Defense Technology International - September 2007 - (Page 22) DISPATCHES GLOBAL HOME RUN Navistar wins big with innovative MRAP vehicle design DAVID AXE• WASHINGTON hree months after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared blast-resistant trucks for Iraq and Afghanistan his top weapons-buying priority, trends are emerging in the expanding Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) program. Several of the roughly dozen companies vying for orders have been rejected by the Marine Corps, which manages the $8-billion program. T the design enjoys favor with Dutch and Australian forces. Oshkosh’s Alpha design, moreover, fared poorly in tests and appears likely to drop out of contention. But one outsider has emerged as a Pentagon favorite. Navistar International Corp., which mostly builds trucks for civilian markets, came seemingly out of nowhere in May to win a 1,200-vehicle order for its 20-ton MaxxPro design. The Illinois-based company Cab-on-chassis design of International Navistar’s MaxxPro vehicle improves survivability and speeds maintenance. Other manufacturers have firmed up their leads in the competition with large orders reflecting positive results from rigorous testing. Meanwhile, questions about maintenance and logistics continue to dog the program. Force Protection Inc. (with its Cougar and Buffalo designs) and BAE Systems (with the RG-31) have grabbed around half of the approximately 8,000 orders for MRAPs. Major armored-vehicle builder General Dynamics Land Systems, after a monthslong dry spell, finally scored an order for 600 of its own RG-31 variant in August. Newcomers that tried to shove their way into the market have been less fortunate. Despite rumors to the contrary, Oshkosh hasn’t sold any of its licensed Bushmaster trucks to the U.S. military, even though 22 followed up with an order in July for another 700 trucks. Production contracts total around $1 billion. Navistar officials credit a novel design, excellent test results and the company’s huge manufacturing capacity and worldwide logistics infrastructure. “Our design is unique,” says Bob Walsh, assistant general manager for military vehicles. “We have an armored body on a chassis. It does a good job of redirecting energy [from bomb blasts].” Its ease of repair is also a plus. “Being a cab-on-chassis, you’re able to pull off the body and slide a new chassis in there.” Other MRAP designs, by contrast, feature V-shaped hulls welded to the chassis. These are typically assembled from small components in one facility. MaxxPro, on the other hand, entails two mostly separate halves that can be manufactured at different sites and joined shortly before delivery. “It goes together quickly,” Walsh says. How quickly? Force Protection, whose Cougar design is arguably the most popular with troops in the field, lost market share this summer owing to its inability to ramp up production to meet growing demand. Being able to meet tight deadlines on huge orders is clearly a major factor in the Marine Corps’ MRAP choices. “We believe we can mass-produce this vehicle to the required quality level and maintainability-and-protection levels at a very high pace,” says Walsh. “Last year we manufactured over 160,000 commercial vehicles. That’s the supply base.” In response to mounting concern that the diverse MRAP fleet will pose huge logistics and maintenance challenges, Navistar touts its wide network of foreign dealerships. The company even has 75 dealers in Iraq and Afghanistan, where it has sold thousands of commercial trucks in recent years. What’s more, MaxxPro is designed for ease of maintenance, according to business development executive Luis Torres. “We run multiplex electrical systems. That’s a great benefit—we don’t have a lot of spaghetti wire. It’s a simple system to troubleshoot and for integrating other systems into our trucks’ architecture.” MRAP upgradeability is key, especially for the Marine Corps. The service, which will operate around half of all MRAPs, plans to integrate its blastresistant trucks into the ground forces’ forthcoming network architecture based on the Joint Tactical Radio System. Radio-maker Harris recently won a 10,000-unit order for its Falcon vehiclemounted, software-defined radios that include rechargeable handsets troops can carry while dismounted, says Kevin Kane, business development director. Many of these will be installed on Marine MRAPs. Harris borrowed the Joint Tactical Radio System waveform to make the Falcons forward-compatible with future networks. The MRAP program has been called the largest military vehicle mobilization effort since World War II. The program, which got underway in 2006 after two years of delays, began with a modest procurement goal of 6,600 vehicles. The figure now stands at 22,000 through 2010 for the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Special Forces. I To read one of our many weblog posts on MRAPs, go to DTI’s homepage: aviationweek.com/dti and click on “Extras for this issue” under “DTI Interactive.” www.aviationweek.com/dti INTERNATIONAL NAVISTAR DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL SEPTEMBER 2007 http://www.aviationweek.com/dti http://www.aviationweek.com/dti
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