Posted on 05/14/2007 2:48:11 PM PDT by BradtotheBone
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration plans to accelerate deliveries of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles for the U.S. military in Iraq. Officials said not one Marine has been killed during 300 IED attacks on MRAPs. They said MRAP's raised, V-shaped underbelly deflected the force of IEDs. In all, the Marines have deployed 65 MRAPs in Iraq.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said MRAP offered improved troop protection over up-armored Humvees. Gates said MRAP would replace armored Humvees, particularly in the Marine Corps.
"Our experience is that Marines in these vehicles have been four or five times safer than a Marine in an armored Humvee," Gates told members of the House and Senate Sea Power and Expeditionary Forces subcommittees on May 10. "Based on this experience, we recently decided to replace our armored Humvees in theater on a one-for-one basis with MRAPs."
"My understanding is that the army has been recalibrating its interest and has substantially increased the number of these vehicles they think they can use," Gates said.
Officials said the US. military has ordered 7,700 MRAPs in an $8 billion project. Gates has met U.S. Army and Marine Corps officials to explore ways to accelerate deliveries of the 16-ton vehicles.
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said MRAP was the result of defense industrial cooperation with the military. But he warned that the vehicle — which has been criticized for its huge size — would not provide full protection against IEDs.
"There's no solution out there that's going to protect everybody from everything all the time," Pace said. "What you try to do is provide the best protection you can that still allows a soldier [or] Marine to be able to go out and do the job they need to do."
U.S. commanders have urged the Pentagon to increase troop levels to fight the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. On May 11, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, the U.S. commander in northern Iraq, asserted that his 3,500 troops were insufficient to quell the insurgency in the Diyala province north of Baghdad.
Mixon, citing a request to Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the No. 2 commander in Iraq, said the additional troops would be used in the counter-insurgency offensive in Diyala. Diyala also contains 10,000 Iraq Army troops.
"I do not have enough soldiers right now in Diyala province to get that security situation moving," Mixon told a Pentagon briefing.
In rare criticism by a U.S. commander, Mixon said the Iraqi government was not supplying services, which he said was vital in any effort to weaken the insurgents. Mixon said the Diyal government was no longer functioning.
"They are overburdened by a centralized bureaucratic process from Baghdad and impacted by corruption and sectarian issues," Mixon said. "These are areas that we must improve on over the next several months."
"Unditching"-- I recall an old, old, WWI photo of an Armoured Car, built on a limousine chassis, whose running boards could be removed to stick under the "tyres" for "unditching..."
Aerospace Daily & Defense Report
May 15, 2007
JROC Retains MRAP Control To Stop Requirements Creep
The Pentagon’s Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) is keeping acquisition control over the new Mine-Resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles being bought and fielded to Iraq to make sure they get delivered on time, said Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and JROC chairman.
The individual services usually retain acquisition control for such programs. But the JROC is retaining that control at the higher level to ensure there is no delay in delivery of the vehicles, he said. “We don’t want people to drop in new requirements,” he said May 14 during a luncheon for the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.
Giambastiani acknowledged the requirements could be good ones and eventually wind up being part of the program. “But they have to come in and talk to us,” he said. The priority in this case must be to get the MRAPs into the combat zone as quickly as possible, he said.
The armored vehicles are meant to protect troops from land mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), perhaps the biggest daily threat U.S. troops face in Iraq.
Costing about $1 million each, the MRAP vehicles have become a Pentagon priority. The Army had planned for 2,500 of them, but now the number could reach six times that amount.
Other counter-IED purchases also show the Pentagon’s ability to execute rapid acquisitions when needed, Giambastiani said. The Defense Department is able to push through programs in days and months when it would normally take months or years, he said. “We simply cannot take that long.”
But the JROC takes its time on other programs, he said. The group looks at funding changes and variances, feasibility and technology readiness levels (TRLs), he said.
JROC officials also take more time in looking at policy issues. For example, the group has talked about a U.S. Air Force proposal to become executive agent of higher-flying unmanned flying aerial vehicles (UAVs) three times in the past two weeks, Giambastiani said after the luncheon.
The group has asked the Air Force for more information about its proposal, and in a recent interview, service Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley said he expected the JROC to make a decision soon.
Giambastiani said the proposal and the subject are important topics, but would not provide a timeline for when the JROC would decide on whether to back the Air Force’s plan.
— Michael Fabey
Good stuff. The progenitors of the SAS, right there, and their initial car service.
Ah, very good, thanks.
To be fair, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld served under President Bush and he was transforming our military to a “lighter and mobile” standing which proved to be tragic in Iraq.
The Unimog is a Mercedes AWD military vehicle platform that many militaries use, in many configurations. A local brewpub has a firetruck version, that they have converted to a Biermog, so they can bring kegs of their beer to your event. I highly recommend both the food, beer, and converted military vehicle, at the 5 Seasons Brewpub.
As has been noted on other treadhead threads, I believe by archy, the South Africans, as you mention, as well as the Rhodesians, developed a number of mine-resistant patrol vehicles that have the characteristing V-shaped lower hull. Some were probably Unimog-based.
I’m merely pointing out that the ‘RATs constantly claim 20/20 hindsight, whereas when we look at their actual record on defense matters it is frequently atrocious. How many of the MSM hacks who write all the stories on body armor and humvees have ever bothered to ask what the Clintonistas and Congressional ‘RATs did for our military preparedness in all the years they had ample opportunity to do so?
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