The Winds of Change web log dealt with the M1114 shortage here:
Military Mobilization: Ralph Peters is Wrong
http://windsofchange.net/archives/004427.html It also dropped this from another Freep thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1027429/posts AM General Corp., South Bend, Ind., was awarded on Nov. 4, 2003, a $39,571,065 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract for 500 M1114 up-armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle expanded capacity vehicle chassis. Work will be performed in South Bend, Ind., and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2007. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole-source contract initiated on July 17, 2000. The U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (DAAE07-01-C-S001).
O’Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt Armoring Co., Fairfield, Ohio, was awarded on Nov. 4, 2003, a $35,675,000 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract for 500 M1114 up-armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles with gun shields. Work will be performed in Fairfield, Ohio, and is expected to be completed by May 31, 2005. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole-source contract initiated on April 10, 2000. The U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (DAAE07-00-C-S019).
That winds of change link is great. Thanks. It has long baffled me why the most technologically advanced nation that has ever existed cannot adequately outfit its military with the gear needed to fight, win and survive. I have served in both the active component and in the National Guard. In the guard, our equipment was one step up from Vietnam era. We did not get night vision until we actually deployed, in 2001. Here on active duty, even in a lackluster unit, I was seeing equipment for the first time and some of it I had never even heard of - Javelin command launch units, thermal sights that mount on individual weapons, telescope sights for crew-served weapons, etc. Now guard units are cycling through Iraq. If they get the new equipment, their training on it will be substandard, due to the high volume of BS mobilization check-the-block tasks that they will be saddled with - something else that I'm sure no one has thought of.