All matters MRAP JLTV (merged thread)
Moderator's Note
This thread was closed October 2012 to May 2013, as there is a new, main thread 'IEDs: the home-made bombs that changed modern war': http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=16303
After an appeal today it has been re-opened (ends).
7 Nov. Christian Science Monitor - A Junkyard Solution to IEDs. Excerpt follows:
"The latest thing to come out of the motor pool here at Qalat Forward Operating Base isn't pretty, and it isn't all that easy to steer. But it might just save some lives."
"It's a minesweeper that rides out front of a Humvee, designed to detect land mines or roadside bombs by setting them off..."
"The minesweeper, due to make its battlefield debut this month, has a distinctly Frankensteinish look to it - iron welded to iron, a steering column, and a Humvee-length space of nothingness, where an exploding roadside bomb will be unable to do harm. It's the type of battlefield ingenuity that the Pentagon could draw upon as it tasks a high-level general to develop countermeasures to roadside bombs, or improvised explosive devices (IEDs)..."
Deadly Attacks Prompt Safer Combat Vehicles
29 Dec. Washington Times - Deadly Attacks Prompt Safer Combat Vehicles.
Quote:
... The Department of Defense has not publicly called for replacing the Humvee, yet several companies are developing more advanced armored utility vehicles in response to the deadly roadside bombs being used by insurgents against U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry, an Army public affairs spokesperson at the Pentagon, would not divulge whether officials desire an alternative to the Humvee, only saying, "soldier protection is our No. 1 priority. Everything we do is built around that priority."
"As new technologies emerge, the Army is aggressively working with industry to develop, test, produce, and rapidly field the best possible equipment, and get it into the hands of our soldiers in the field as soon as possible," Col. Curry said.
Although attacks by roadside bombs, which the military calls improvised explosive devices (IEDs), are decreasing in frequency since they became widespread in 2003 in Iraq, the sizes of the explosive charges are increasing....
...new 7.5 ton armored "Rock" -- in service with both private contractors and Department of Defense agencies -- has been struck by at least five IEDs, and all passengers have survived without injury. It's a different story for those soldiers and Marines who continue to travel Iraqi highways in up-armored Humvees...
On the Subject of Vehicles...
29 Dec. USA Today - Corps Pays $100K for Retooled Jeep.
Quote:
The Marine Corps is paying $100,000 apiece for a revamped Vietnam-era jeep as part of its program to outfit the hybrid airplane-helicopter V-22 Osprey, Pentagon records show.
That's seven times what a deluxe commercial version of the vehicle costs. It's also three times what U.S. Export-Import Bank records show the Dominican Republic paid four years ago for a military version of the vehicle, called the Growler, a recycled version of the M151 jeep.
The Marines and the contractor, General Dynamics, say the vehicle has been thoroughly revised with modern automotive parts and adapted to fit on the V-22...
IED-resistant Vehicles Speeding to War Zones
31 October USA Today - IED-resistant Vehicles Speeding to War Zones by Tom Vanden Brook.
Quote:
The military is rushing armored vehicles with specially designed hulls to Iraq and Afghanistan to limit the damage from roadside bombs, the No. 1 killer of U.S. troops.
The bombs, which the military calls improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, have killed or wounded thousands of troops and shredded conventional military vehicles. The new vehicles have a V-shaped hull, which disperses the force of an explosion and helps keep the vehicle from flipping over...
The Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Organization is spending nearly $3.5 billion this year to combat IEDs. Pentagon records show that since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began, 1,074 troops have been killed and 11,513 others wounded by insurgent bombs.
A major Pentagon supplier of V-shaped vehicles is 9-year-old Force Protection of Ladson, S.C. The Pentagon says the number of the company's Buffalo and Cougar V-shaped vehicles in Iraq is classified, but public records show the military has bought almost 300. That compares with more than 35,000 Humvees, the military's main multipurpose vehicle, in Iraq. The Buffalo vehicles cost $750,000 apiece, about five times the cost of an armored Humvee, which is smaller.
Force Protection says nobody inside a Buffalo has been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan despite encountering thousands of IED blasts...
Foreign companies, many of them in South Africa, have been the leaders in developing the vehicles. Some of the Pentagon's largest contractors are marketing V-shaped vehicles with foreign partners. They include:
- AM General, the maker of the Humvee, is pitching to the Pentagon a V-shaped armored car called the Cobra. It is made by Otokar, a Turkish company, and uses a Humvee drivetrain.
- Oshkosh Truck, which makes many of the military's trucks, has partnered with ADI of Australia to market the Bushmaster armored vehicle.
- Blackwater, a private security firm that protects U.S. diplomats in Iraq, developed is own vehicle, the Grizzly, which it will send to Iraq soon...
Military Claims Victory with V-shaped Truck
23 March The Australian - Military Claims Victory with V-shaped Truck by Robert Lusetich.
Quote:
A relatively minor redesign of military Humvees could save the lives of thousands of US soldiers in Iraq.
The Pentagon is spending $US210 million ($260 million) - and eventually probably billions - on almost 400 mine-resistant-ambush-protected (MRAP) combat trucks after the success of 200 prototypes in the Iraq war.
The MRAP has a V-shaped steel body to deflect blasts from improvised explosive devices, which have been responsible for 70 per cent of the almost 3200 US military deaths in Iraq.
No US soldier in Iraq has died while in an MRAP.
"The shape channels the full force of a blast up the sides of the vehicle rather than through the floor," said Joaquin Salas, a spokesman for Osh Trucks, one of the MRAP's makers...
Does the military ever learn?
The V-shpaed vehicle design has been around since the 1970's, first in Rhodesia and then developed in South Africa. The only open source book I know is Peter Stiff's 'Taming the landmine', which is now somewhat dated and is easy to find on Google.
Why the later South Africa versions have not been purchased or licensed by the coalition eludes me.
Yes, they were originally designed for 'bush warfare' where land lines were the main threat, not IEDs in urban areas. Are the principles of design and threat not the same?
davidbfpo
victory? thats a bit much
Ok I think it is great to get these vehicles to the troops that need them but, claiming victory because you can break the red-tape barrier to procurment, 'eh not too impressive. The US built victory ships in one week, some of these remained in service around the globe more than 30 years later. Bombers, tanks, trucks flowed off assembly lines at the 'rapid rate'. No, while it is good to be able to buy what is needed it is 2007 the war started in 2003, the need for the vehicles was identified in late 2004. This is no victory, though it is a good thing.
MRAPs Can't Stop Newest Weapon
31 May USA Today - MRAPs Can't Stop Newest Weapon by Tom Vanden Brook.
Quote:
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 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)...
MRAP is not a good answer. The South African
designs are great for their intended missions. The Casspir and the Buffalo and todays RG 31 are big and very formidable mine protected vehicles that give effective protection against small arms. They were made with a high center of gravity and are great vehicles for their designed purpose -- to transport troops through scrub brush that was heavily mined so the troops could get to the area of a fight and dismount.
They were high both to allow enhanced mine protection and to allow visibility over the scrub. That height is a disadvantage in urban or flat desert areas. Their size means they are entirely too big to navigate in the narrow wadis and lanes in Afghanistan and much of Iraq. Further, there are mines in both theaters but the greater danger is from lateral IEDs. They are not lateral IED proof without getting as dangerously overweight as are the up armored HMMWVs, they are not good convoy escort vehicle. Great vehicles, better than nothing but still far from ideal.
The Australian Bushmaster is a good blend and has better capability for being up-armored and Oshkosh has a license agreement with BAE Australia; unfortunately, it too is a large and high vehicle designed to rapidly transport troops to a dismount point through scrub. Both the Dutch and the Strines are using it in the 'Stan (the latter also in Iraq) so it'll be interesting to see how it fares.
Otokar in Turkey makes an armored variant of the HMMWV (as does Mowag in Switzerland, now owned by GD) which would have worked well, but as Marc said, they weren't invented here. They would have been adequate provided some tactical sense was applied in their use and they'd have used standard in the inventory parts, (as opposed to the Cougar / RG 31 and such with MB and other non-standard parts), far cheaper and thus more could've been purchased. No matter, since International now has a big contract for yet a different vehicle, we'll see what happens.
We are reacting to a hysterical and ignorant media campaign that is at least partly political. That said, we're going to do it -- but the big Armored Busses are not the answer. The infantry -- I mean real infantry, the light guys over there -- who get around on foot don't have an IED problem.
Horses for courses and all that...
Vehicle Delay Blamed for Marines' Deaths
Vehicle Delay Blamed for Marines' Deaths by Richard Lardner, Associated Press.
Quote:
Hundreds of U.S. Marines have been killed or injured by roadside bombs in Iraq because Marine Corps bureaucrats refused an urgent request in 2005 from battlefield commanders for blast-resistant vehicles, an internal military study concludes.
The study, written by a civilian Marine Corps official and obtained by The Associated Press, accuses the service of "gross mismanagement" that delayed deliveries of the mine-resistant, ambush-protected trucks for more than two years...
Among the findings in the Jan. 22 study:
• Budget and procurement managers failed to recognize the damage being done by IEDs in late 2004 and early 2005 and were convinced the best solution was adding more armor to the less-sturdy Humvees the Marines were using. Humvees, even those with extra layers of steel, proved incapable of blunting the increasingly powerful explosives planted by insurgents.
• An urgent February 2005 request for MRAPs got lost in bureaucracy. It was signed by then-Brig. Gen. Dennis Hejlik, who asked for 1,169 of the vehicles. The Marines could not continue to take "serious and grave casualties" caused by IEDs when a solution was commercially available, wrote Hejlik, who was a commander in western Iraq from June 2004 to February 2005.
Gayl cites documents showing Hejlik's request was shuttled to a civilian logistics official at the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in suburban Washington who had little experience with military vehicles. As a result, there was more concern over how the MRAP would upset the Marine Corps' supply and maintenance chains than there was in getting the troops a truck that would keep them alive, the study contends.
• The Marine Corps' acquisition staff didn't give top leaders correct information. Gen. James Conway, the Marine Corps commandant, was not told of the gravity of Hejlik's MRAP request and the real reasons it was shelved, Gayl writes. That resulted in Conway giving "inaccurate and incomplete" information to Congress about why buying MRAPs was not hotly pursued.
• The Combat Development Command, which decides what gear to buy, treated the MRAP as an expensive obstacle to long-range plans for equipment that was more mobile and fit into the Marines Corps' vision as a rapid reaction force. Those projects included a Humvee replacement called the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle and a new vehicle for reconnaissance and surveillance missions.
The MRAPs didn't meet this fast-moving standard and so the Combat Development Command didn't want to buy them, according to Gayl. The study calls this approach a "Cold War orientation" that suffocates the ability to react to emergency situations.
• The Combat Development Command has managers — some of whom are retired Marines — who lack adequate technical credentials. They have outdated views of what works on the battlefield and how the defense industry operates, Gayl says. Yet they are in position to ignore or overrule calls from deployed commanders.
More at the link above.
MRAP JLTV concept of infantry mobility
A General Concept of Infantry Mobility
I would be interested in the board’s opinions as to MRAP and JLTV “type” vehicles as a base line for general (not all) infantry mobility.
Generally,
- They are better protected than APCs, in general overall terms. (mines and direct fire)
- They have very low comparative running and acquisition costs.
- They have less dust and noise signature for the same given weight.
- They have less mobility under certain soil conditions (deep mud).
YES, we will still need APCs (tracked and wheeled) but as a general approach, for addressing purely protected mobility, against most likely threats they would seem to have considerable merit. Some are designed better than others and some features are better thought out than others, but opinions on this may be worth discussing especially if specific designs are suggested as starting points.