We hear a lot about IEDs, and not all of it.. shall we say “accurate”? (Deliberate understatement.) IEDs are mines. These devices have been the largest single cause of GI casualties in Iraq. Iraqi civilians have suffered even more than occupation troops.

Mine warfare is a delaying tactic; it forces an advancing enemy to slow his movements, and devote precious resources to detection and removal rather than pursuit. They are also defensive weapons, a good relatively inexpensive way to help defend a particular strongpoint. Minefields can also be used in the defense as obstacles to canalize an attacking force into a specific fire sack.

Besides being excellent tactical weapons, IEDs also serve as strategic weapons. The US has expended huge sums of money and effort to develop successful countermeasures to these mines, and the effort to defeat them continues year after year.

The counter to IEDs that is most popular with GIs (and hometown politicians) is the MRAP, a generic term for a heavily-armored vehicle built to withstand the IED explosion.

I’ve written a lot about MRAPs, and highlighted various types, but I haven’t paid much attention to the Husky, an MRAP designed to find IEDs. This is a pretty damned interesting job, because sometimes you find the mine when it explodes underneath the Husky.

UPI recently published a nice piece about the Husky and the soldiers who operate it in convoy defense.

AL ASAD, Iraq, Dec. 13 (UPI) -- IED, the acronym for improvised explosive device, is shorthand for terror in Iraq and with good cause. Since the capture of Baghdad in 2003 and the start of the insurgency, the jerry-rigged bombs have accounted for more than half of U.S. military deaths.

The number of Iraqis killed by the devices, whether planted along roads or packed into vehicles, is even higher.

No wonder, then, the U.S. military has fielded a number of high-tech and expensive countermeasures to the devices. But in the end, it all still comes down to anxious men who must seek them out and destroy them.

The armor on the Husky is all around the cab. You could probably say the wheels and suspension are expendable.

The Husky Metal Detecting and Marking Vehicle is part of a larger system called the Vehicle Mounted Mine Detector (VMMD). The VMMD is a mine protected, vehicle mounted mine detection and proofing system which is capable of finding and marking metallic explosive hazards. VMMD consists of two mine detection vehicles and three detonation trailers. Early versions of the VMMD consisted of a Meerkat and a Husky, while more recent procurements consist of two Husky vehicles.

The Husky a single occupant four-wheel drive vehicle designed for mine blast protection and rapid field reparability using a "redpack" of replacement items that travel with the VMMD. Husky acts as the prime mover for the full width mine proofing/detonation trailers and redpack. It can also serve as an alternate detection vehicle with two detector panels that raise and lower depending on terrain. Additional detection and protection improvements are being incorporated into the system in response to the changing threat and technology advances.

[Marine Pvt. Anthony "Chase"] Watson, 23, has a particularly dangerous role in the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion based at al-Asad. By choice, he drives a vehicle called a Husky, which looks like an outsized, armor-plated dune buggy, as a member of a route-clearance team.

Watson's job is to drive slowly along the sides of roads and through visual abilities and highly sensitive and adjustable electronic sensors find and mark mines for neutralizing by other team members, who do so through the use of a larger MRAP (Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected) vehicle that has a huge hydraulic arm that digs mines out and snips their wires or destroys their detonators.

Finding and marking means Watson rolls right up to them so a special sprayer on the elongated front end of the vehicle can mark the site with ink. A trailer is sometimes attached to the rear of the Husky to set off any mines the eyes and sensors missed.

If a Husky does set off a mine, it's designed so the front or rear portions of the vehicle absorb the blast and detach from the cab.

Watson has so far avoided the experience. He said a friend wasn't so lucky, but suffered no serious injury. "These hulls are designed to withstand a blast," he said.

This sounds like the second-least popular military job available.

The expenditure of treasure is nothing compared to the cost of lives. Every IED detected and disposed of safely is a life saved, a family back home spared the pain and agony of loss.

A tip of the too-small Kevlar helmet to Erdla of Gorilla's Guides, who not only has time to edit there and raise a family, but also finds a few moments to feed me news leads.

Main & Central Articles on MRAPs

Mine Resistant Vehicles

17,700 MRAPs

Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae

A Minor MRAP Problem

The Super-MRAP

The Cougar MRAP

Baby Huey Needs Feeding

What Does the JIEDDO Do?

MRAPs Go Mainstream

MRAPs AirShipped to Iraq

MRAPs Get Bad Press From Pentagon

The Struggle Between Armor and the Projectile

Death of an MRAP

Marines Call For a Mark Time on the MRAP March

Stryking Out For Hearts and Minds

Rethinking MRAPs

Cruising For a Bruising

This morning’s USA Today has a nice update piece about MRAPs and the slow de-emphasis on these vehicles as the panacea that would solve all the problems of our occupation of Iraq. The article includes some good photos and a short video clip. The perceived lessening of violence in Baghdad has caused the Army and Marine Corps to cancel some of their orders.

In the past few weeks, the Marines have determined they need fewer MRAPs, and the Army has indicated it will probably follow, mostly because violence is down in Iraq and counterinsurgency efforts are taking hold. Where deployed, MRAPs are helping to tamp down IED attacks by making it safe for troops to move deeper into neighborhoods to find IEDs and the insurgents who plant them, officers in the field say. A USA TODAY team embedded with combat units here in early December found that the news from the Pentagon had not dampened the demand for MRAPs on the front lines.

Troops like these vehicles because they feel safe. Further, they are larger than Humvees and Strykers, with more headroom, which provides a better environment for getting into your battle rattle.

These are the vehicles, by the way, that the Pentagon saw no need to expedite until Secretary Gates had replaced the incompetent and disgraced Donald Rumsfeld.

And, despite the recent notices that overall requirements will be cut — as many as 15,000 were once contemplated — Gates' spokesman Geoff Morrell said last week that MRAPs remain a major priority. "As it stands right now, we continue to buy as many MRAPs as can be produced, and that has not changed."

They are not the perfect answer to the resistance of course.

Although proven lifesavers — only a few troops have been killed riding in MRAPs — the vehicles are not failsafe. Armor-penetrating explosives, called explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, have breached them in Iraq.

Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, Army deputy chief of staff, says, "Whatever we put a soldier or Marine in, ultimately there is a bigger boom possible, something that can undo that particular design."

No matter how much protection is loaded onto a vehicle, a determined enemy will always find a way to penetrate the armor. I discussed this dynamic at some length back in August.

The real solution is to reduce the threat or remove the challenge that produces the threat. Since we’ve committed the nation’s armed forces to a 40 or 50 year occupation in order to extract Iraq’s oil, we’re probably going to need quite a few of these vehicles in the years to come.

Main & Central Articles on MRAPs

Mine Resistant Vehicles

17,700 MRAPs

Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae

A Minor MRAP Problem

The Super-MRAP

The Cougar MRAP

Baby Huey Needs Feeding

What Does the JIEDDO Do?

MRAPs Go Mainstream

MRAPs AirShipped to Iraq

MRAPs Get Bad Press From Pentagon

The Struggle Between Armor and the Projectile

Death of an MRAP

Marines Call For a Mark Time on the MRAP March

Stryking Out For Hearts and Minds

Rethinking MRAPs

The Army is faced with an ongoing war in Iraq and deployments have become repetitive and more and more stressful. Some argue that it isn’t really a war, but actually an occupation complicated by an ongoing civil war between two or three or four competing segments of the Iraqi population, depending on who’s doing the counting. The fact remains that it is combat, primarily of the urban type, which is most difficult and most stressful because each open door or window, each corner, each pile of trash offers the danger of ambush.

At one time the Army pinned great hopes on its Stryker armored vehicles, which it termed an “interim” vehicle.

The M1126 Stryker was always considered an “interim” vehicle, bridging the gap between the heavy-armor divisions containing M1A1 Abrams tanks and M2/M3 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles designed to fight WWIII against the Soviet Union, and the envisioned units planned for the Army’s Future Combat System.

The Stryker was designed with a ceramic armor capable of defeating infantry munitions, such as 7.62 mm and 14.5 mm armor-piercing rounds. It was not designed to withstand anti-armor projectiles, such as RPGs. As it was being designed, there were serious weight considerations and changes had to be made.

The Stryker was a key component of Mr Rumsfeld’s transformational revolution in military affairs, the Army pinned great hopes on it. Because it wasn’t defensible against RPGs, some quick solutions were created, first in the field and then in follow up add-on packages supplied to the field.

The Army has lost quite a few Strykers in Iraq and avoiding loss of these vehicles and their crews in combat has become a skill to be handed on as each new unit deploys. The Army’s only Reserve unit equipped with Strykers, is in Pennsylvania’s National Guard, and it’s been training with the machines for two years, preparing for deployment in 2009.

[LTC Pat[ Mangin and Lt. Col. Mitch Rambin served 16 months in Iraq with an active Army brigade from Alaska. They are spending the weekend teaching about 160 leaders of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard the nuances of serving in Iraq with the Strykers. Mangin called their lessons “the Ph.D. of counterinsurgency.”

The Strykers are the Army’s most sophisticated vehicle, capable of speeds up to 75 mph and outfitted with computers and GPS units. About 4,000 members of the Pennsylvania National Guard Stryker brigade, the only National Guard unit with Strykers, have been told they will deploy to Iraq early in 2009.

Prior to Iraq, replacements were fed into units on a piecemeal basis. They joined an experienced unit and it was up to unit members to train the FNGs on what to expect, how to avoid it, and how to get out of trouble when you found something unexpected. With the present system of wholesale replacement by unit, institutional memory is lost and too many companies and battalions have had to learn by experience, which is often tragically expensive. The Army’s seemingly eternal mission in Iraq is readily creating experienced active Army units as they go back for their third and fourth deployments. Reserve and NG units have a tough learning curve, however.

Mangin, of Palmyra [PA], is providing training support to the Guard troops as they prepare to deploy. He said the Strykers are useful in counter-insurgency operations and working directly with the people of Iraq. He served in Mosul, Tal Afar and Baghdad.

“Our mission today is so much more humanitarian,” he said. “It’s not all about blowing stuff up. To win the hearts and minds, we must be out there as a presence 24/7.”

Mangin said the Stryker commanders made it a point to form relationships with the local police, Iraqi troops, mayors and other key players.

If an Iraqi citizen notifies the military of an insurgent holed up next door, for instance, a Stryker vehicle can be there in five minutes, according to Rambin.

“Hearts and minds” is the signature phrase of COIN warfare. It originated during the Viet Nam war, as the goal of combat, after grabbing them buy the balls. It didn’t work, then.

There are some who argue it will not work here, since the US is embroiled in a long-term occupation in the midst of a civil war being fought out by three or four groups battling for domestic political supremacy. Pessimists, who actually call themselves realists, argue that they are fighting to see which group will have the political authority to throw us out of their country.

Mr Cheney and his friends in Big Oil insist that's not going to happen in this century.

Main & Central Articles on MRAPs

Mine Resistant Vehicles

17,700 MRAPs

Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae

A Minor MRAP Problem

The Super-MRAP

The Cougar MRAP

Baby Huey Needs Feeding

What Does the JIEDDO Do?

MRAPs Go Mainstream

MRAPs AirShipped to Iraq

MRAPs Get Bad Press From Pentagon

The Struggle Between Armor and the Projectile

Death of an MRAP

Marines Call For a Mark Time on the MRAP March

Stryking Out For Hearts and Minds

We found that the Iraqis were happy to be “liberated” from Saddam Hussein, but were not prepared to endure a 30-40 year occupation while their oil was siphoned out of the ground and into ExxonMobil’s bank accounts.

A resistance quickly formed, which was perhaps unsurprising. Suppose someone invaded our country in order to oust a terrible dictator (if you could imagine a madman dictator in the US) and then decided to stay in order to mediate the civil war that ensued when something like 27% of Americans rose up in anger because their madman had been deposed. Now, it’s not a perfect analogy, since the historical example has the psychotic religious extremists among the 73% of Americans, rather than among the 27%, but I just asked you to imagine, remember?

Not content to wage their revolt by rifle against the liberators who showed they had no intention of leaving by quickly building very large, reinforced base camps and a huuuuge administration compound, the resistance quickly turned to the bomb, which is a cost-effective method of fighting back against the occupiers.

As the butcher’s bill of dead and wounded rose alarmingly, the occupation sought an answer and discovered MRAPs seemed to give some safety to their patrols.

We went in big for MRAPs.

They weren’t a perfect answer, but they were better protection than HumVees, even those with armor. And so we’re buying thousands of them to outfit our troops for their decades-long occupation of Iraq, and (possibly) other Middle Eastern countries.

The Marines have recently suggested slowing down the production flow of MRAPs into Iraq because:

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.

This is the same Marine Corps that was busting down the doors of the Pentagon back in 2005 for the vehicles. Now they’re not so sure the rush is warranted.

"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."

I don’t understand what truth has to do with war, conquest, empire, or military procurement, but I’m just an old brokedown sergeant.

UPDATE: The well-regarded Armchair Generalist has an article explaining why he thinks the MRAP program is a bad idea. It's well worth reading for some insight into the economic, strategic and tactical implications of this truck and why it may not have been properly thought out.

Main & Central Articles on MRAPs

Mine Resistant Vehicles

17,700 MRAPs

Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae

A Minor MRAP Problem

The Super-MRAP

The Cougar MRAP

Baby Huey Needs Feeding

What Does the JIEDDO Do?

MRAPs Go Mainstream

MRAPs AirShipped to Iraq

MRAPs Get Bad Press From Pentagon

The Struggle Between Armor and the Projectile

Death of an MRAP

Marines Call For a Mark Time on the MRAP March

Bernhard from Moon Of Alabama has pointed out that a Marine Cougar MRAP has been killed by a large IED. EFPs that are allegedly supplied by Iran are not the problem. The real issue is all those hundreds or thousands of ammunition bunkers that Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld refused to guard during our initial conquest of Iraq.

Other photos at the link. Be sure to note what happened to the engine.

Main & Central Articles on MRAPs

Mine Resistant Vehicles

17,700 MRAPs

Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae

A Minor MRAP Problem

The Super-MRAP

The Cougar MRAP

Baby Huey Needs Feeding

What Does the JIEDDO Do?

MRAPs Go Mainstream

MRAPs AirShipped to Iraq

MRAPs Get Bad Press From Pentagon

The Struggle Between Armor and the Projectile

Death of an MRAP

As we watch our national treasure of blood and money sink into the sands of Mr Bu$h’s ego-war in Iraq, it’s useful to understand the mechanics of why our MRAPs will end up costing at least twice the amount (some $20 Billion) they were sold for. Part of that $20 Billion will be increased by the costs of flying these beasts to Iraq. This is a necessary cost because blood is far more expensive than money and the troops need these vehicles two years ago.

For some presently unexplained reason, when the Marines in Iraq started asking for them back in late 2004 the requests were ignored at the Pentagon. I speculated elsewhere that it was felt they would arrive after our Iraq conquest was completed – “cakewalk” and all – but then I am exceptionally cynical after watching the Bu$h malAdministration for six and one-half years. Don’t mind me – your mileage may vary.

The problem started with our thin-skinned HumVees, which were very susceptible to RPGs and simple IEDs. The resistance had a lot of them, because as we conquered Iraq ammunition bunkers weren’t deemed worth guarding. Only the Oil Ministry, with its precious oil field maps, was deemed worth protecting.

So the bunkers got looted and it was “game on.”

The quick answer to the RPGs was simple armor plating – first “hillbilly armor” scavenged at dumps by desperate GIs until the Pentagon finally got some bolt-on plates made and shipped into Iraq.

A large part of military history has been the technological struggle between weapons makers and their opponents, armor makers. Each new weapon produced a defensive counter, which was then eventually overcome by a new weapon. Wax on, wax off.

This hillbilly armor was defeated by the first IEDs, courtesy of the thousands of tons of explosives that Messers Cheney and Rumsfeld did not feel were worth guarding. IEDs buried in a road beat hillbilly armor and bolt-on plates, which only protected the sides of HumVees. The way to defeat these buried IEDs is to travel slowly and keep a good watch on all suspicious points, which of course made you vulnerable to the gun and RPG ambush. A second response to IED hunting is the secondary booby trap. The troops see a suspicious spot, halt to call up the OED people and they are vulnerable to a better-hidden command detonated bomb.

The troops started asking for better armor protection and the Stryker vehicle, which was already in the procurement and deployment pipeline, was sent to Iraq with newly deployed brigades. They were vulnerable to larger IEDs and EFPs, which began slowly making an appearance in the cities and roads of an unpacified Iraq. The very large IED and many EFPs can defeat any armor plating, including the Chobham armor on our M1A2 Abrams tanks, said to be the best battle tank in the world.

How did we get to this point?

The use of the Abrams tank for urban pacification is a radical step because tanks are not optimized for urban combat. They are too vulnerable. We saw more EFPs and still larger IEDs incorporating aircraft bombs – 2000 pound bombs capable of tipping an Abrams or Bradley fighting vehicle on its side.

A predictable step, of course since EFPs can defeat most armor systems. They have defeated the special Chobham armor on M1A1 Abrams tanks. You’d expect them to crack standard armor.

Before and during WWII vehicles were armored with successive series of steel plates. To beat that, cannon makers developed guns with longer barrels, and a slightly smaller muzzle in order to produce a higher muzzle velocity. Ammunition makers created hardened steel caps to enable the projectile to penetrate the plates.

Armor makers developed a new idea, sloping the armor, which gave the benefit of automatically making the armor thicker at no additional cost in steel or weight carried by the vehicle. If you studied geometry in school, you’ll remember that the hypotenuse of a right triangle is larger than the other dimensions.

Image - Wikipedia.com

The answer to this was to make anti-tank guns larger, with longer barrels for still higher muzzle velocities, and the tank mafia just made armor thicker. One response to this was to add additional layers of steel, with an air space between them. The energy of the explosion penetrates the outer armor layer, but doesn’t have enough punch to defeat the vehicle’s armor.

The Germans developed a hollow charge explosive device to attack the huge reinforced concrete forts that guarded Belgium at the Meuse river. These were followed by shaped charges. This is the secret to how the EFPs work. The explosion melts an inner core, often copper, and focuses it as a jet of molten metal that burns right through the armor.

During the Cold War forces on both sides developed reactive armor – an outer layer of small explosive boxes that dissipated the effects of the molten jet upon contact.

The best current solution to defeat shaped charges and EFPs is still an outer layer to cause the round to explode on contact with that outer layer. The US Army and Marines have had some success in Iraq and Afghanistan against RPGs by putting “cage” armor on their vehicles. This causes the projectile to explode before it strikes the vehicle.

As we struggle to enforce our occupation, and uparmor our new MRAPs to defeat the EFPs used by the resistance they will most likely just produce more EFPs, and bigger ones.

It looks like the resistance in Iraq might continue for many years, until we either leave and give these people back their country, or until we have killed so many of them that the survivors will be too few, and too weak, to resist.

Main & Central Articles on MRAPs

Mine Resistant Vehicles

17,700 MRAPs

Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae

A Minor MRAP Problem

The Super-MRAP

The Cougar MRAP

Baby Huey Needs Feeding

What Does the JIEDDO Do?

MRAPs Go Mainstream

MRAPs AirShipped to Iraq

MRAPs Get Bad Press From Pentagon

The Struggle Between Armor and the Projectile

There’s a fascinating story this morning in USA Today, revealing that the Pentagon doesn’t feel MRAPs are the final answer to protecting US troops as they occupy Iraq for the next 40 years, or until the oil runs out. Those of you who understand how military procurement work will not be surprised.

Pentagon Wants to Bulk Up Armored Vehicles

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is rushing to develop added protection for its new Mine Resistant Armor Protected (MRAP) vehicles from the deadliest roadside bombs, military contract records show.

A Pentagon solicitation released Monday calls on contractors to detail their armor solutions "as soon as possible." The move to bulk up MRAPs comes as the Pentagon builds the vehicles as fast as possible, spending at least $700 million to fly them to Iraq.

Though MRAPs offer more protection than armored Humvees against improvised explosive devices, they are vulnerable to bombs called explosively formed penetrators or projectiles (EFPs). These weapons fire a high-speed slug of metal that can cripple even tanks. EFPs account for about 4% of roadside bomb attacks, but they are particularly lethal.

So after spending some $20-odd Billion to procure and ship MRAPs to the sandbox, we are now going to start developing armor protection and upgrades to make the MRAPs survivable.

The Marine Corps, which issued the solicitation Monday and manages the Pentagon's MRAP program, declined to comment Wednesday on the new request.

MRAPS are the best protection available but "are not fail-safe vehicles," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said in a briefing Wednesday.

Military officials have known for more than two years that MRAPs need greater EFP protection.

A cynical man would suppose that the long delay in moving to MRAPs was the political assumption that Iraq was going to be the “cakewalk” that the Likudniks who control our defense and foreign policy organs insisted, and if MRAPs were ordered they would arrive after the fighting was all over.

Be sure to work through the sidebar items on the left margin. Excellent graphic fillers.

Main & Central Articles on MRAPs

Mine Resistant Vehicles

17,700 MRAPs

Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae

A Minor MRAP Problem

The Super-MRAP

The Cougar MRAP

Baby Huey Needs Feeding

What Does the JIEDDO Do?

MRAPs Go Mainstream

MRAPs AirShipped to Iraq

MRAPs Get Bad Press From Pentagon

The Struggle Between Armor and the Projectile

This is a themed topic opinion thread. I’d like readers’ opinions on a specific topic.

IraqSlogger has a neat little article up about a press demonstration conducted recently at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Several different types of MRAR were driven around the course, over washboard sets, and through water/mud puddles. There are some good pics, but if you’ve been trying to keep the various types (as many as 8) straight in your mind, good luck. These vehicles are described by category type.

BG Michael Brogan, USMC, joint program executive officer and commander of Marine Corps Systems Command, answered questions from the assembled press. According to David Axe, who’s worth reading every day, BG Brogan has a case of the hips because the press are trying to do their jobs.

The Marine Corps general in charge of buying “Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected” trucks for the U.S. military had some harsh words for the media who gathered to observe MRAP testing at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland this morning. “All troops in theater are happy to see these vehicles,” said Brigadier General Mike Brogan in response to several questions about the armored trucks’ effectiveness. When reporters pressed for specific examples of incidents where MRAPs proved resistant to roadside bombs, Brogan grew impatient. He said that he would not discuss operational details, and pointed out that all the press attention on this potentially $20-billion program was providing intel to insurgents and even encouraging propaganda-motivated attacks on MRAPs. “Because of what you’re doing, these are becoming symbolic targets.” [emph added]

Here we go. Not only are liberals, Democrats and the MSM going to be blamed for the Dolchstosslegende it has apparently been decided that every single casualty endured in these babies will have happened because the MSM took photos of them, wrote about them, and ran video tape on TV.

This will fit in perfectly with the plans of Mr Dorrance Smith, assistant defense secretary for public affairs, to set up yet another a 24/7 news propaganda shop in Baghdad.

So, your opinions, please:

1. Is BG Brogan right? Is telling the American people how their dollars are being spent to protect American soldiers somehow wrong? Does writing about it somehow tell the “enemy” what we’re doing? Do you believe (as apparently BG Brogan does) that the “enemy” don’t have access to the internet and satellite TV and would never know about these 25 ton monsters snorting around the streets of Baghdad if the press didn’t warn them?

2. I noticed in the photo on IraqSlogger that BG Brogan seems to be wearing a class ring. Do you suppose he got it in a cereal box, or as a family heirloom? He apparently never went to college and doesn’t quite understand how this electricity thing works in the one or two hours a day Iraqis have it.

3. The press I’ve seen has invariably been positive. The DoD made a great deal of talk about flying these babies in just to try to lessen casualties. The above questions were – you know – poking the bear with a stick through the bars of the cage. But really, here’s the thread question. The Government is putting on a huge press crush to get out the information about these trucks. Is BG Brogan’s reaction understandable from the viewpoint of an infantryman or is he just reluctant to discuss details with press people, who, I will admit, are clueless assholes?

Main & Central Articles on MRAPs

Mine Resistant Vehicles

17,700 MRAPs

Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae

A Minor MRAP Problem

The Super-MRAP

The Cougar MRAP

Baby Huey Needs Feeding

What Does the JIEDDO Do?

MRAPs Go Mainstream

MRAPs AirShipped to Iraq

As I mentioned here, most of the MRAPs being shipped to the Middle East are being flown in to expedite their delivery to the troops. The DoD has released a news advisory (puff piece report) on the shipments.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17, 2007 – U.S. troops serving in Iraq will have a little more protection soon, as two of the military’s newest armored vehicles are on their way to the theater.

Two Buffalo Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, known as “MRAPs,” were loaded onto C-5 Galaxy aircraft last night at Charleston Air Force Base, S.C., to be shipped to Iraq. This latest shipment is part of the Defense Department’s push to get as many of the new vehicles to troops in combat as quickly as possible.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has been pushing the production and delivery of MRAPs, which boast a V-shaped hull that deflects bomb blasts and protects troops inside better than the military’s current vehicles. The Defense Department awarded two more contracts for the vehicles the week of Aug. 10, which brings the number of vehicles on contract to 6,415. An estimated 3,500 MRAPs are expected to be shipped to Iraq by Dec. 31.

The MRAPs are shipped to Iraq by the 437th Airlift Wing, out of Charleston. The vehicles are part of the 300 tons of cargo the unit moves on a daily basis. It typically takes two days to airlift the MRAPs to Iraq, said Cynthia Bauer, a public affairs officer with U.S. Transportation Command, which oversees the movement of the vehicles. A small number of MRAPs are taken by sea, which takes between 22 and 30 days, she said.

Buffalo being loaded onto C-5 Galaxy
Photo by SSG Jackson Robertson, US Army

As of Aug. 9, Transportation Command has shipped 701 MRAPs and MRAP-like vehicles to the Central Command area, Bauer said. The command will continue to ship the vehicles as the military commanders in theater request them, she said.

MRAPs come in three categories: Category I vehicles are designed for urban combat operations and can transport six people; Category II vehicles have multi-mission capabilities, including convoy lead, troop transport, ambulance, explosive ordnance disposal and combat engineering, and can transport up to 10 people; Category III vehicles perform mine and improvised-explosive-device clearance operations and explosive ordnance disposal and can transport six people, or five with additional equipment. The Buffalos that were shipped last night fall under Category III.

The troops who participated in loading the vehicles yesterday told local media that they feel their job is important, because the MRAPs have been proven to save lives in combat. "It's absolutely critical. It saves lives every day when they have them," Air Force Master Sgt. Jared Breyer, with the 437th Airlift Wing, told ABC News.

Buffalo loading onto C-5 Galaxy
Photo by SSG April Quintanilla, USAF

Related Defense Link Articles

‘Herculean Work’ Drives MRAP Production

Defense Department Seeks MRAP Improvements While Accelerating Program

Special Report: Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles

437th Airlift Wing

Main & Central Articles on MRAPs

Mine Resistant Vehicles

17,700 MRAPs

Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae

A Minor MRAP Problem

The Super-MRAP

The Cougar MRAP

Baby Huey Needs Feeding

What Does the JIEDDO Do?

MRAPs Go Mainstream

MRAPs AirShipped to Iraq

This morning’s IraqSlogger has a catch-up story about the MRAP program(s) that the troops are dying to get in Iraq.

Last month, Pentagon placed a $5.4 billion rush order for 3,900 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, pushing to get at least 3,500 into Iraq by the end of 2007.

The MRAPs have a V-shaped reinforced hull designed to withstand the blast of IEDs and EFPs, the leading killer of US troops in Iraq. The Pentagon's MRAP program is "the fastest moving major program in the Defense Department," according to John Young, chairman of the Pentagon's MRAP task force.

The original MRAP, the Cougar, and its larger stablemate, the Buffalo, were designed by Ladson, SC-based Force Protection, Inc. A very small shop, it was initially turning out only a couple of vehicles each month. After its first DoD order, it has added more manufacturing space, and a much larger staff, and is capable of churning out about 100 vehicles per month right now. It plans to open two new factory spaces before the end of the year, which will double its capacity. The new factories will primary produce the Cheetah model, a lighter vehicle than its standard, the Cougar, and will be aimed at replacing the HumVee, to be used as recon, command & control and “urban operations.

Video presentations of all three Force Protection mdoels available here.

The heavy-armored vehicle demand is so high that Force Protection’s larger competitors have also drawn orders. BAE/Armor Holding’s RG-33 will definitely be added to the Pentagon’s list, solely because of its proven track record in South Africa.

BAE has also just introduced a new vehicle, the Caiman, a 14 ton personnel carrier.

General Dynamics has been tapped to produce 500 copies of its RG-31. A USMC unit is shown in this “after” photo of an IED exploding beneath the vehicle. The five Marines inside suffered two concussions and two light burns, according to HQ, USMC, and are well pleased with the vehicle.

Navistar/International Trucks has received several orders for its MaxxPro design, reportedly around 2,000 units in total.

The manufacturer claims the vehicle is manufactured with as many standard industry-wide parts as possible, to make repair and replacement easier. Additionally, the armored body is bolted together, rather than being welded. It is felt that using this method of assembly will again make repair and replacement at a lower level maintenance shop possible.

The unit cost of these babies, which was estimated at about $1 million per, will approach $3.4 million each, and in some cases exceed that figure. This is not all manufacturing cost, however. The Armchair Generalist explains why the ticket cost is so high:

Yes, the bucket seats, air conditioning, and radios weren't included in the original sticker price. Now, the surprise isn't just that the Army and Air Force are getting MRAPs at $2 million a pop (and why is the AF getting so many vehicles? Do they go off-base?) and the Marines are getting a larger one at nearly twice the cost (Marines have bigger... needs?). It's not that the SOCOM and Navy are getting what appears to be pork on top of an MRAP procurement to keep them happy. It's that we're going to fly these multi-ton vehicles into theater at a cost of nearly $750 million.

The emergency funding request would allow the military to fly many of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles to troops rather than send them by ship, which takes weeks. The flight takes 13 hours, allowing for same-day delivery, said Lt. Col. Ed Thomas, an Air Force spokesman.
----------
The military's Transportation Command estimates that it costs $135,000 to send an MRAP by plane compared with $18,000 by ship. An Air Force C-17 can carry as many as three MRAP vehicles.

These vehicles are high priority items now, for both military and political reasons. Air freight is a mandatory expense, and not just because the Pentagon might have appeared to dither in the decision to buy them. They’re needed - now.

It should also be noted that downstream maintenance costs are going to be higher than expected due to the huge parts availability needed for so many different types of vehicles. While there will inevitably be some standardization from one model to the next, you can be certain that a maintenance company won’t be able to put a Cougar fender on an RG-33 or MaxxPro. Additionally, a lot of the maintenance work to be done on these vehicles will be done by contractors rather than uniformed service personnel, and you know how that works, right?

However, for the HumVees that are still out there in Iraq, and still doing much of the everyday work, there is another temporary solution. Most HumVees in Iraq are the newer, armored version, the M-1151. AM General, the manufacturer, has devised a “Frag 6” armor kit that can be added in the field.

"It's a significant weight increase on the truck - about 1,000 pounds - and it adds about 12 inches each side of the truck of the entire width," said Larry Day, program executive with AM General Defense.

The doors are so heavy, troops may need a mechanical assist device to open and close them and drivers will likely require built-in visual references so they'll know if they can fit the vehicle in narrow spaces.

The Army has not yet given AM General the order to produce the kit.

"We have not been given the go-ahead to put them into production or even finalize the design," Day said. "But it's our responsibility integrate them onto our doors, so it would be better for us to do it."

AM General is planning to outfit about 3,000 M1151 Humvees with the Frag Kit 6 doors if the Army decides that's the way to go.

Articles on MRAPs:

Mine Resistant Vehicles

17,700 MRAPs

Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae

A Minor MRAP Problem

The Super-MRAP

The Cougar MRAP

Baby Huey Needs Feeding

What Does the JIEDDO Do?

MRAPs Go Mainstream

IraqSlogger devotes some space to the JIEDDO this morning, working off a Newsweek article about that Office.

I wrote about the JIEDDO a while back, with the helpful assistance the Armchair Generalist, who has done some pioneering research on the topic. Both the Generalist and I took the view that the Bu$h malAdministration’s response to the IED problem of establishing a large office presence in Northern Virginia was rather typical: loot the Treasury and throw lots if cash at some contractors. (OK – he was a bit more polite than I am.)

Describing IEDs as “Weapons of strategic influence” has some validity to it, because the problem, while deadly, has consumed a tremendous amount of attention, effort, and ca$h in our still-unsuccessful battle to pacify conquered Iraq. Those uppity natives still don’t understand that we believe we’re wearing the white hats.

As the Generalist noted:

According to its website, the JIEDDO's mission is "to eliminate IEDs as weapons of strategic influence."

So the problem with IEDs isn't that they kill or injure our troops. It's that they influence public opinion. They are weapons of propaganda.

"It can be mitigated, minimized, made into a nuisance," said Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs (ret.), the JIEDDO director, taking a page from John Kerry's anti-terrorism playbook.

How do we defeat "weapons of strategic influence"? Not by outfitting our troops with armor. Not by improving our intelligence and infiltration of insurgency groups. No.

We defeat them by funding sources of counter-propaganda: pro-war think tanks, pundits, and bloggers.

Our budget for next year allocated $6.4 Billion-with-a-B to funding the JIEDDO, whose job appears to be “outreach” – “communication,” – “information operations,” – you know, the classic Bu$hCo response to anything – propaganda.

Bu$hCo is a confusing message center; GEN Meigs says the best way to deal with the problem is to minimize it, while MNF-I insists the problem must be blown out of all proportion, and blamed on the evil Iranians.

According to Newsweek GEN Meigs says that the MRAPs are a good idea, but they’re basically a defensive measure. Defense doesn’t win wars –ask the man who designed the Maginot Line. Offense is needed, although some people think word spew is not the correct approach to solving the problem of these deadly weapons.

The article does mention "a retired general who declined to be quoted by name criticizing his former military colleagues," who is also described as a veteran of the Balkans, noting in passing that “While there are a number of retired generals who served in the Balkans, this also could refer to Gen. Meigs, who commanded NATO's Multi-National Division (North) in Bosnia in 1996, and assumed leadership of the NATO Stabilization Force in 1998-99.

The anonymous general doesn't discuss JIEDDO's work, but tells Newsweek that in order to reduce the threat of IEDs:”

One step is to get soldiers out of the vehicles that have too often become their fiery coffins. "What does barreling down a highway at 45mph, peering through a dust-covered windshield, actually accomplish?" asked a retired general who declined to be quoted by name criticizing his former military colleagues. A veteran of the Balkans, this general recalled that his troops had a term for routine, pointless patrols. "Dabbing," they called it, from the caustic acronym for "driving around Bosnia." "'Dabbing' now means 'driving around Baghdad'," says the general. Before he became head of Coalition forces in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus wrote the Army's new manual on counterinsurgency. For his forces in Iraq, he boiled it down to a series of instructions. Instruction No. 4: "Get out and walk."

Everyone—from the Americans to the British to the Israelis, with their long experience in Lebanon—seems to agree that better intelligence is essential to reducing the IED problem to a mere "nuisance" (Meigs's goal). But good intelligence is hard to come by. Instead, the Americans have resorted to operations like sending out convoys as bait—while drone aircraft loiter overhead to track the bombers, and signals-intelligence teams listen for their communications—followed by a larger force to spring a trap on the attackers. If that tactic sounds a little desperate, a senior military official, speaking anonymously about a sensitive subject, assured NEWSWEEK that such convoys use volunteer crews and very-well-armored vehicles.

“Dabbing around”, looking for trouble? Sending crews out as bait? Newsweek is going to get a nasty letter from BG Kevin Bergner, the head press flack at MNF-I about those statements. BG Bergner interned in the White House before being sent to Iraq, so he knows how to apply the political pressure and play the parsing game to get his own way. I guess the Mighty Wurlitzer will be all up in arms about the traitorous Newsweek soon.

Of course the troops have to patrol; the conquest isn’t complete yet. The natives, with no clean water, no sewage services, electricity one or two hours a day, no schools, not enough jobs (60%+ unemployment) not enough hospitals, not enough medicines, not enough doctors, not enough food, and a ruthless civil war raging all around them, are restless.

While police work isn’t a perfect analogy to subjugating a conquered country, policing experts all agree that foot patrolling a bad neighborhood pays better dividends that motor patrol when it comes to stopping crime. The good guy residents get to see the beat cop, and the bad guys leave the area. The fact that Iraq’s bad guys are a bit better armed than, say, an American inner city is just a point of scale. GEN Petraeus is right in his instruction #4: “Get out and walk.”

He has had quite a few photo ops on the streets of Baghdad, creating a visible presence: walking around markets, pressing the flesh with shop keepers, smiling and nodding in order to show our nation’s good side. His large, heavily armed escorts can be seen as evidence of his determination to turn the mean streets of Baghdad into Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood.

With the incredible upsurge in use of these devices we will have to develop better ways of making friends with our future conquests.

Newsweek notes:

[T]he IED—cheap, easy to make and adapt, and deadly—has in its own way proved equally powerful. The bombs have bled the U.S. military in Iraq. And thanks to the ubiquitous videos of IED attacks shot by insurgents and put up on YouTube, they will be credited with driving us out of the country whenever we do leave. Guerrillas, even armies, elsewhere are watching: most of the world's conventional militaries would be vulnerable to similar tactics. Already, locally made devices have begun appearing on battlefields from Somalia to Thailand to Pakistan.

GEN Meigs has his work cut out for him in minimizing the strategic effect of these weapons on the general public, if they’re becoming more popular and effective around the world. One possible good example of his organization’s work has developed however:

The U.S. military hasn't told the public exactly how many soldiers and Marines are killed and injured by IEDs every month in Iraq. Such disclosures would aid the enemy, or so goes the official explanation, though it might also embarrass Pentagon officials who say they have spent at least $6 billion so far trying to defeat IEDs, with limited success. The best estimate is that about one in three soldiers lost in 2004 was killed by an IED. Now it's more like four out of five. About 50 soldiers a month are killed or injured by IEDs, up from about 30 a year ago. Success, such as it is, is measured this way: the insurgents are setting off more and more IEDs every month—perhaps twice as many as last year. The American death toll is not rising as fast. Officials claim that about eight out of nine IED casualties are injured, not killed, which is a consolation of sorts, though not much of one to the maimed and brain-damaged.

Getting out the word that IEDs are killing fewer GIs on their 3rd and 4th tours has to have a beneficial effect.

Articles on MRAPs:

Mine Resistant Vehicles

17,700 MRAPs

Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae

A Minor MRAP Problem

The Super-MRAP

The Cougar MRAP

Baby Huey Needs Feeding

What Does the JIEDDO Do?

Welcome to Yahoo Finance visitors. We're glad to have you here again. Please feel free to take a look at some of our other essays.

During Congressional hearings last month a number of soldiers gave testimony supporting the Interceptor armor supplied to the Army by Point Blank Industries. One in particular is significant:

Staff Sgt. Jeremie Oliver of Fort Hood, Texas, has been in Iraq since October 2006, wearing his body armor every single day. "It works very well," he has reported. The husband and father of four children was shot on Father's Day this year.

"We were on patrol securing a site ... a shot rang out and I got hit in the chest. I was in a Bradley, standing up in the hatch, plotting a grid on my GPS. At first I didn't know what had really happened, but then I felt the pain. I sat down, realized what happened, and opened my vest. The bullet had not penetrated the vest, so we continued the mission and went after the enemy."

I’ve written about the Body Armor issue a number of times. From what I’ve read and heard the Pinnacle Dragon Skin armor is tactically superior to the Interceptor vest, although it is more expensive than the Interceptor vest. It should also be noted that many soldiers have died in Interceptor vests. They were not available to testify about Interceptor failures.

VoteVets, an organization created by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, assisted during the 2006 mid-term elections with a hard-hitting TV commercial that pointed out the inadequacies of the Interceptor vest. Amazingly, even in 2006, soldiers were being deployed to Iraq with less-than effective body armor.

It’s important to understand the Army desires to protect the troops as much as possible. They have been testing a new solution to the problem SSG Oliver experienced: being shot while standing in the hatch of a vehicle.

The U.S. Army plans to outfit thousands more vehicles with Common Remotely Operated Weapon Stations (CROWS), which allow gunners to fire on targets from the safety of armored crew compartments.

In August, Army officials intend to choose one firm from among several competitors to receive a contract for 1,500 CROWS stations. In total, the contract could grow to as many as 6,500 CROWS, Army officials said.

“The Army is looking at the CROWS system for the up-armored Humvee, Fox [reconnaissance vehicle], RG-31 [Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles] and the Abrams [tank], so right now the Army is trying to finalize the basis of issue regarding how many CROWS to order and who gets them,” said Richard Audette, deputy project manager for soldier weapons at the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey.

Remote weapon-firing capability is a requirement for new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, so more CROWS could wind up being added to expected orders, Audette said.
“Remote weapon stations is a growing industry, if you would, because there are things like MRAP vehicles and other mine-resistant vehicles,” [COL Carl] Lipsit [project manager soldier weapons at Picatinny Arsenal] said. “The goodness of keeping everybody inside that specialty vehicle under armored protection is a valuable thing. CROWS does that for you, keeps people inside. Yet you are still engaged and can still see day and night. With the zoom capability, you can fire all the weapons.”

This would certainly ensure more operator safety and probably survivability. In the installation photo above, the weapon is the Army’s long-time favorite, the “Ma Deuce,” the M2 .50 caliber machine gun, a standard vehicle heavy weapon. It is prone to jams and stoppages, according to Army tests about once every 500 rounds.

One weapon that may go on some of the CROWS stations is ATK’s new high-speed Lightweight 25mm (LW25) Bushmaster chain-gun, which can fire up to seven times as many rounds between jams as the ubiquitous .50-caliber machine gun, ATK officials say. The company developed the gun to fire various heavy rounds that can do the jobs of the .50-caliber and the 40mm grenade launcher.

The Army intends to test-fire the LW25 from an MRAP vehicle in the coming weeks.

ATK is the basic manufacturer for the M242 Bushmaster 25 mm chain gun presently used in the Army’s Bradley vehicles as a turret gun.

Welcome to Force Protection investors and visitors from Google Finance. If you wish, please feel free to look around our archives.

The Army has had a big increase in the number of MRAPs approved and the orders will be going out.

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has approved an Army recommendation for a 600% increase in production of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles to protect soldiers from makeshift bombs in Iraq.

The unannounced decision Thursday to build as many as 17,770 MRAPs for the Army comes as Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made the vehicle the Pentagon's top priority. The MRAP's V-shaped hull and raised chassis are up to four times safer against the top threat to U.S. troops in Iraq — improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

It should be noted that these units, as conventionally constructed, are not proof against EFP’s and have to be further armored before deployment. Other than that, it’s all good news for Ladson, SC manufacturer Force Protection, the primary manufacturer of these trucks, right?

No.

As the Armchair Generalist points out, the little company that could is about to be crushed in the elephant stampede:

The little company with the Big Idea to develop Mine Resistant Ambush Vehicles is struggling to get its contracts from the U.S. government. Its initial order for 455 vehicles was smaller than expected, and surprise surprise, the Big Boys have awakened as to this great source of income opportunity to protect our soldiers and Marines. From The Street:

Fierce competition for a big government armored-truck deal is dimming Force Protection's glow.

The Ladson, S.C., military-vehicle maker has been the biggest winner so far in the Army's mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles contract. But as the MRAP show goes on, Force Protection is sharing more and more of the spotlight with its rivals.

Navistar -- once viewed as a minor character at best -- recently grabbed the largest single MRAP order placed so far. Other players like Armor Holdings and Oshkosh Truck, as well as an upstart launched by Force Protection's founder, are poised to crowd the stage as well.
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Now, Millward looks for two Force Protection rivals to land new contracts in a matter of days. Notably, Millward believes that General Dynamics -- Force Protection's joint-venture partner -- may have already passed performance tests and could soon snag a big contract on its own. Then, she feels that Armor or Oshkosh could announce a major award right after that.

Dagnabit! Just when I thought I saw a chance to make a dollar or two in the defense industry! Force Protection was cruising along at $31 a short time ago and it looked like tall cotton as they got their first order of about 500 vehicles. Last Friday it closed at $23.07 as Wall Street realized the elephants will get the majority of the orders.

Navistar (NAVZ - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) -- once viewed as a minor character at best -- recently grabbed the largest single MRAP order placed so far. Other players like Armor Holdings (AH - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr - Rating) and Oshkosh Truck (OSK - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr - Rating), as well as an upstart launched by Force Protection's founder, are poised to crowd the stage as well.

While the MRAP has been promoted as a robust successor to the HumVee, it was not really conceived as combat vehicle. It was just supposed to be more impervious to IEDs than the older vehicle. It takes the infantry to the fight. Then, like infantry for thousands of years, they have to dismount and fight on foot.

Back during the 1950s and 60s NATO was horrified to learn that the Soviets had developed Infantry Fighting Vehicles with gunports on the side, implying they would be part of the armored juggernaut poised to roll across Europe, engulfing everything. There was great panic among analysts at the image of these monsters cruising through the Fulda Gap, their infantry passengers blazing away out the sides like a 20th century version of Jan Hus’ war wagons. Cooler heads eventually pointed out that the small width, confined compartment, and lack of good ventilation would made the interiors a hellish nightmare that the troops would be happy to escape.

Still, the MRAP is a better choice and naturally the Pentagon wants them yesterday, even as an active search continues for a better version of this $20+ Billion purchase.

The Armchair Generalist points out that in a battle between Army ants and Defense Industry elephants the ants always lose:

It seems that the Marine Corps also likes the BAE version of the MRAP, with an announcement for a $214 million contract for its vehicles. And now perhaps you'll see my concern over rushing to judgment over a "good idea" that the field has - the military-industrial complex isn't going to get rolled that easy, so now we're going to have four or five different vehicle systems entering the inventory, all with unique spare parts and maintenance contracts, costing billions more than the more reasonable solution. What's that solution, you ask? Doing it the old fashioned way - getting out of the vehicles. … This is why you don't rush into knee-jerk procurement actions. There is a rationale for the process of examining non-material options before going with expensive hardware solutions. I'm sure that our fine military leaders will figure this all out, they don't need any advice from small-time defense analysts such as myself. But right now, they're currently too busy ordering up more armor to strap to the MRAPs, since the MRAP armor won't stop the explosively formed penetrators (EFPs). Details, always details.

If you really want to understand why we’re staying in Iraq and Afghanistan until the bitter end, Big Oil’s lust for new fields isn’t the only answer. The Baby Huey of the Defense Industry has to be fed, too.

Articles on MRAPs:

Mine Resistant Vehicles

17,700 MRAPs

Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae

A Minor MRAP Problem

The Super-MRAP

The Cougar MRAP

Baby Huey Needs Feeding

A Strategically Influenced Nation

Welcome to our visitors from Investor Village and Force Protection. It's nice to have you visit again. Please feel free to look around at our other articles. We've had quite a few posts on MRAPs. The complete list is at the end of this article.

The Army has ordered some of these vehicles.

In an unusual development in the U.S. Marine Corps-led Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle program, the U.S. Army has ordered 44 RG-31 Mk5 Mine Protected Vehicles in a $19.9 million deal with General Dynamics Land Systems — Canada.

The RG-31 is one of nine MRAPs being considered by Marine Corps Systems Command (SysCom), the lead on the joint-service effort to procure ambush-protected vehicles for Iraq and Afghanistan. The vehicles are designed with a V-shaped hull to defend against improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by deflecting shrapnel and bomb fragments. The Pentagon is hoping to procure more than 23,000 MRAP vehicles for the Marines, Army, Navy and Special Operations forces by 2010.

The RG-31 is based on a BAE design; under the contract between GDLS- Canada and the U.S. Army TACOM Life Cycle Management, the Canadian subsidiary of GDLS will manage the procurement while the vehicles are manufactured in South Africa by BAE Land Systems. The vehicles will be delivered by October and November of 2007, according to a GDLS written statement.

U.S. forces have previously ordered 448 RG-31 vehicles, 265 Mk5s for the Army and Special Operations, and 24 Mk5s for the MRAP program.

The RG-31 Mine Protected APC is a 4x4 armoured vehicle with a combat mass of 10 220 / 11 500 kg.

The all-steel, welded armour, monocoque hull protects the crew against small arms fire and anti-tank mine detonations.

In standard APC configuration, this air-conditioned vehicle carries a crew of 10 (driver plus 9).

A large rear door and two front doors ensure speedy and easy exit and entrance. With automatic transmission, permanent 4x4 drive and a two speed (high and low) transfer case the RG-31 is easy to drive, both on and off road.

The Marine Corps seems to like them.

A US Marine Corps RG-31 Cougar rests on its front axel after an improvised explosive device detonated under the vehicle near Camp Taqaddum, Iraq, Jan. 6. The IED detonated directly under the vehicle; however, the blast was pushed outward instead of directly straight up due to the vehicle's “V” –shaped undercarriage. Of the five service members in the vehicle, two received concussions and two others received minor burns. (Photo by: Courtesy photo by 8th Engineer Support Battalion)

Articles on MRAPs:

Mine Resistant Vehicles

17,700 MRAPs

Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae

A Minor MRAP Problem

The Super-MRAP

The Cougar MRAP

Baby Huey Needs Feeding

A Strategically Influenced Nation

Welcome to the visitors from Force Protection. It's nice to have you visit. Please feel free to look around our other entries.

Even as the Pentagon scrambles to replace up-armored HumVees with the newest defensive wonder-weapon, the MRAP, an announcement has been made that this vehicle, the Cougar, is vulnerable to EFPs and has to be itself up-armored.

WASHINGTON — New military vehicles that are supposed to better protect troops from roadside explosions in Iraq aren't strong enough to withstand the latest type of bombs used by insurgents, according to Pentagon documents and military officials.

As a result, the vehicles need more armor added to them, according to a January Marine Corps document provided to USA TODAY. The Pentagon faced the same problem with its Humvees at the beginning of the war.

The Cougar was eagerly seized upon by the Pentagon as a solution to larger IEDs that were destroying HumVees, even after they were up-armored. The Pentagon has ordered some 7,500 of these vehicles and is preparing to order 17,000 more, at a total price tag of somewhere north of $25 Billion. (I know the official price has been quoted as between $20 and $25 Billion, but this is government procurement and things always cost more than advertised.)

This larger, heavier armored vehicle is celebrated for its Vee-shaped hull, which is supposed to channel the force of an IED up and away from the vehicle.

But no so much with EFPs. It has been revealed that there have to be add-ons to the present generation of MRAPs.

But the armor on those vehicles cannot stop the newest bomb to emerge, known as an explosively formed penetrator (EFP). The Pentagon plans to replace virtually all Humvees with MRAPs to provide better protection against roadside bombs, responsible for most casualties in Iraq. … Since MRAPs are so much safer against traditional roadside bombs, the document says, Iraqi insurgents' use of EFPs "can be expected to increase significantly."

As a result, the Marine commanders in Iraq who wrote the statement asked for more armor to be added to the new vehicles.

The Army has tested an armor that seems to be resistant to EFPs, according to BG Michael Brogan, head of the USMC Systems Command, the agency charged with obtaining the vehicles. "How rapidly we can engineer that onto these vehicles is yet to be seen because it is significantly heavy," he said.

The Army’s new armor is still in testing, but it appears to shatter the slug of hot metal rusting from an EFP detonation.

Enter the Newest version of the MRAP

Ceradyne, Inc is introducing an armored vehicle called BULL, designed to complement the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle currently produced for the US Marine Corps and Army. The BULL is based on a commercial chassis and uses an armor suite providing superior protection from all types of IEDs.

BULLs can be configured as urban patrol vehicles or logistics transportation vehicles providing logistics crews the same increased level of protection as that being provided to ground forces. The vehicle has already passed limited testing by the U.S. Government, where it demonstrated a high level of performance and crew survivability. According to Marc King, Vice President of Armor Operations for Ceradyne, the vehicle is specifically designed for close urban terrain and can survive the most lethal IED (improvised explosive device) threats faced by ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, including explosively formed penetrators (EFPs). "We feel this is a clear technological leap forward in crew survivability." said King.

Future procurements of the BULL are under discussion with several government agencies, in addition to the Department of Defense, who have expressed interest. The vehicle was developed at Ceradyne's vehicle armor division, in conjunction with its teaming partner, Ideal Innovations, Inc. of Arlington, Virginia.

This newest vehicle is supposed to be resistant to IEDs, VBIEDS and EFPs. The Pentagon is testing the beast, which the manufacturer says can be produced at the rate of 100 units per month.

Oh yes, the Russians are also building an MRAP, the Kamaz, which has been offered to the Iraqi government and private contractors. It is unacceptable for US forces because of the NIH rule.

Articles on MRAPs:

Mine Resistant Vehicles

17,700 MRAPs

Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae

A Minor MRAP Problem

The Super-MRAP

The Cougar MRAP

Baby Huey Needs Feeding

A Strategically Influenced Nation

Welcome to the visitors from Force Protection. It's nice to have you visit. Please feel free to look around our other entries.

Even as the Pentagon scrambles to replace up-armored HumVees with the newest defensive wonder-weapon, the MRAP, an announcement has been made that this vehicle, the Cougar, is vulnerable to EFPs and has to be itself up-armored.

WASHINGTON — New military vehicles that are supposed to better protect troops from roadside explosions in Iraq aren't strong enough to withstand the latest type of bombs used by insurgents, according to Pentagon documents and military officials.

As a result, the vehicles need more armor added to them, according to a January Marine Corps document provided to USA TODAY. The Pentagon faced the same problem with its Humvees at the beginning of the war.

The Cougar was eagerly seized upon by the Pentagon as a solution to larger IEDs that were destroying HumVees, even after they were up-armored. The Pentagon has ordered some 7,500 of these vehicles and is preparing to order 17,000 more, at a total price tag of somewhere north of $25 Billion. (I know the official price has been quoted as between $20 and $25 Billion, but this is government procurement and things always cost more than advertised.)

This larger, heavier armored vehicle is celebrated for its Vee-shaped hull, which is supposed to channel the force of an IED up and away from the vehicle.

But no so much with EFPs. It has been revealed that there have to be add-ons to the present generation of MRAPs.

But the armor on those vehicles cannot stop the newest bomb to emerge, known as an explosively formed penetrator (EFP). The Pentagon plans to replace virtually all Humvees with MRAPs to provide better protection against roadside bombs, responsible for most casualties in Iraq. … Since MRAPs are so much safer against traditional roadside bombs, the document says, Iraqi insurgents' use of EFPs "can be expected to increase significantly."

As a result, the Marine commanders in Iraq who wrote the statement asked for more armor to be added to the new vehicles.

The Army has tested an armor that seems to be resistant to EFPs, according to BG Michael Brogan, head of the USMC Systems Command, the agency charged with obtaining the vehicles. "How rapidly we can engineer that onto these vehicles is yet to be seen because it is significantly heavy," he said.

The Army’s new armor is still in testing, but it appears to shatter the slug of hot metal rusting from an EFP detonation.

Enter the Newest version of the MRAP

Ceradyne, Inc is introducing an armored vehicle called BULL, designed to complement the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle currently produced for the US Marine Corps and Army. The BULL is based on a commercial chassis and uses an armor suite providing superior protection from all types of IEDs.

BULLs can be configured as urban patrol vehicles or logistics transportation vehicles providing logistics crews the same increased level of protection as that being provided to ground forces. The vehicle has already passed limited testing by the U.S. Government, where it demonstrated a high level of performance and crew survivability. According to Marc King, Vice President of Armor Operations for Ceradyne, the vehicle is specifically designed for close urban terrain and can survive the most lethal IED (improvised explosive device) threats faced by ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, including explosively formed penetrators (EFPs). "We feel this is a clear technological leap forward in crew survivability." said King.

Future procurements of the BULL are under discussion with several government agencies, in addition to the Department of Defense, who have expressed interest. The vehicle was developed at Ceradyne's vehicle armor division, in conjunction with its teaming partner, Ideal Innovations, Inc. of Arlington, Virginia.

This newest vehicle is supposed to be resistant to IEDs, VBIEDS and EFPs. The Pentagon is testing the beast, which the manufacturer says can be produced at the rate of 100 units per month.

Oh yes, the Russians are also building an MRAP, the Kamaz, which has been offered to the Iraqi government and private contractors. It is unacceptable for US forces because of the NIH rule.

Articles on MRAPs:

Mine Resistant Vehicles

17,700 MRAPs

Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae

A Minor MRAP Problem

The Super-MRAP

The Cougar MRAP

Baby Huey Needs Feeding

A Strategically Influenced Nation

The new MRAPs that are about to be fielded in Iraq at great expense aren’t quite good enough, it seems. Apparently they have to be up-armored.

WASHINGTON — New military vehicles that are supposed to better protect troops from roadside explosions in Iraq aren't strong enough to withstand the latest type of bombs used by insurgents, according to Pentagon documents and military officials.

As a result, the vehicles need more armor added to them, according to a January Marine Corps document provided to USA TODAY. The Pentagon faced the same problem with its Humvees at the beginning of the war.

Waugh! What? I had the distinct impression that we were 86ing the HumVees and going to MRAPs (cost: $25 Billion +) in order to keep the troops safer in Iraq.

The military plans to spend as much as $25 billion for up to 22,000 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles by 2009. Last month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared that buying the new vehicles should be the Pentagon's top procurement priority.

But the armor on those vehicles cannot stop the newest bomb to emerge, known as an explosively formed penetrator (EFP). The Pentagon plans to replace virtually all Humvees with MRAPs to provide better protection against roadside bombs, responsible for most casualties in Iraq.

If you remember, these are the very same EFPs that are only manufactured in one country on Earth. Iran has the sole license to manufacture these babies.

And these are the MRAPs that the Marine Corps stalled for a year before ordering.

Articles on MRAPs:

Mine Resistant Vehicles

17,700 MRAPs

Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae

A Minor MRAP Problem

The Super-MRAP

The Cougar MRAP

Baby Huey Needs Feeding

A Strategically Influenced Nation

The new MRAPs that are about to be fielded in Iraq at great expense aren’t quite good enough, it seems. Apparently they have to be up-armored.

WASHINGTON — New military vehicles that are supposed to better protect troops from roadside explosions in Iraq aren't strong enough to withstand the latest type of bombs used by insurgents, according to Pentagon documents and military officials.

As a result, the vehicles need more armor added to them, according to a January Marine Corps document provided to USA TODAY. The Pentagon faced the same problem with its Humvees at the beginning of the war.

Waugh! What? I had the distinct impression that we were 86ing the HumVees and going to MRAPs (cost: $25 Billion +) in order to keep the troops safer in Iraq.

The military plans to spend as much as $25 billion for up to 22,000 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles by 2009. Last month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared that buying the new vehicles should be the Pentagon's top procurement priority.

But the armor on those vehicles cannot stop the newest bomb to emerge, known as an explosively formed penetrator (EFP). The Pentagon plans to replace virtually all Humvees with MRAPs to provide better protection against roadside bombs, responsible for most casualties in Iraq.

If you remember, these are the very same EFPs that are only manufactured in one country on Earth. Iran has the sole license to manufacture these babies.

And these are the MRAPs that the Marine Corps stalled for a year before ordering.

Articles on MRAPs:

Mine Resistant Vehicles

17,700 MRAPs

Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae

A Minor MRAP Problem

The Super-MRAP

The Cougar MRAP

Baby Huey Needs Feeding

A Strategically Influenced Nation