that we put in one of these vehicles because we're putting a cocoon around them. You simply can't do it. There are weapons and techniques that can be used to defeat literally everything, including M1 tanks, Bradleys and the rest of it. So that's the bottom line."
Defense Tech as been in touch with various MRAP sources who’ve provided more information that indicate the program may need to slow down and take a more deliberate approach to finding a solution that will save lives over the long term. Stay tuned in the coming days and weeks for more gouge on MRAP development and procurement.
(Photo: Adm. Giambastiani with MRAP vehicle at Aberdeen Proving Grounds)
The AM General High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or Humvee, has been the workhorse tactical vehicle for U.S. forces since the mid 1980s. There are no fewer than 140,000 examples in more than 15 versions in service with all military branches. The Humvee has been praised for its versatility and ruggedness, but operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have revealed serious shortcomings, including inadequate power generation, limited seating capacity and -- most notably -- the design’s vulnerability to roadside bombs.
Building on limited deployments of specialized blastproof vehicles for engineers and bomb disposal teams, the Army and Marines are co-sponsoring programs to buy potentially thousands of so-called Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected trucks, worth as much as $1 billion, followed by 100,000 or more Joint Light Tactical Vehicles for tens of billions more. The two programs will eventually replace all Humvees with tougher, roomier designs.
But that will take decades, especially as Pentagon officials attempt to reign in costs. Acquisition czar Kenneth Krieg said in early March that he was considering moving MRAP out of the military’s fast-but-loose “rapid-fielding” process due to the anticipated scale and cost of the vehicle purchase, which he said demand careful oversight.
To keep Humvees up to speed while the military awaits replacements, BAE Systems is proposing a range of high-tech modifications, according to program manager Steve Cortese.
At the Association of the United States Army winter symposium in Fort Lauderdale on March 7-9, BAE showed off a demonstrator with the full range of upgrades, including: a new multi-band antenna that replaces a complex jumble of antennae on existing Humvees; a rear-mounted infrared camera for checking blind spots; pop-out windows for quick escape in emergencies; and a new power management system. Many of these improvements are derived from BAE’s work on the Future Combat Systems family of vehicles, slated to make their debut around 2010.
The Advanced Power Management System represents perhaps the most important change. This system, ported from FCS, provides the extra electrical power that the vehicle needs in order to support radio jammers that defeat Improvised Explosive Devices. APMS also has an export function, allowing an equipped Humvee to function as a sort of mobile generator – a capability usually seen on hybrid diesel-electric vehicles. APMS turns a standard Humvee into a “poor man’s hybrid,” Cortese says.
The mods are all based on feedback from Iraq and Afghanistan, Cortese adds. “We’re trying to be sensitive to the needs of the warfighter."
Armor is vital on the battlefield. We all remember the outcry over the shortage of up-armored Humvees in the early days of the campaign in Iraq. But when you're in a hurry to get out, all that heavy protection works against you. Here's some recent news that should give our troops another avenue of escape when things go bad: The Vehicle Emergency Escape (VEE) Window
Ninety U.S. soldiers have died and 250 have been injured in Iraq as a result of combat vehicle rollovers. Fourteen of the 90 deaths were drownings after the heavy vehicles were attacked and flipped into water where the escape doors were pinned or jammed shut.
The Army requested ideas from contractors throughout the nation last year to address the problem. The Army currently operates 30,000 armored Humvees and 40,000 unarmored Humvees.
BAE spent seven months and $500,000 developing its solution, then presented their prototype to the Army for testing earlier this month.
BAE Systems' solution, the VEE Window, looks good:
The prototype windshield, which they said can be installed in the field in one hour, is expected to give soldiers one more means of escaping quickly from a Humvee. Under the patented design, the windshield can be removed in less than five seconds...
In August, BAE engineer Michael Hafften began designing a latching mechanism that could transform the armored Humvee's bulletproof windshield into a new escape path. Hafften designed two latch pins that release the windshield with a simple quarter-turn. Soldiers then push the windshield out. The system, which doesn't compromise the security of the windshield, has been shared with Humvee maker Armor Holdings, BAE officials said.
The Humvee doesn't seem to be the right solution for most of the situations our troops are finding themselves in these days, and a better vehicle should be selected sooner rather than later. In the meantime, though, and since the Humvee will remain a mainstay for years to come regardless of any new vehicles, we need to do what we can to keep up with an evolving battlefield.
The first VEE Windows could by ready by this summer. As of now, it doesn't appear that anyone else has come forward with a design. See more pics and video at BAE's site.
The Washington Post has a fascinating report from the Anniston Army Depot, where "sprawling lots of tanks and other armored vehicles are just the start of a huge backlog" of gear broken by Iraq and Afghanistan.
"There's stuff, stuff everywhere," Joan Gustafson, a depot official, said as she wheeled her brown Chevrolet van through a landscape of rolling hills lined with armadas of mobile guns.
"There's another field of M1s," she said, motioning toward a swath of M1A1 Abrams tanks next to the winding road. "We're just waiting for someone to tell us what to do with them..."
Equipment shipped back from Iraq is stacking up at all the Army depots: More than 530 M1 tanks, 220 M88 wreckers and 160 M113 armored personnel carriers are sitting at Anniston. The Red River Army Depot in Texas has 700 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and 450 heavy and medium-weight trucks, while more than 1,000 Humvees are awaiting repair at the Letterkenny Army Depot in Pennsylvania.
Despite the work piling up, the Army's depots have been operating at about half their capacity because of a lack of funding for repairs. In the spring, a funding gap caused Anniston and other depots to lose about a month's worth of work...
Responding to urgent requests from the Army and Marine Corps, Congress approved an extra $23.8 billion in October to replace worn-out equipment in fiscal 2007. With the money, the Army plans to double the workload at its depots, which will repair and upgrade 130,000 pieces in 2007, up from 63,000 last year. This will include a quadrupling of the number of tanks, Bradleys and other tracked vehicles overhauled, from 1,000 to 4,000.
At Anniston, which will handle 1,800 combat vehicles in fiscal 2007, a cavernous 250,000-square-foot repair shop is humming as damaged tanks are rolled in one by one and disassembled with the help of giant cranes. Removing an M1 tank's turret alone takes a day and a half, and the entire overhaul requires 54 days and costs about $1 million, said Ted A. Law, the depot's vehicle manager.
Earnest Linn, 58, a heavy-mobile-equipment mechanic who as of January will have worked at Anniston for 30 years, said that "it's never been like this" since the end of the Vietnam War.
Herd of Buffaloes
What started as a humble little Mom and Pop operation hand-building Cougar and Buffalo armored vehicles for the Army's Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams has expanded into a massive production push involving some of the biggest companies in the armor industry, all intended to meet skyrocketing demand for protected trucks. I go into detail over at Military.com:
Just two years ago, Force Protection had a staff of 12 hand-building one Buffalo per month, according to spokesman Wayne Phillips. Now the company employs 400 and churns out more than a vehicle per day. Force Protection is slated to build 300 Buffalos through 2010 and several hundred more Cougars. This year, Force Protection partnered with BAE Systems to build as many as 1,000 Cougar derivatives for the Iraqi Army under the U.S.-managed Iraqi Light Armored Vehicle program. In recent weeks, the company has signed a similar agreement with General Dynamics Land Systems to jointly manufacture the standard Cougar in order to meet rising demand, including 85 for the British Army.
The armed services are spending billions and billions to figure out fancy new ways to stop improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. But the latest trick is an oldie -- dating back to World War I -- and couldn't be less high tech.
The contraptions are called mine rollers -- sets of wheels mounted in front of a vehicle, basically. When they roll over a mine or a pressure-activated IED, the wheels trigger the bomb. Because the vehicle is some distance behind the rollers, much of the bomb blast wave does not reach the vehicle, dramatically reducing the damage. And the vehicle lives to see another day. The Marine Corps just bought 150 sets from General Dynamics, according to Defense Industry Daily.
This idea sounds glaringly obvious. So you might wonder why it took the military more than 3 years to put the rollers up. In fact, the idea of a mine roller originated in 1918, to help nascent tanks deal with the anti-tank mines of that era. Many of the earliest IEDs in Iraq were built with anti-tank mines. Why didn't anybody in the Army Engineer School, for instance, make the connection?
Chalk some of it up to military bureaucracy. When it comes to mine-clearance, combat engineers and explosive ordnance disposal techs sometimes have overlapping lines of responsibility. (Which helps fuel an often-bitter rivalry.) At times, who exactly is supposed to develop bomb- and mine-fighting gear has been a blurry question, as well. The Counter-IED Task Force is now supposed to be in charge. But we'll see.
There are several legitimate concerns with the mine rollers that I am not going to mention here. However, my answer to these concerns are: If the insurgents do that, it would make their IEDs more detectable. Moreover, the standoff will interfere with aiming.
A friend and I were working on a similar concept, a Humvee roller attachment. However, we could not find a machinist to build our prototype. Now that I am deployed, we could not continue our commercial venture. One feature of our design was that it was telescoping, meaning that we can vary the distance of the rollers to the vehicle. We can change the distance to respond to changes in IED tactics. Maybe General Dynamics will incorporate the feature into their next run of mine rollers, too.
-- Jimmy Wu
Amtracs Forever
The Marines are fitting their 25-year-old AAV-7 amphibious tractors with thermal sights, replacing old starlight scopes with a range of just half a mile, according to Defense Industry Daily:
The replacement AAV7A1 day/night sight must provide daylight as well as nighttime sighting ability to detect targets to 4.7 km, recognize targets to 2.5 km, and identify targets at 700 m.
The news comes hot on the heels of rumored deep cuts to the Marines' Expeditionary
Fighting Vehicle, a long-delayed attempt to replace more than a thousand AAVs with as many new vehicles featuring stabilized cannons and better armor and comms.
The idea behind the EFV is to field a vehicle that's closer to a Bradley than to a boat, since these days the Marines spend a lot of time far inland, fighting like Army infantry. Despite the clear operational need for EFVs, the expense has proved just too great -- a quarter of the Corps' procurement budget over five years, according to some estimates.
The AAV upgrades reflect the Marines' growing acceptance that they're going to have to hold onto these ancient vehicles indefinitely. The first sign was the initiation of a top-to-bottom rebuild similar to the Army's tank remanufacturing initiative that aims to keep 15-year-old M-1s crawling into the 2030s. National Defense Magazineexplains:
[T]he AAV’s suspension system is replaced with one derived from the Army’s Bradley Fighting Vehicle. In place of the current 400-horsepower engine, the AAV gets a 525-horsepower Cummins V903, also installed in the Bradley. The HS-400 transmission is rebuilt and modified to include a new torque converter, upgrading it to the HS-525 configuration. The remainder of the vehicle is rebuilt according to original specifications.
The problem of ageing weapons is everywhere in today's DoD. The Navy is rebuilding P-3 Orion patrol planes from the 1970s to keep them flying until the new P-8 enters service. The Air Force is studying ways to upgrade F-15s to complement the "silver-bullet"F-22 fleet. Meanwhile, B-52s keep on chugging, 40 years after they rolled off the Boeing assembly line.
But the Marines have it worst. Nearly everything in their arsenal -- from fighter jets to helicopters to trucks -- is old, real old. And it's all decaying ever faster in the heat and sand of Iraq. The bill for repairs so far? $30 billion.
In part two of her investigation (which aired last night), she documented how the Army bent over backwards to ensure that Raytheon remained in the competition - not that there was a competition. The Army was supposed to have a shoot-off between the two systems, but because the Raytheon system was still on the drawing board, the Army canceled the shoot-off and issued a single-source selection for the Raytheon solution. I'm shocked... shocked to discover that a military acquisition office might be biased towards one of the largest U.S. defense firms. Why, I've never heard of such outlandish behavior. I declare, I do believe I have the vapors...
First of all, this might have been a good news report - in APRIL, when this issue was made public (see this DefenseTech post). Or maybe Lisa might have done an internet search and found Noah's Popular Mechanics article in August. Both articles discuss the Army's concern that, yes, this seems to be a good idea, but there are some outstanding issues:
"It is not just about giving [soldiers] an APS system. How do the soldiers work with it? How does it tie into the network? How do you know when to turn it on? When not to turn it on?" said Future Combat Systems program manager Brig. Gen. Charles Cartwright. "We could put something over there . . . overnight but have I got the logistics to be able to support," the technology.
Some of you may be familiar with David Drake's Hammer's Slammers - he has written a number of scifi novels about this mercenary tank regiment, which has nuclear-powered tanks and armored cars that move around like hovercrafts. The vehicles also feature an anti-projectile defense system which, when activated, shoots out like a shotgun to defeat the incoming projectile (also good for shredding light infantry in the way). Issue is, it can be set for manual rather than automatic. These concept of operation issues need to be worked out (also see Murdoc's take on this issue).
I have to tell you, Colonel Don Kotchman showed that he had clearly taken the "how to deal with the media" class that every acquisition manager has to take. Get a load of this:
Lisa Myers: Was the Raytheon system tested by the Pentagon?
Col. Donald Kotchman: The Army did not specifically test the Raytheon system.
Instead, Raytheon tested its own system this February.
Myers: How well did the Raytheon system do in its own testing?
Kotchman: I don't have that information.
Myers: Were there any Pentagon officials present for the Raytheon testing?
Kotchman: I do not know.
----------------
In May, a technical team was chosen and given the task of evaluating competing RPG defense systems. But here again, Raytheon had a leg up.
Myers: Do you know how many of the 21-person technical team worked for Raytheon?
Kotchman: To the best of my knowledge, none.
Army documents obtained by NBC News, however, reveal that nine of the 21 technical experts — as well as all the administrative personnel — were from Raytheon. The team ultimately concluded that of the seven RPG defense systems examined, Raytheon’s was “the clear winner.”
Raytheon’s “Quick Kill” solution — which the Army concedes will not be fielded before 2011 at the earliest — won out over Trophy, the Israeli system championed by the Pentagon’s Office of Force Transformation.
Myers: It appears as though Raytheon was allowed to select itself.
Kotchman: I don’t know that to be a fact, and so I really can't comment on it.
Priceless. Bravo, colonel, bravo. You survived the interview. Best that you can hope for. I have to say, this isn't news - that is to say, it's a shame that our acquisition process works this way, but it's normal procedure. Eisenhower was right about the military-industrial complex, we know he was right, but there's no way to fix the system short of finding a new set of honest congressmen and women, defense contractors who don't see dollar signs as the bottom line, and military acquisition officials who want to be promoted while in uniform and have a nice job when they retire.
UPDATE 8:58 AM: Noah here. While I appreciate Jason's shout-outs, the real credit should go to Defense News scoopmasters Greg Grant and Barbara Opall-Rome, who did most of the originalreporting on this story. I just sorta played clean-up. Oh, and if all this hasn't satisfied your RPG defense fix, check out what Murdoc has to say.
UPDATE 6:48 PM: JH reminds us that there's another, potentially more interesting Israeli grenade-stopper out there. Ladies and gents: the Iron Fist.
Military Hybrids Stall
For a long time, now, the Pentagon has been looking to land diesel-electric hybrid vehicles to improve fuel economy, reduce logistics and allow power export. But after a decade of research and development, military hybrids are still years away from production, as I describe in detail in the current National Defense Magazine:
“Right now, we do not have a current hybrid program that targets fielding,” says Gus Khalil, team leader of hybrid-electric research at the Army’s Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center, or TARDEC.
TARDEC, a division of the Research, Development and Engineering Command, in Warren, Mich., is the military’s main research center for vehicle technologies.
Khalil and other TARDEC engineers have been developing hybrid-electric engines and testing vehicle demonstrators since 1992.
Across the Defense Department, there are around 30 hybrid-electric demonstrator vehicles in some form of testing. These demonstrators range from hybrid models of existing vehicles, such as Humvees, M-113 armored personnel carriers and M-2 Bradley infantry fighting systems, to new designs such as the Marine Corps’ reconnaissance, surveillance and targeting vehicle, or RST-V.
Some of these demonstrators are more promising than others. Some even offer new niche capabilities. But all have failed to achieve the combination of performance, toughness, price and utility that the military demands of its vehicles.
Motor Trend explains:
Though hybrid technology has been around for several years in passenger vehicles, adapting it for larger vehicles isn't as easy, [Oshkosh VP Gary] Schmiedel said. Military vehicles must often carry thousands of pounds of cargo -- 13 tons for the HEMTT -- and endure hills, little pavement and angles that few standard vehicles can handle. That all means engines and axles must be configured just so.
Even more daunting is the battery problem. National Defense editor Sandra Erwin reported on this as far back as 2001:
The Achilles heel of hybrid systems today, however, is the battery, [engineer William] Haris added. “You need to have a source of energy to propel the electric motors. Traditionally that has been batteries.” The most commonly used batteries today are lead-acid, which are the least expensive. But they also are heavier and less efficient than more advanced chemistry batteries.
A more desirable alternative would be nickel-metal-hydride batteries, which have twice the energy density of lead-acid. Energy density is the amount of energy that can be stored per pound of material. In the long-term, experts are looking at lithium-ion batteries, which have four times the energy density of lead-acid.
Where there's a will, there's a way -- technical challenges notwithstanding. “There are challenges, and there are issues, but they don’t seem insurmountable,” Khalil told me. “If someone from a program office told us they wanted something in production in two years, we would have it into production.”
But despite the promise of a reduced logistics burdened resulting from great fuel efficiency, the military's enthusiasm for hybrids is cool. If not for their power export capability, the military might not be interested at all.
The bottom line is ... the tech isn't ready, and the military isn't ready to make the tech ready. So be skeptical when some hack reports that military hybrids are just around the corner.
The 190,000-strong Army Reserve needs trucks, and bad. So says new Army Reserve Chief Lt. Gen. Jack Stultz when I interviewed him a few weeks back.
“We have provided a lot of equipment to [the Iraqi] theater that has remained. That creates shortages on this [stateside] end.”
He's talking about up-armored Humvees and FMTV trucks, mostly -- new stuff that's interchangeable with the active Army's equipment. Even before it started giving away equipment in Iraq, the Reserve's vehicle fleet was pretty decrepit overall. Now it's getting worse, even as the need for trucks grows with the increasing importance of military forces in domestic disaster relief.
“We still have deuce-and-a-half trucks ... We’ve got to get that equipment replaced,” Stultz says.
The service also is in line for major truck purchases should the Pentagon's plans [for a new $50-billion supplemental] win the approval of Congress. The documents show the Army wants $614.7 million for Humvees, with more than $422 million of that total slated for the National Guard and Army Reserve; $220 million for Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles trucks, all for the reserves; and $201.5 million for reserve Family of Heavy Tactical Vehicles trucks.
Equipment shortages notwithstanding, Stultz is pushing to make the Reserve more relevant, continuing his predecessor’s initiative to boost civil affairs units while cutting back on support formations that are less often deployed. Remaining support units will consolidate into modular sustainment brigades that complement active brigades.
At the same time, the Reserve is eliminating non-deployable forces. Where once the Reserve maintained ten static regional headquarters to raise and train troops, now it is standing up "functional" commands devoted to particular dimensions of warfighting. There will be separate deployable headquarters for engineers, military policemen, aviators and so on.
In today’s Army Reserve, even training divisions -- once solely dedicated to stateside missions -- are in Iraq training native security forces.
It's an exciting time to be in the Reserve, but only if you don't mind riding around in a 50-year-old truck.
Want to see sexy pics of trucks in Iraq? Proceed to my Flickr!
While U.S. forces move around Iraq in patrols of up-armored Humvees, M-2 Bradleys and specialized bomb-proof vehicles like Force Protection'sBuffalo and Cougar, Iraqi forces are still sporting Nissan pickup trucks and, in rare cases, cast-off U.S. Humvees (see picture). This means Iraqi forces are especially vulnerable to roadside bombs and small arms fire.
In an effort to beef up Iraqi forces and advance their ability to take over from the U.S. Army and Marines, the Army is sponsoring the design and production of a brand-new and super-tough vehicle for the Iraqis. It's called Iraqi Light Armored Vehicle, or I-LAV, and it's a derivative of the 14-ton Cougar (pictured below).
Force Protection manager Wayne Phillips says the I-LAV features more head-room than the standard Cougar and is designed for rapid dismouting, unlike the Cougar which is hard to get into and out of. I-LAV ain't cheap -- $350,000 per copy is the current pricetag -- but it promises a high degree of protection. The question is, can the Iraqis maintain it? In Basra last summer, a British Army officer told me even new SUVs were too sophisticated for Iraqi forces to maintain. He said they should stick to what they know: simple, rugged but lightly protected pickup trucks. The U.S. Army is counting on Iraqi forces rising to the occasion and taking care of their I-LAVs.
There are presently 378 I-LAVS under contract, from a planned total of more than 1,000, and production will commence soon. Force Protection is a small operation based in a former General Electrics turbine engine plant in Ladson, S.C.
Just two years ago, FP had a staff of 12 hand-building one Buffalo per month. Now it employs 400 and churns out more than a vehicle per day. In addition to the I-LAVs, FP is slated to build 300 Buffalos through 2010 and several hundred more Cougars. Taking on I-LAV production is a tall order, so FP has partnered with BAE Systems. FP will build half of the I-LAVs at a new line at the Ladson facility. BAE will build the rest.
FP and its portfolio of South African-licensed vehicles is a major player in the rapidly-expanding bomb-proof vehicle market. Capitalizing on its successes, FP is looking to compete for the new Joint Light Tactical Vehicle program, which aims to replace the Humvee. As many as 100,000 vehicles are up for grabs in that competition.
The transformation of the Army continues. It's just that part of the transformation involves keeping the M-1 Abrams main battle tank production lines open for an extra eight years. Operations in Iraq have affirmed heavy armor's worth, according to Army Times. (subscription only)
Fort KNOX, Ky. — The armor community is alive and well and the 70-ton Abrams tank has a bright future on the urban battlefield, even in a force moving increasingly toward lighter, more mobile fighting platforms, Army leaders said.
“Without tanks, we don’t have combined arms,” said Gen. B.B. Bell, commanding general of Eighth U.S. Army Korea, who spoke to a packed auditorium May 18 during this year’s Armor Warfighting Symposium about tank successes on the Iraq battlefield.
Bell emphasized the tank’s important role in a complicated fight, pointing to its decades-old lethality, ability to adapt to open terrain and urban settings, the survivability factor for crews, and the fact that a heavy-armor task force can be deployed in as little as 96 hours.
Bell points out that urban operations are nothing new for the Army, and that tanks are major part of our ability to be successful in the cities. Tanks led the way during the initial invasion and have been prominent weapons in nearly every major operation as well as important in the day-to-day mission.
Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Richard Cody pointed out that the Army was not really prepared for modern warfare before the 9/11 attacks in 2001. It was under-trained, under-equipped, and in a generally-poor state of maintenance. But war has changed that to a great extent, and the place of the tank in the new and improved US Army has been re-thought.
“The opportunity to invest came to fruition when we went to war,” [Col. Larry Hollingsworth, Heavy Brigade Combat Team project manager] said. “It became apparent to people that the risks you could assume with your force during a peacetime environment were very different from the risks you could assume during wartime.”
“If you’re not going to fight with tanks and Bradleys, you may not want to invest in them the same way as if you were going to have to roll them into Baghdad. I think that’s what our entire Army has seen,” Hollingsworth said.
Note the machine gun shield with ballistic glass in the pictured M1A1 (pic from DoD). This is a recent addition to the old warhorse which increases protection while maintaining vital sight lines for the man on the gun. Other improvements for the M1, collectively known as the TUSK program ("Tank Urban Survival Kit"), are in the pipeline to transform our tanks into even more lethal monsters on today's battlefields, also known quaintly as "cities". Many times "transformation" isn't revolutionary but instead incremental.
It's not been just tanks, either, that have had their worth re-evaluated lately. It's also been the B-52 bomber, the A-10 attack plane, the 7.62x51mm rifle round, the M79 "blooper" grenade launcher, and many other systems, most of which are considered "old school" and had been slated for retirement. Some had already been put out to pasture but rushed back into service when the need arose. Sometimes it is because new gee-whiz gadgets don't work as expected, and we could have worse problems than to learn that the systems we already have are the ones we need.
Despite 15 years development that has produced more than 30 different demonstrators and despite a lot of hype lately, military diesel-electric hybrids are no closer to mass production than they were five years ago. "Right now we don't have a hybrid-electric vehicle targeting fielding," says Gus Khalil, director of the Army's hybrid research.
The reasons are many. Despite advantages including modest fuel savings, power export capability, design scalability and flexible internal layout, hybrids are simply too expensive, too heavy and too fragile for military service. Batteries -- or, alternately, capacitors -- are particularly problematic: they're unstable, finnicky in extreme weather and present enormous safety and logistical challenges.
In recent weeks, I've talked to hybrid programs managers at all the major U.S. military vehicle manufacturers. They all maintain the same line: hybrids are very promising, they say, but more work is needed.
Khalil says that the first mass-produced military hybrids will most likely be vehicles in the Future Combat Systems family, which should enter production around 2010. In the meantime, expect demonstrators like the HEMTT A3, RST-V (pictured) and hybrid Humvee to remain just that -- demonstrators.
P.S. Publishers Weekly just reviewed my graphic novel War Fix!
UPDATE 8:58 AM: Noah here. I've been told by a high-level Army general who worked the hybrid problem for years that the problems which Axe details above can be overcome. But there's an even bigger barrier to the new vehicles: Detroit. American auto- and truck-makers still aren't committed to mass-producing hybrids on the level that the Army needs, the General said. (Look at their reluctance to make commercial hybrids.) Without their buy-in, the Army won't have hybrids for a long, long time.
Hybrids got the juice
A proper command post needs a lot of juice. You're talking radios, radars, computers, network terminals, a mini fridge for your frappuccinos ... the demand for power is constantly growing. These days at a Forward Operating Base in Iraq or Afghanistan, you can spot a command post among hundreds of identical tents by looking for the tent surrounded by greasy, thrumming generators. All those generators have to be hauled, fueled and maintained. But what if you could just hook your command post equipment up to the same vehicle you transported it in?
That's the idea behind an emerging requirement across the U.S. military's slate of diesel-electric hybrid demonstration programs. One of the major advantages of hybrid vehicles is their ability, with proper modification, to export electricity. With the right interface, you can just plug your gizmos into your truck, keep it idling and voila! You've cut your logistics burden significantly by dumping all those bulky, finnicky generator trailers.
AM General's hybrid Humvee demonstrator powered a command post years ago. (See pic.) Oshkosh has made power export a central capability of its hybrid Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT) A3. And General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) is moving forward with a new model of its Marine Corps Reconaissance, Surveillance and Targeting Vehicle (RST-V) demonstrator that exports juice, too. RST-V is a small hybrid intended for internal carriage in the V-22.
"The Marine Corps requested this," says GDLS' Director for Advanced Programs Bill Riker. "Essentially what you end up having with RST-V is a ... generator set. The Marines have asked us to focus on 30 kilowatt [power]. We've done that at 60 Hertz and 400 Hertz at 3-phase [Alternating Current]. The RST-V provides a huge amount of power with the flip of a switch."
Besides building RST-V, GDLS is also a major partner in the manned ground component of the tracked Future Combat Systems (FCS). Expect to see serious power export capability written into FCS requirements.
The potential applications of this capability are huge. Consider just the FCS Medical Evacuation Vehicle (MEV). With today's M-113- or Humvee-based ambulances, medics can do little more than haul casualties. But the FCS MEV might power a wide range of equipment that could enable medics to treat patients en route to the Forward Surgical Teams. In addition to easing logistics, power export could save lives.
Hybrid Truck's Katrina Duty
Diesel-electric hybrids vehicles are all the rage at the U.S. Army's Tank-automotive and Armaments Command in Warren, Michigan. Rising fuel prices and attacks on fuel convoys in Iraq have inspired a number of programs to develop more fuel-efficient trucks. The idea, according to industry, is to cut the Army truck fleet's fuel consumption by 20 percent by 2010.
But there are other advantages to hybrids, according to Gary Schmiedel at Oshkosh in Wisconsin, which builds the Army's Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck. HEMTTs are tough mothers. During the January elections in Iraq, I talked to HEMTT crews who barreled through AK fire to pick up ballots (see photo for the result). Schmiedel says a new breed of HEMTT, the A3 model, will retain all the ruggedness and combat utility of its predecessor, but with the added capability to export up to 100kW of 3-phase AC power, thanks to its new capacitor-based hybrid engine.
To test the A3, and as a public service, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Oshkosh sent a prototype to New Orleans to serve as a mobile generator. Since it uses the same standard of electricity as our public grid, exporting power is as simple as firing up the HEMTT and plugging in your appliance. The New Orleans-deployed A3 enabled workers to pump out the flooded basement of a hospital.
Hybrids are more expensive than their conventional counterparts. But they promise overall savings over their lifetimes thanks to reduced fuel consumption. And they offer many benefits besides, including those demonstrated by Oshkosh's HEMTT A3 after Katrina. These days I'm on the hybrid beat for National Defense, so expect more on the subject in coming weeks.
-- David Axe
Truck Makers Eye Next-Gen Humvees
There are no definite plans, yet. But the Army and the Marines are slowly getting ready to replace the Humvee. National Defense magazine profiles the "truck manufacturers large and small, foreign and domestic, [which] are gearing up to take on the only maker of the 20-year-old vehicle, AM General."
Archie Massicotte, president of military and government business at International Truck and Engine said, “the Humvee has served a great life for the military for 20 some years. I think what they’re finding is that we’re fighting battles now in Iraq, and they’re using it as a tactical wheeled vehicle. And it was never intended to be a tactical wheeled vehicle,” he said...
The question of armor—how much is needed, when to use it and the trade-offs in engine power, weight and carrying capacity it entails—will be a technological challenge for any proposed follow-on vehicle, experts said...
[Jim] Mills, who worked on the Humvee program while in the Army... said there will also be a need for windshields that can better accommodate night-vision technology. Lead content in the glass can reduce its effectiveness. Soldiers want to be able to drive at night with headlights turned off. And in special operations when stealth is necessary, it’s mandatory to go in with night-vision technology. Longer-range infrared headlights, which would allow drivers to go 45 to 60 miles per hour, will be needed for any follow-on vehicle used in such operations, he said.
Other improvements Mills recommended include a spare tire, air conditioning and electronic stability control. The latter is necessary to prevent rollovers, another leading cause of death and injury in Iraq. Soldiers want to push the Humvee faster to avoid insurgent attacks. Such a system could prevent drivers from having accidents, Mills said, noting that the driver is often the youngest and most inexperienced of the three-soldier crews...
A spare tire, sturdier armor and the perpetual demand for increased cargo space all lead to one thing: a larger, heavier vehicle, Mills said. The term “light tactical vehicle” is becoming a misnomer, he added.
“A soldier in the military will always find more things to carry inside a vehicle,” Mills said. “The next question is how much bigger will the new truck be?”
Next week, the National Automotive Test Center will hold its annual "rodeo" for tactical vehicles. It follows a big conference on the subject, featuring the major players from the Army and Marines. I assume those two potential Humvee replacements will be there, ready to ride.
UPDATE 10:10 AM: As Inside Defense notes, the Army and Marines are going to start pursuing next-gen light tactical vehicles together, after years of separate research.
Hummer Limos Enter War Games
The next wave of Army fighting vehicles are still on the drawing board. So, in the meantime, "Boeing is outfitting 34 commercially produced limousine-style Hummers with radios and computer networking equipment to stand in for the... vehicles during tests and exercises," according to Inside Defense.
To find the actual vehicles, Boeing conducted two separate competitions -- one among Hummer dealerships near Huntington Beach, CA, and another among companies that make vehicles into limousines by cutting them in half and adding length to the middle as needed. Hummer of West Covina, CA, and LA Custom Coach Inc. won out.
The Hummers were delivered to the Huntington Beach SOSIL [System of Systems Integration Laboratory] facility with an added alternator, dual oil filters and run-flat tires. Then they were handed over to the limousine company, where their length was increased by 65 inches...
After the expansion to a six-door vehicle was complete, the Army added air conditioning because the vehicles will be running with computers and radios in the heat of the desert. They also were painted with the service’s signature camouflage print.
Name This Thing
"I have seen just a few of these around the West BIAP [Baghdad International Airport] area recently," writes DW, who's working in Baghdad. "What can you tell us about 'em?"
I've seen the vehicles, too. And I read about the things online. But, right now, I'm completely blanking on what I've seen and read.
Anyone wanna chip in here?
UPDATE 9:57 AM: That didn't take long. In the comments, LauraN makes a positive ID on our mystery vehicle. The APC-1 (or, if you prefer, "The Rock") from Granite Global Services is a Ford F 550 pickup, modified for war zones. Check out its specs and pics.
After the light armoured vehicle swerved, the driver lost control of the vehicle which went off the highway and rolled over.
"It was purely and simply an accident to avoid a head-on collision," Craig Oliver, CTV's Chief Political Correspondent, reported.
Pte. Braun Scott Woodfield, 24, died in the accident.
Predictably, the article contains this:
Earlier, the safety of the military vehicle, known as a LAV-III, was called into question after a media report claimed the army had been warned that "speed and driver inexperience" were frequent causes of rollovers.
There have been 10 rollover accidents in the six years the vehicle had been in use.
A 24-year-old Quebec soldier, Pte. Patrick Dessureault, died earlier this year when a LAV-III rolled over into a river during a training exercise in Alberta.
And last year, two Canadians were injured when their LAV rolled into a ravine in Bosnia.
In fact, Google News calls the article "Vehicle safety questioned after soldier's death". Once again we hear of the 8-wheeled LAV's problem with roll-overs. I noted similar coverage of the Stryker very recently. While there's little doubt that an LAV has a higher center of gravity than, say, a tank, and is much more likely to roll over than, say, a tank, I'm a bit skeptical about that wild-eyed claims that so many seem to have made over the past few years. And I'm not quite so quick to just accept the higher probability of rolling in a Stryker or LAV based on incidents like when two Strykers rolled into a canal in Iraq off of a collapsing roadway or rolling into a ravine in Bosnia.
A Marine tank flipped over while falling into the Euphrates during the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003. I don't ever see that listed when discussing the probability of M1 tanks to roll over. But we all know that M1's are nearly impossible to flip, don't we? And we all know that LAV/Strykers are very prone to flipping, don't we?
If we do, it might be because so many people act like it's a self-evident truth. Take, for instance, this in another story:
Military sources said the LAV-3 - its inherent tippiness exaggerated by armour plates added recently to protect soldiers from explosions - rolled over after a civilian car with no headlights suddenly appeared out of the dark.
"Inherent tippiness" according to "military sources". That, um, leaves a lot of wiggle room, I think. Also, don't miss the fact that that paragraph is a 'twofer'. You noticed how add-on armor was implicated in the event as well, didn't you? And then there's this in an article entitled Military vehicle in fatal accident has history of rollovers:
Documents obtained through Access to Information laws show the army was warned in May 2004 that "speed and driver inexperience" were frequent causes of rollovers involving the LAV III.
A two-page briefing memo prepared for military leaders said the armoured vehicle is limited in the type of terrain it can handle.
I find this a bit interesting because the article seems to use the report as a cornerstone to build its anti-LAV angle from. Except that both factors are not problems with the vehicle itself, but problems with the drivers or the way it's used. Despite a slightly bizarre claim by POGO that training was a "band-aid" solution to Stryker driver inexperience with add-on slat armor, it's obvious that training is how you overcome inexperience. I'm reminded that the first Stryker brigade shredded a ton of tires when they first acquired their vehicles, but as driver experience and training increased, lost tires decreased dramatically. Training and re-training is where it's at in the military. In this particular case, the driver had four years of experience behind the wheel of an LAV, so I doubt that driver inexperience is at fault this time. And if speed was a factor, or maybe the use of the vehicle in terrain that it can't handle, that again comes down to factors unrelated directly to the vehicle.
If you read the report note (1 page .pdf) that the story refers to, you'll see exactly that training seems to have overcome the driver inexperience problems and that steep embankments or collapsing terrain were responsible for the rest. I'm not exactly sure where "speed" comes into it, though.
Like many armoured vehicles and SUVs, the LAV-3s can roll over under certain conditions.
Wow. Comparing LAVs to the big bad SUVs. Though, to their credit, they go on to note that "several defence sources" claim that vehicle structural issues haven't been a factor in any of the Lav roll-overs and that "accidents still happen".
I know it sounds like I'm getting all up in arms about this, here. As a bit of a Stryker fan, I guess I'm tired of seeing the same old "anti wheels" claims peddled about as gospel. Yes, the Stryker/LAV is probably a lot more prone to rolling than a tank. But, then, so is everything else. It's this last point that usually is ignored or goes unmentioned. I don't claim to know if Strykers/LAVs roll more often than most other vehicles or not. But let's look at some numbers and compare.
Oh. The Canadian military has. And it says that they're actually less-likely, statistically, to roll than other troop carriers. And later they also point out that they are also less-likely to roll than a sport utility vehicle. They give no numbers, though.
If you click the pic near the top of this story, you can access a video of a Canadian LAV firing its gun. The fact that standard Canadian LAVs are armed with stabilized turrets sporting the reliable M242 Bushmaster 25mm chain gun probably, if anything, gives them an even slightly higher center of gravity than US Strykers. And, most definitely, significantly greater firepower. Another pic of a Canadian LAV-III with full load-out, crew, and dismounts, can be seen here. For what it's worth, I still believe that a 25mm-armed Stryker would come in handy.
There's no doubt that the Strykers and LAVs have their downsides, but both the US and Canadian armies seem to be taking lessons learned and working hard to apply them to the real world. And there's also no doubt that, in some cases, tracked vehicles (such as the upgraded M113s that so many anti-Stryker folks seem to advocate) would be a better choice. But nothing is a one-size-fits-all solution, and the Strykers have performed quite well overall since first arriving in Iraq at the end of 2003. By all means, let's discuss their pros and cons. Let's just do so fairly and honestly.
Meanwhile, let's not forget that though the US and Canada have had some differences of opinion on a lot of things lately, the Canadians have been in Afghanistan all along and are continuing to do a great job. Sometimes at great sacrifice.
With the V-22 Osprey ready to enter operational service, the Marines are looking at new toys to take advantage of the tilt-rotor craft's range and versatility. One of these is a new 120-mm rifled mortar. But mortars need vehicles to haul them -- and guess what? The V-22's cabin is too small to fit a Humvee. So the Marines are seriously considering buying a new version of the old M-151 Jeep to move the mortar. Imagine that: the old Jeep back in production, 20 years after it got bumped off the battlefield by the Humvee. It's not the only case where the military is looking to old machines -- some decades out of service -- to meet its current and future needs.
The costs of new weapons are spiraling at an alarming rate. That goes double for adventurous new programs like Future Combat Systems, which are proving largely technologically impossible. But with a war going on, the Defense Department needs gear that's going to work -- now. It's no surprise, then, that the Pentagon is turning to equipment that proved its worth back when Rummy was Gerald Ford's SecDef.
Consider the Vietnam-era Light Anti-tank Weapon, or LAW. Finding modern rockets like Javelin too complicated and expensive for urban warfare, the Marines have begun issuing LAWs to units in Iraq. On the aviation side, the Marines have ordered the first UH-1Y Hueys, new-production updates of the 30-year-old UH-1N. The AH-1 Cobra fleet is getting a similar makeover, albeit in a rebuild program for old airframes. Both helos are coming in on time, on budget and with the capabilities the Marines need. Meanwhile, the CH-53 is about to go back into production in a new version to replace choppers worn out in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Across the aisle, the Army is reissuing old M-14 rifles. And soon the UH-60 fleet will be replaced with -- you guessed it -- the UH-60, in an updated model.
In the Navy camp, skeptical old vets are leading a campaign to put two mothballed battleships back into service as alternatives to the Navy's $3-billion-per-copy DD(X) destroyer, which is being touted as a fire-support platform but, according to the Naval Fire Support Association, will provide only a fraction of the firepower of the old BBs at far greater cost, and much later.
My friend Jim Doner, a retired Marine warrant officer who flew forward air control missions over Vietnam, is not at all surprised at this development. He says the best weapons are the old proven ones ... paired with an experienced, courageous operator. In particular, he laments the premature retirement of the OV-10 Bronco, a rugged, slow, cheap little airplane that excelled at getting airborne controllers over the battlefield where they could direct artillery and bombs more accurately than even today's controllers with their whiz-bang targeting pods. Doner says the OV-10 went away (in 1995) in favor of hi-tech multi-role jets that aren't always good at the simple, dirty and dangerous missions that are important in low-intensity wars.
--David Axe
Humvees on Crack
That's the only way I can describe the two armored vehicles that were hogging the right lane of I-26 outside Charleston, S.C. this weekend. They were early examples of the ULTRA AP -- "AP" for "Armored Patrol" -- a Humvee replacement being developed by Georgia Tech for the U.S. Marine Corps. The ones I saw were presumably on their way to the Navy lab in Charleston.
"The ULTRA AP will emphasize high-output diesel power combined with revolutionary armor and a fully modern chassis," according to Georgia Tech Research News. But never mind all that. The key difference between the ULTRA AP and the Humvee, and the reason the ULTRA needs a new engine and chassis at all, is that the new vehicle is wrapped in enough steel and ceramic to withstand all but the biggest IEDs. Experience in Iraq, where IEDs are the major killer, has proved that the battlefield of the future is no place for thin-skinned vehicles. In fact, the two newest additions to the Army's vehicle fleet, the Meerkat and the Buffalo (pictured below), are both designed for maximum protection against IEDs.
The Army's flagship program, Future Combat Systems, once hinged on air-transportable vehicles that were lighter than the current fleet. The Army was counting on advanced networks and long-range fires to make FCS surviveable.
Now FCS has been redesigned to cope with dense urban environments and sophisticated IEDs. ULTRA AP, Meerkat and Buffalo have given us a glimpse of the future, where ground combat vehicles are as heavy as ever, if not heavier.
The big question? How do we get these big, heavy vehicles into the fight quicker?
--David Axe
Humvee 2.0
"The Pentagon is accelerating its search to replace the Humvee after two years of roadside bomb blasts and suicide attacks in Iraq," says USA Today.
"Before the war in Iraq, a successor to the Army's dominant vehicle wasn't due until the middle of the next decade. Now the Army plans to review designs this fall, and working prototypes will be due in June."
The U.S. military needs those prototypes to be better armored than the often thin-skinned Humvees, of course. But they also want "a beefier suspension that can handle the weight of the armor... lower fuel consumption, to reduce the need for supply convoys that have been targets of insurgents... [and] improved onboard power generation to handle the expanding array of electronics that troops take into battle today compared with the simple radios of 30 years ago."
I've got a brief profile of one potential Humvee replacement in next month's Popular Mechanics. Defense Review looks at another, Georgia Tech's Ultra Armored Patrol.
I imagine that some group in BAE Systems had a great party this last weekend. The news is that BAE Systems received several orders from the U.S. Army to remanufacture and upgrade Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles to A3 configurations. The total cost of these orders runs to more than $1 billion. Most of the work will be done at their plant at York, PA. The modified vehicles will be delivered to the Army between June 2006 and January 2008.
The A3 upgrade progam began back in 2001 with 389 M2A3 vehicles and 77 M3A3 vehicles to be upgraded by 2006. The upgrade includes an improved thermal imager for the TOW missile, a combat identification system, and other improvements to "provide commanders with outstanding situational awareness in the harshest urban fights."
The Bradley vehicles have what is called ventilated facepiece collective protection, which provides fresh air through hoses into the crew's M42A1 protective masks. The squad being transported has no collective protection and must rely on their protective masks and suits. Interestingly enough, the original M3 Bradley vehicle and M1 Abrams tank had no collective protection at all, despite knowledge that the Soviet armored tanks and vehicles did offer such protection. I used to get a kick by going to the AUSA annual meeting and asking defense contractors who were pushing armored vehicles what chem-bio survivability features their vehicles have. "Ahhh... let me get my boss... I don't know that one."
Hey, it's been real, it's been fun, but Noah's back tomorrow and I'm outta here. Hope to see you readers at my blog sometime.
First Rhinos, now CROWs. New breeds of animals keep popping up in Iraq. The Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS) is mounted on top of a HMMWV and controlled from a command center within the vehicle. This system can mount the M2 50-cal machine gun, the M240 medium machine gun, the MK19 automatic grenade launcher, and the M249 squad automatic weapon in addition to a powerful color day camera, an infrared camera, and a range finder. This system allows the gunner to sit within the armored vehicle and, using a computer screen, control the weapon with the use of a joystick. Prior experience with Xbox desired but not required.
The PM for Soldier Weapons demonstrated a prototype in February 2004, with four systems being deployed to Iraq under an urgent needs request. Troops in Iraq began receiving the final system in April 2005. Several hundred more are expected to be fielded within the next 18 months.
“The CROWS system is an excellent tool,” said Sgt. 1st Class Craig Bailey, Company C, 1st Battalion, 128th Infantry Regiment. “The advantages are obviously its optics, zoom and thermal capabilities. It’s able to see things a lot farther in advance. It’s excellent to have a thermal system mounted right on the vehicle to use at night or in daytime.”
“The CROWs is great for the MSR patrols because with the FLIR it sees things that are out of place,” Hargis said. “Even spotting IEDs in the road prior to coming up to them, but I think the most rewarding thing I can do is catch some of these guys laying the IEDs.”
If you believe the hype out of Detroit, we'll all be driving ultra-clean cars running on hydrogen fuel cells one day, instead of today's gas-chuggers. The latest comes from General Motors, who "reported Monday it has made a breakthrough that brings hydrogen-powered vehicles a bit closer to reality," according to the Red Herring.
The 66-inch wide, 13.5 horsepower Aggressor Alternative Mobility Vehicle goes from 0 to 40 mph in four seconds, and tops out at 80 mph, according to its makers, Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide.
But speed isn't really the selling point of the Aggressor. Stealth is. The vehicle has a "virtually silent operating mode with reduced thermal signature," making it harder for evil-doers to spot the car.
The Quantum Aggressor runs on compressed hydrogen utilizing... carbon fiber storage tanks. A 10 kW fuel cell is coupled with an energy storage module in a parallel hybrid configuration, which provides power on demand to a high-torque electric motor driving the rear-wheels...The Quantum Aggressor can be driven to the intended destination and then be used as a silent power generator to produce high quality electricity for telecommunications, surveillance, targeting, and other battlefield equipment.
But not to worry, greenies. Quantum says that the Aggressor is eco-friendly, too -- no matter what the operating mode, "the vehicle does not produce any emissions."
ARMOR BOAST HAS SOFT UNDERBELLY
When Army Secretary Francis Harvey bragged last week that every American vehicle in Iraq was about to be armored up, Defense Tech readers smelled a rat.
Maybe what Harvey was saying was technically true, readers figured. But a whole lot of those supposedly toughed-up vehicles would be protected with jury-rigged, "hillbilly armor" -- the kind that's cobbled together from scrap heaps and landfills.
Now, the L.A. Times has confirmed what the folks here had already guessed. "About a quarter of the 25,300 military vehicles venturing outside bases will have only the makeshift steel plates known to soldiers as 'Mad Max' or 'hillbilly' armor."
There are three levels of vehicle armor in Iraq. About 6,000 Humvees have "level 1" armor, meaning they were manufactured as armored vehicles, with beefed-up engines, air conditioners and equipment to handle the added weight. They weigh 2,000 pounds more than the standard Humvee, with steel-plated doors, steel plating under the cab and several layers of ballistic-resistant glass in the windows. They were designed to protect against rocket-propelled grenades, small-arms fire, shrapnel and some land mines.
Next are 12,000 vehicles that have factory-made, "level 2" armor bolted on in the war zone.
Then there are the 7,300 vehicles with Mad Max armor, slated to be phased out this summer.
The remaining unarmed vehicles won't travel outside protected bases, except on cargo trucks, military officials said.
When Chief Warrant Officer Randall Menough's crew began fashioning armor at Camp Buehring last year in Kuwait, there was no Army directive to Mad Max vehicles. But they did it anyway.
ARMY CHIEF: ALL IRAQ VEHICLES ARMORED
It took long enough. But "in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday [here's the prepared version], the Army’s civilian chief pledged that by next week, no soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan would drive outside the base perimeter in an unprotected vehicle," Defense Daily reports.
Francis Harvey, the new secretary of the Army, told committee members: “After Feb. 15, no vehicle carrying an American soldier will leave a protected base without armor.”
For months, the Army’s top officials have been under fire over a failure to send enough armored vehicles into the theater of operations... Harvey, in his first appearance before the committee, said the Army had tackled the problem, increasing the number of armored vehicles in theater by a factor of more than 100 since August 2003.
“In the fall of 2003, when the insurgency in Iraq began to intensify, there were approximately 250 armored tactical wheeled vehicles in theater,” Harvey said... By month’s end, Harvey continued, “at least 32,500 tactical wheeled vehicles will be in the Iraq and Afghan theaters, and they will be protected.”
Those figures include more than just up-armored Humvees, which come in a number of variants, including factory-modified vehicles and those equipped with “bolt-on” armor kits.
“The public focus has generally been on the Humvee -- we’ve made real progress on the Humvee,” he said. “The real boost has been in the fact that we are now armoring every wheeled vehicle -- trucks, HEMMTs, HETTs, PLS trucks, tankers, all of this.”
I'll take Harvey and Schoomaker at their word. But their accounts seem to run head-first into a December report by the AP that "of more than 9,100 heavy military haulers in Iraq, Afghanistan and nearby countries, just over 1,100 have received upgraded protection." Harvey and Schoomaker's testimony would also appear to contradict what the New York Times had to say about Army National Guard's trucks, back in November.
There are plans to produce armor kits for at least 2,806 medium-weight trucks, but as of Sept. 17, only 385 of the kits had been produced and sent to Iraq. Armor kits were also planned for at least 1,600 heavyweight trucks, but as of mid-September just 446 of these kits were in Iraq.
Anyone wanna guess who's telling the truth and who's spinning here?
D.I.Y. GUN TRUCK
U.S. convoys have become juicy targets for insurgents. The vehicles roll around the desert with about as much armor as a Chevy pick-up. And the gun trucks meant to protect the supply trains aren't muscular enough to shove guerillas aside.
The truck currently is undergoing a seven-day road test in Iraq and initial reports are good, Maj. Ricky Smith, the 175th [Maintenance Company's] commander, reported Wednesday.
“So far, no one has shot at it and that is the effect we wanted — to scare the h--- out of the bad guys,” Smith wrote in an e-mail to The State...
King’s design adds an armored box, bristling with guns, that can be bolted onto the back of a heavy transport truck in a convoy. It is much different than the gun trucks the Army has used for decades. Those are quick, agile gun trucks designed to race up and down the length of a convoy to meet attackers.
King’s gun truck — recently unveiled at Camp Arifjan, where the 175th is stationed in Kuwait — weighs more than 20 tons. The vehicle originally was designed to haul a battle tank...
The walls of the box are protected on the side by several layers of Kevlar. There are a few inches between the Kevlar and the sides of the truck to absorb most of the impact and shrapnel if it is hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, King said.
That part of the design has not been tested, King said. “We won’t know until an RPG hits it.”
The box is made of three-eighths-inch-thick steel plating, which can stop most small-arms fire. The floor is reinforced with two layers of the steel plating to protect against bombs.
The box is armed with one 40-mm and one .50-caliber machine gun. It has room for two other gunners.
If the truck makes it past its first real-world road test in Iraq this week, King and the others who worked on the project will construct seven more boxes for the 7th Transportation Group.
HUMVEE PRODUCTION BOOSTED
"The Army moved Friday to boost production of armored Humvees for American troops in Iraq by 100 a month," the L.A. Times reports, "despite recent assertions by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that soldiers could not be supplied with safer vehicles because Pentagon officials could not procure them any faster."
TRUCKS STILL THIN-SKINNED
The Hummers are protected, mostly. It's the trucks that are in trouble.
The AP is reporting that "of more than 9,100 heavy military haulers in Iraq, Afghanistan and nearby countries, just over 1,100 have received upgraded protection... By comparison, the military has decided it needs almost 22,000 armored Humvees in the war area. It has 15,334; an additional 4,400 await armor add-ons and the rest have not been delivered to the region."
But getting those additional Hummers could take a long, long time, if current production plans hold. According to this Bloomberg article (via Sullivan), "Armor Holdings Inc., the sole supplier of protective plates for the Humvee military vehicles used in Iraq, said it could increase output by as much as 22 percent per month with no investment and is awaiting an order from the Army.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday the Army was working as fast as it can and supply is dictated by "a matter of physics, not a matter of money.'' A Pentagon spokeswoman declined comment.
Jacksonville, Florida-based Armor Holdings last month told the Army it could add armor to as many as 550 of the trucks a month, up from 450 vehicles now, Robert Mecredy, president of the company's aerospace and defense group, said in an interview today.
"We're prepared to build 50 to 100 vehicles more per month,'' Mecredy said in the telephone interview. "I've told the customer that and I stand ready to do that.
Why the hold-up? My guess -- and I'm checkng up on this now -- is that money for armor (especially truck armor) wasn't even in the Pentagon's budget in the first place. Rather, Rummy & Co. decided to put off funding for such projects into a second, "supplemental" bill for Congress to pass.
Manehwile, the Times gangs up on the armor issue, and gives us some great color from Kuwait:
At the transit camps in Kuwait, Army and Marine Corps drivers weld antishrapnel collars onto the hoods of their trucks, to deflect exploding debris while maintaining visibility. Sandbags are laid on the floors of Humvees, trimming the skimpy legroom from economy class to steerage. On the battlefield, there is an air of resigned acquiescence about the lack of armor, rather than bitter complaints. Among units that lack armored Humvees, the mood 20 months into the war tends more to black jokes than to recrimination.
"If they i.e.d. you in this thing, there won't be enough of you left to package up and send home," a Marine sergeant said earlier this week, as he showed embedded reporters to one of three open-backed Humvees assigned to a raid on a suspected rebel stronghold raid south of Baghdad. Among troops in Iraq, i.e.d., for improvised explosive device, is shorthand for the roadside bombs that have killed about two-thirds of Americans who have died in combat.
At briefings, commanders resort often to an old Marine adage, "Improvise, adjust, overcome," and are dismissive of complaints.
STRYKER FIGHT RAGES
With Fallujah largely under U.S. control, the epicenter of the fighting in Iraq has shifted to Mosul, in the north. And returning to action there is one of the most controversial cards in the American military's deck -- the Stryker light armored vehicle.
When the Strykers were first being introduced to the Army, in 2002, they were damned for a variety of sins -- it's armor wasn't thick enough; it couldn't hit targets on the run; it's wheels went flat too easily; and, boy, could it get hot inside.
Now that they've been in use for a while, Stars & Stripes declares that "the naysayers have been converted... The vehicles are almost too good to be true, say those who ride them, fix them or command them."
But doubters still remain. USAR Lt. Mike Sparks has long been one of the Stryker's most vocal critics. And he's still convinced that the vehicle's "air-filled rubber tires" are trouble. Previous personnel carriers, like the Gavin 113s, had tracks, which were a whole lot more durable. Wheels, on the other hand, are awfully succeptible to roadside bombs. "Would you go into combat with your family car?" he asks.
But Staff Sgt. Lee Hodges, with the Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition Squadron of the 14th Cavalry, says not to worry. "I’ve seen Strykers be hit by an [improvised explosive device] and drive home on eight flats," he tells Stars & Stripes.
THERE'S MORE: Defense Tech pal CA doesn't see how the Stryker "controversy" and the recent mortar strike in Mosul are lnked.
The individual was killed in his living area, not in a Stryker. Just because he was killed while attached to a Stryker brigade doesn't make their deaths a Stryker controversy.
Not that his death should mean any less, but I think it is irrelevant to the subject of the blog item. Had he been killed by a mortar while in a Stryker then it would be overly appropriate.
CA's right, of course. My bad.
SOUPED-UP ARMORED CARS PREPPED FOR IRAQ
Soldiers in Iraq might soon get armored vehicles equipped with pain rays, sonic weapons, or guns that automically return fire – if a Pentagon project works out as planned.
As we've said before here, when U.S. troops are forced with an angry mob, they only have two options at their disposal, currently: the bullhorn or the M16. Last month, a U.S. helicopter fired into a group of Iraqi crowd, killing more than a dozen.
The idea behind "Project Sheriff," according to Stars and Stripes, is to give "troops working in urban terrain more options, especially when deciding how to deal with potential noncombatants or civilians being used as shields."
Four to six vehicles -- the Army’s new Stryker armored personnel carrier, for example, or the Marine Corps’ Light Armored Vehicle -- would be retrofitted with non-lethal weapons and new defense systems. They plans have been finalized, yet. But options include the Active Denial System – a microwave-like pain ray – and the earsplitting Long Range Acoustic Device, a sort of bullhorn on steroids.
But Project Sheriff will also have a new, deadly set of capabilities, as well. Under consideration in the Gunslinger weapons system, which "uses acoustic and infrared sensors to identify a sniper," according to Inside the Army. Then, a pack of machine guns can automatically return that sniper fire. The Pentagon wants to have the system in G.I.s' hands by June or July.
THERE'S MORE: Reader RM wants to know, "Why can't they just use tear gas? Why all the money on fancy high-tech?" Here's your answer, RM, from Sid Heal, a long-time veteran of the Marine Corps and L.A. Sheriff's department. He's one of the leading non-lethal weapons experts around.
Because they [Active Denial Systems] don't change the environment and there is no personal decontamination required. For example, tactical commanders are EXTREMELY reluctant to use any chemical agent around intersections, roads, schools, hospitals, etc. AND it's effectiveness is largely weather dependent. A stiff breeze blowing in your face is NOT the time to deploy tear gas because it leaves the mob unaffected while putting all your people in masks.
The Assault Weapon System... features an MK-19 grenade launcher, .50-caliber machine gun and two TOW missile-firing platforms.
All three of the weapon systems are connected to a central Improved Target Acquisition System that gives the gunner the option of firing each weapon with the flick of a switch and automatically gauges the range of the target by using an eye-safe laser range finder.
When the gunner flips a switch on the control panel and charges the weapon of choice, the display will change for the particular weapon and will show the sights for that weapon.
“We can have one vehicle doing the job of three, or we can have three vehicles doing three times as much,” he said.
The vehicle on display was a watered-down version of the tactical vehicle that is still in the construction phase.
Plans for the tactical version include a smaller, collapsible turret, removable composite armor plating, undercarriage protection from mines, a smaller targeting screen, and the gunner’s seat may be moved to the rear of the vehicle to allow for another team member and lower the distractions for both the gunner and the commander.
SMOKE SCREEN FOR TANKS?
One of the coolest gagdets James Bond ever had was the smoke screen that gushed out of the back of his Aston Martin, leaving Goldfinger's minions behind, choking and confused.
Now, a South African defense firm is teaming up with Saab to provide the same kind of protection to tanks and armored vehicles. A set of sensors, the companies claim, will pick up the signature of a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher. In less than a second, the Land Electronic Defence System 100 "will dispatch four smoke canisters covering the tank or vehicle and making it impossible for the attacker's missile to trace the vehicle," SABC news notes.
"The screen will obscure the attackers’ line of sight and give the vehicle and occupants a chance to get behind cover," says a Grintek Defence press release. Because the smoke obscures more than just the visibile spectrum, it "cannot be penetrated by thermal imaging equipment used to aim weapons or guide missiles."
But you can expect to see George Lazenby return as 007 before this gizmo is deployed on American armor. Picking up the signature of an RPG is beyond tough. And even if the smoke can be shot out in a second -- a big if -- these big vehicles don't exactly accelerate like an Aston Martin. The Abrams battle tank, for example, takes seven seconds to go from zero to twenty miles per hour.
THERE'S MORE: The smoke screen might "have some utility in defeating an ATGM [anti-tank guided missile], but against an RPG it would only prevent the crew from seeing what was about to hit it," says Defense Tech reader JA. An RPG is a "fire and forget" weapon, he notes. "Once launched they travel to point of aim, or somewhat near it, without any further input from an operator. An ATGM, on the other hand, does, in general, require course guidance input from an operator and smoke systems are of some utility against them.
"This assumes that the crew recognizes that something is inbound and moves the vehicle," however. "If they sit still, then they blow up in complete privacy."
ARMY PULLS PLUG ON HYBRID HUMMERS
It seemed like a green dream, ready to come true: the Army replacing its gas-chugging Humvees with clean, enviro-friendly electric hybrids. But, for now, it'll have to stay a wish unfulfilled. The Army has decided to stop funding the development of the hybrid Hummers, National Defense magazine reports.
During the past decade, the Army has supported a number of development programs to equip military vehicles with hybrid-electric engines, but none has transitioned yet to full production. The hybrid Humvee was viewed as one of the more promising efforts, with at least six prototypes in the works.
Although the Army continues to struggle with the enormous logistics burdens of transporting millions of gallons of fuel to combat zones, it has not yet been convinced that hybrid-electric engines are the way to go. Hybrid systems, though more fuel efficient, have proved to be more expensive and less rugged than advocates had hoped.
“We have to prove that it works as touted,” said Claude Bolton, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, technology and logistics. “It has yet to be seen” whether hybrid vehicles will ever be accepted in the Army’s truck fleets, he told an industry conference.
Another hybrid prototype now in development is the Army’s wrecker, the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck. The manufacturer of the HEMTT, Oshkosh Truck Corp., equipped the vehicle with a hybrid system similar to one now in use in civilian trucks, such as fire engines.
But the Army is not yet persuaded that the HEMTT should be hybrid, said Lt. Col. Lisa Kirkpatrick, program manager for Army heavy trucks.
“We need to test it against conventional power train,” she said. “I have told Oshkosh to be prepared to go back to conventional power train if hybrid electric doesn’t work. … I don’t know if hybrid electric will deliver what it promises.”
This article first appeared in AviationWeek.com.
But that will take decades, especially as Pentagon officials attempt to reign in costs. Acquisition czar Kenneth Krieg said in early March that he was considering moving MRAP out of the military’s fast-but-loose “rapid-fielding” process due to the anticipated scale and cost of the vehicle purchase, which he said demand careful oversight.
Armor is vital on the battlefield. We all remember the outcry over the shortage of up-armored Humvees in the early days of the campaign in Iraq. But when you're in a hurry to get out, all that heavy protection works against you. Here's some recent news that should give our troops another avenue of escape when things go bad: 
What started as a humble little Mom and Pop operation hand-building 
The contraptions are called 
a long-delayed attempt to replace more than a thousand AAVs with as many new vehicles featuring stabilized cannons and better armor and comms.
“We still have 
Just two years ago, FP had a staff of 12 hand-building one Buffalo per month. Now it employs 400 and churns out more than a vehicle per day. In addition to the I-LAVs, FP is slated to build 300 Buffalos through 2010 and several hundred more Cougars. Taking on I-LAV production is a tall order, so FP has 
The reasons are many. Despite advantages including modest fuel savings, 
That's the idea behind an emerging requirement across the U.S. military's slate of diesel-electric hybrid demonstration programs. One of the major advantages of hybrid vehicles is their ability, with proper modification, to export electricity. With the right interface, you can just plug your gizmos into your truck, keep it idling and voila! You've cut your logistics burden significantly by dumping all those bulky, finnicky generator trailers.
But there are other advantages to hybrids, according to Gary Schmiedel at 
The next wave of Army fighting vehicles are still on the drawing board. So, in the meantime, "Boeing is outfitting 34 commercially produced limousine-style Hummers with radios and computer networking equipment to stand in for the... vehicles during tests and exercises," according to 
"I have seen just a few of these around the West BIAP [Baghdad International Airport] area recently," writes DW, who's working in Baghdad. "What can you tell us about 'em?"
A Canadian soldier with the 
Consider the Vietnam-era Light Anti-tank Weapon, or LAW. Finding modern rockets like 
That's the only way I can describe the two armored vehicles that were hogging the right lane of I-26 outside Charleston, S.C. this weekend. They were early examples of the ULTRA AP -- "AP" for "Armored Patrol" -- a 
The Army's flagship program, 
"Before the war in Iraq, a successor to the Army's dominant vehicle wasn't due until the middle of the next decade. Now the Army plans to review designs this fall, and working prototypes will be due in June."
The A3 upgrade progam began back in 2001 with 389 M2A3 vehicles and 77 M3A3 vehicles to be upgraded by 2006. The upgrade includes an improved thermal imager for the TOW missile, a combat identification system, and other improvements to "provide commanders with outstanding situational awareness in the harshest urban fights."
The 
The Army's 
Maybe what Harvey was saying was technically true, readers figured. But a whole lot of those supposedly toughed-up vehicles would be protected with jury-rigged, "
Gen. Peter Schoomaker, who also testified, noted that the full range of Army vehicles--including the 
U.S. convoys have become juicy targets for insurgents. The vehicles roll around the desert with about as much armor as a Chevy pick-up. And the gun trucks meant to protect the supply trains aren't muscular enough to shove guerillas aside.
The Hummers are protected, mostly. It's the trucks that are in trouble.
With Fallujah largely under U.S. control, the epicenter of the fighting in Iraq has 
Soldiers in Iraq might soon get armored vehicles equipped with pain rays, sonic weapons, or guns that automically return fire – if a Pentagon project works out as planned.
One of the coolest gagdets James Bond ever had was the smoke screen that gushed out of the back of his 
It seemed like a green dream, ready to come true: the Army replacing its gas-chugging Humvees with clean, enviro-friendly electric hybrids. But, for now, it'll have to stay a wish unfulfilled. The Army has decided to 
