Defense Technology International - October 2007 - (Page 16) DISPATCHES GLOBAL LEARNING CURVE Mine-resistant vehicle program highlights pitfalls of rapid procurement DAVID AXE•WASHINGTON FORCE PROTECTION INC. A ity and said delivery speed, not price, was the criterion. Congress promised a blank check, and one industry o cial termed MRAP “the biggest armored vehicle mobilization since World War II.” The program has two phases. MRAP I orders for some 7,800 vehicles worth around $5.4 billion were placed between January and August 2007. MRAP II orders begin in January. With so much money at stake, seemingly every U.S. defense firm with automotive experience This is the first of four articles in the issue wanted to supply vehicles. dedicated to coverage of MRAP vehicles. By August, 10 manufacturBesides this introduction to the program, ers had placed bids—many there are reports on Germany’s latest in partnerships with other blast-resistant vehicle (p. 18), a Namibian firms—and all but one retruck that might be a contender in MRAP II ceived orders. But only two had significant experience (p. 20), and a comprehensive and exclusive building MRAP-style vehilook at the vehicles that have been procured cles, and both had licensed and those that haven’t (p. 46). African designs. Force Protection Inc. threat, and in late 2006 the dam broke. had sold several hundred blast-resistant The Pentagon launched the Mine-Resis- trucks by 2006. On the strength of this, the tant Ambush-Protected program, aiming company received half of the first 4,000 orto buy as many as 22,000 armored vehicles ders. But, lacking factory space, it signed over four years for the Army, Navy, Ma- co-production deals with BAE Systems rines, Air Force and Special Operations and General Dynamics Land Systems. Command. The cost: up to $20 billion. De- Force Protection provided the blueprints fense Secretary Robert Gates described and armor specialists; the larger firms MRAP as his No. 1 weapons-buying prior- supplied their factories and took half the 16 DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL OCTOBER 2007 round 1,000 U.S. troops have died in bomb attacks on Humvees in Iraq since 2003. This was a new problem for the Pentagon, but one that African militaries faced more than 30 years ago during a period of intense unrest. The South African and Namibian armies developed blastresistant vehicles to protect soldiers from roadside bombs. But the Pentagon, banking on a short war in Iraq, resisted buying more than a handful of the trucks despite pleas from troops. As casualties in Iraq mounted, so did pressure to do something about the bomb Cougar MRAP vehicles are assembled by Force Protection in its South Carolina plant. cash. It was an uneasy partnership, as Force Protection suspected that BAE and General Dynamics were maneuvering to unseat the tiny market leader. Sure enough, last summer BAE and General Dynamics sold hundreds of their African-design vehicles to the Pentagon, with thousands more likely. That wasn’t the beginning of the drama, though. In 2005, the president of the firm, Garth Barrett, quit to form a rival truck-maker. Protected Vehicles Inc. got o to a bullish start in late 2006, partnering with Oshkosh on the Alpha MRAP. But testing revealed design flaws and the Pentagon declined to order more than a few test vehicles. At the same time, Force Protection sued Barrett, claiming that when he left he took with him a computer hard drive loaded with confidential data. (Barrett, in turn, countersued Force Protection.) Amid failure and litigation, Protected Vehicles Inc. laid o half its workers in August. The MRAP program’s urgency trumped traditional testing and longrange planning. The Pentagon paid for test batches of even the least promising contenders, shelling out millions for test models that didn’t work. Moreover, the implications of a massive, rapid deployment of such a variety of heavy vehicles are poorly understood. For 15 years the Pentagon has been trimming the weight of combat units to cut overhead and reduce the need for expensive airlift and sealift. MRAP reverses that trend. A single vehicle weighs 15-30 tons. The U.S. Air Force might need to invest $10 billion in airlifters, plus hire 10,000 personnel to haul vehicles. But it’s not all bad news. The flood of money shook up an industry that has been relatively static for years. Case in point: Civilian truck-maker Navistar scored a coup by combining its commercial chassis with a new armored body to produce the MaxxPro MRAP. The military loved it and ordered 2,000. Almost overnight, a major defense contractor was born (DTI September, p. 22). In a perfect world, the MRAP program would have been launched years ago, giving industry plenty of time to develop viable prototypes. There would have been rigorous testing while the Pentagon trained maintainers and adjusted its force to accommodate the vehicles. Even with all that preparation, MRAPs would have made it to the troops months faster than they will now, saving lives in the process. And they would doubtless represent a better value for the taxpayer and a sounder investment for industry. I www.aviationweek.com/dti http://www.aviationweek.com/dti
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