All matters MRAP JLTV (merged thread)

[M.L.]

IntelTrooper,

I understand what you are saying, however, if you look at Afghanistan, a piece of real estate the size of the southeast US, then look at how many BCTs we have there, it seems reasonable that we can't clear, hold, and build everywhere. Therefore, we need to accept risk in some places, and have a force projection capability to rapidly react to enemy activity in those places.

I agree with you to a point - in an ideal world, we aren't commuting.

In the real world, with a 10 DIV Army, you must have force projection capabilities.

[IntelTrooper]

Therefore, we need to accept risk in some places, and have a force projection capability to rapidly react to enemy activity in those places.

To my knowledge, no helicopter has yet been hit by an IED. That's a start.

[M.L.]

To my knowledge, no helicopter has yet been hit by an IED. That's a start.

Intel Trooper:

You are correct. The problem is that we don't have enough helicopters to support everyone moving by air, and certainly not enough to sustain everyone by air.

Ken:

I'll grant you we have leadership issues at every level, including the shadowy "they" people at the field grade level (e.g. "boy, they really screwed this up...). I still don't think that warrants not putting a tool in the proverbial rucksack. I say give the CDR MRAPs, and if he is good, he'll figure out when to use them and when not to, how to use them etc....

I'll admit I've been playing something of a devil's advocate on this issue. So, I should lay my opinion out there.

While I supported the MRAP purchase for Iraq (large caches of leftover munitions made this conflict unique in terms of IEDs), I don't think we should keep them.

What we should do is incorporate some design elements, such as the V-hull, etc... into a new vehicle that fixes many of the shortcomings in the current MRAP fleet (lack of commonality, limited offroad mobility, not a fighting vehicle, etc...). That is, IF we decide to continue our strategy of fighting long, drawn out counter-insurgency campaigns. The MRAP issue might be solved with a more modest national strategy, but that is another discussion...

[William F. Owen]

The problem is that we don't have enough helicopters to support everyone moving by air, and certainly not enough to sustain everyone by air.

You could if you wanted to. You just choose not to.

That is, IF we decide to continue our strategy of fighting long, drawn out counter-insurgency campaigns. The MRAP issue might be solved with a more modest national strategy, but that is another discussion...

.....or get more helicopters

[Entropy]

Road travel in Afghanistan is generally not a good idea for any number of reasons. The problem with MRAPs is that they confine you to the roads which causes practical as well as tactical problems.

Practically, my old CSAR unit on its last tour recovered several soldiers who were trapped and drowned inside MRAP's or armored Humvees when the sh&tty Afghan road gave way under the vehicle's weight. Also, MRAPs are slow on these crappy roads.

Tactically, the road network only reaches a small part of Afghanistan which makes the enemy's intelligence and targeting much, much easier. The enemy will know generally where you're going and how long it will take you to get there.

We reportedly spend around $10 billion dollars on MRAPs of various kinds. $10 billion could have bought us 1,600 Blackhawks. Sure, it would have taken longer to get them built, crews trained, and into the field, but had we done that, we'd be in a much better tactical position than we currently are. How much are we spending on JIEDDO? Billions more.

The enemy's anti-air capabilities are marginal compared to what they can do to our soldiers traveling on roads. So I don't understand why we would want to try to brute-force our way through the enemy's advantage instead of fully exploiting their obvious weakness.

Finally, I'm now in the UAV ISR business. We, as a community, spend a lot of time looking for IED's or providing overwatch for convoys traveling on IED-ridden roads. This is a task we can do, but it's not something we're really optimized for. Furthermore, it's fundamentally reactive. With helicopters, we could spend our efforts in much more productive and less reactive areas instead of endless hours looking at spots in roads or trying to determine what some guy digging near a road is really doing.

[Bob's World]

The SWAT teams that inherit the MRAPs will have a nice law enforcement capability.

While these vehicles are saving lives every day, they do indeed drive "means-based" operations and have limited application on a battlefield. Based on how we are approaching this problem we need them, or is it because we have them that we are approaching the problem in this manner... at some point the nuance becomes sadly moot.

MRAPs are not the problem, they are definitely one more objective indicator of the flaws in our strategic/operational understanding of the problem, and certainly our approaches to the same. Snake oil salesmen don't just pimp out multi-million dollar vehicles, they pimp out strategy, policy, operational design and tactics as well.

[Ken White]

..The problem is that we don't have enough helicopters to support everyone moving by air, and certainly not enough to sustain everyone by air.

Don't have enough -- or overdo the flying hour / flight safety and force protection aspects of aerial support to the detriment of that support? All excessive caution is not restricted to ground combat operations...{Note 1}

I'll grant you we have leadership issues at every level..and if he is good, he'll figure out when to use them and when not to, how to use them etc....

True that. My problem is that there was and still is literally national pressure on senior commanders to use the things regardless of mission or merit; they were bought at great expense and they do save lives. However, we are where we are, that's for sure. I'd just hate to see us repeat this massive expenditure for equipment of limited use.{Note 2}

While I supported the MRAP purchase for Iraq (large caches of leftover munitions made this conflict unique in terms of IEDs), I don't think we should keep them.

Iraq was a very different and unusual war so I certainlyagree with that -- to an extent. I do think we bought far more than was desirable in an effort to quell a ground swell of media induced angst. Unfortunately, the normal US reaction is over reaction...

I also think we inadvisably moved or sent many of them to Afghanistan, a still different war. All wars differ and buying specific equipment for specific wars should be an effort in minimalism. Forcing the use of inappropriate equipment simply because it's available is all too common.

What we should do is incorporate some design elements, such as the V-hull, etc... into a new vehicle that fixes many of the shortcomings in the current MRAP fleet (lack of commonality, limited offroad mobility, not a fighting vehicle, etc...).

Totally agree.

That is, IF we decide to continue our strategy of fighting long, drawn out counter-insurgency campaigns. The MRAP issue might be solved with a more modest national strategy, but that is another discussion...

Yes. Sadly. One that hopefully will take place in the corridors of power before arriving at the conclusion that they're not wise, prone to manipulation in process, excessively costly in a great many aspects and rarely deliver desirable result. A simple cost-benefit study...

{All Notes} Just as an aside, the cost of MRAPs was said to be about $17.6B in 2008, (LINK). I suspect we're now looking at about a gross total of over $25B including replacements and the added purchases and the 8K plus M-ATVs at ~$500K each, a 12+ ton vehicle carrying five people albeit with slightly better cross country ability, but still...

That money spent more wisely would have purchased over 500 various helicopters at an average cost of $35M (plus ancillaries). The training requirement and O&M are considerations but all in all, Wilf is correct; we simply made -- were forced into -- a bad choice. More birds would have been a better investment. That was pushed by some at the time but the Army caved (I think that might have been part of Eden's "spineless" issue).

In any event, it seems you and I do agree that there are better approaches, that our training and personnel policies could be improved and that the consideration of METT-TC rather than political expediency should drive TTP.

ADDENDUM: Entropy's correct on the tactical aspects, Toyotas will go where no MRAP will go and do it a whole lot faster Those guys are more agile than we and instead of opting to 'out-agile' them, we bought into an even greater lack of mobility and agility than that with which we were already saddled.

Entropy bought all Blackhawks, I bought a mix of Blackhawks, Apaches and Hooks, thus the difference in numbers...

[Fuchs]

Don't forget the logistical side of helicopter operations. You could easily end up replacing half the infantry in-theatre with army aviation people if helicopters would replace MRAPs unless the overall strength is being raised, which creates again logistical overhead....


An alternative would be to accept that wars kill your citizens, and pro/contra war reasoning should take this into consideration - and thus end up saying no to wars of choice. You won't be able to opt out of the KIA/WIA mess simply by throwing several billions at the bureaucracy and more billions at the contractors whose PAC has supported you or your representative.

[William F. Owen]

Don't forget the logistical side of helicopter operations. You could easily end up replacing half the infantry in-theatre with army aviation people if helicopters would replace MRAPs unless the overall strength is being raised, which creates again logistical overhead....

Huh?? I don't see that. Where do you get that data from?

Very, very rough figures. - anyone with good technical numbers please chip in.

Say I have a Brigade of 3 INF BNs of 4 COYs = 12 Companies, or 36 Platoons. None of the INF has any vehicles and all are FOB based.

20-24 Platoons will be at Rest, Prep, or guard. Actual tasking will be for about 12 Platoons, so you'd be fine 8 CH-47 and 8 UH-60. You'd probably have 5-6 of each type available in any 24 hours, for about 200 men, including aircrew.

[Fuchs]

Huh?? I don't see that. Where do you get that data from?

Very, very rough figures. - anyone with good technical numbers please chip in.

Say I have a Brigade of 3 INF BNs of 4 COYs = 12 Companies, or 36 Platoons. None of the INF has any vehicles and all are FOB based.

20-24 Platoons will be at Rest, Prep, or guard. Actual tasking will be for about 12 Platoons, so you'd be fine 8 CH-47 and 8 UH-60. You'd probably have 5-6 of each type available in any 24 hours, for about 200 men, including aircrew.

Really? So no reserves?

You should better put an infantry Coy's worth of helicopters on QRF as well.

You need another two as MedEvac reserve, preferably with proper equipment for the role.

The helicopters would run the resupply of all outposts and patrols.

The fuel consumption of rotorcraft is horrible. A normal UH-60 flying hour costs about 1,700 - 2,700 $/hr (= four indigenous mercenary-months), but fuel is many times as expensive as normal, thus it's probably more than 4k in AFG.
All that fuel needs to be transported into the country on roads full of corrupt officials, locals and Taliban checkpoints. The additional Taliban income generates additional Taliban mercenaries.

The environmental conditions (hot, high, dirt) require a robust mechanics crew for all helicopters. A CH-47 needs about 45 maintenance man-hours per flying hour under normal conditions.

Since I'm already discussing environmental conditions; your brigade will likely not be able to fully exploit their rotorcraft's nominal performance in hot&high conditions, for the payload is reduced under such conditions.

Now add in additional overhead for the aviation component above brigade level. The additional aviation personnel also requires additional overhead at at least one base.

Finally there's the issue of flight safety. Many birds fall down over there. The additional accident KIA need to be subtracted from the saved IED KIAs.

[JMA]

Don't forget the logistical side of helicopter operations. You could easily end up replacing half the infantry in-theatre with army aviation people if helicopters would replace MRAPs unless the overall strength is being raised, which creates again logistical overhead....


An alternative would be to accept that wars kill your citizens, and pro/contra war reasoning should take this into consideration - and thus end up saying no to wars of choice. You won't be able to opt out of the KIA/WIA mess simply by throwing several billions at the bureaucracy and more billions at the contractors whose PAC has supported you or your representative.

Surely not a wholesale change from vehicles to choppers? I guess at least one can expect a more intelligent balance in resources.

[Infanteer]

I can't beleive I missed this one.

Plus villages are where the people live. The key is to travel light and never stay in the same place more than 12 hours. Not as much fun as working out in an ad hoc gym on a FOB that takes an occasional mortar round but eases resupply in many senses and is considerably more effective.

To an extent, yes. You gave me this advice prior to my deployment and although I took it to heart, it lasted me 30 minutes (as a Pl Comd, I didn't really have a choice). Infact, we travelled heavy - couldn't avoid it - and stayed in the same place for 5 months.

Why. To the first part, "travel light" was almost impossible. Water is heavy and we needed lots of it. There was no way of getting around this except for getting around two force protection concerns. First was we couldn't use local water - most of it was mixed with village waste and agricultural fertalizers. Second was to use a small gator to pack extra supplies, but this was a no-no as we had a patrol killed on one some years back and we tried to avoid roads and paths. Result is we carried lots of water and this limited our range unless we got helo resup; dismounted platoon patrols weren't high enough on the list to justify that.

I've heard of the Brits using local water in Helmand; perhaps this was away from the heavily populated areas?

As to "not staying in one place for 12 hours", someone has to stay in the villages - as you mentioned, that's where the people live. Just coming to their village for a fight is a sure way to really piss them off. Someone has to share the security burden with them against a guerilla opponent, otherwise you are just cedeing a vacuum to the enemy. Galula's "Static" and "Mobile" forces is a good analogy. However, putting highly trained and equipped infantry in the static role is, IMO, a waste of resources, as they should be the "mobile force". But, in Afghanistan, we really didn't have anyone else to do the static piece.

I planned week-long patrols; my NCOs gave me wierd looks when I proposed them. First, the idea of long range patrols were limited by an extremely small AO - I could walk from one end of my company AO to the other in a day. Kandahar, although a big province, features quite a dense concentration of forces. Most of the province is deserts and mountains so all the people, those fighting and not fighting, are in a small green space around the Arghandab River.

So, all this is to say that travel light and never stay in the place is a good practice if the METT-TC provides for it.

Outside of a few spectacular successes along Route 1 that have garnered more media hype than had actual effect, the TB aren't very good at targeting the logistical tail. These are not your Daddy's mujahadeen.

Agreed.

And, at least for the USMC, logistical support convoys aren't a drain on combat formations. The CSS guys (and gals) do it themselves.

Us to - service elements generally get their own "force protection" element.

[jtan163]

While I supported the MRAP purchase for Iraq (large caches of leftover munitions made this conflict unique in terms of IEDs), I don't think we should keep them.

Is this really true?
I suspect that the IED problem is one that has been around for a number of decades in various parts of the world - I was almost going to say -perhaps the fact the US hasn't encountered IEDs a whole lot might be a perception problem.

Except I recall seeing lots of pics of US forces in Vietnam riding on top of APCs, placing sandbags of the floors of their AFVs and trucks etc due to - IEDs.

Then of course you leave the US experience and you get as previously mentioned South Africa, Rhodesia. To which you can add Northern Ireland - where some parts of the province were only patrolled on foot or by air due to - IEDs.

IMO It ain't a new problem nor a unique one.

What we should do is incorporate some design elements, such as the V-hull, etc... into a new vehicle that fixes many of the shortcomings in the current MRAP fleet (lack of commonality, limited offroad mobility, not a fighting vehicle, etc...). That is, IF we decide to continue our strategy of fighting long, drawn out counter-insurgency campaigns. The MRAP issue might be solved with a more modest national strategy, but that is another discussion...

Not sure if you are saying what I think you are saying, but I think I am with you.
I reckon if you do need mine resistance (and I am not really sure how mine and IEDs really differ. I think that an IED used to be called a nuisance minefield, the only real difference being one use a factory made mine and one a home made mine), then it should be incorporated idealy into all of your vehicles - and if now then definitely in your AFVs, whether they be Strykers, LAVs, Bradleys, M113s whatever.

And IMO in the current political era where troop delopyments are unrealistically low (i.e. not enough troops to secure AOs or even routes over night) and the stomach for troop losses quite low (thankfully, compared with past eras), then you want to incorporate them into your B ("soft", perhaps better to say log) vehicles too.

[sullygoarmy]

I'm a day late on this thread but I'll throw my $.02 worth.

We just left as the only maneuver brigade in all of Baghdad. We partnered with 6 Iraqi Divisions (4 IA and 2 FP) and with the district level Iraqi Police. Other than the SF partnerships, we worked with nearly every ISF unit in Baghdad Province. For our Commander to maintain his relationships with the ISF division commanders, we traveled nearly every day. Blackhawk movement was preferred when 1) the weather allowed it, 2) there were secure LZs available at the ISF compound and 3) when birds were available. As the only maneuver Brigade in Baghdad, our Brigade Commander did not have his own dedicated blackhawks so we were never guaranteed a ride.

We therefore spent a good deal to time on the road moving from FOB to JSS to ISF division HQs. Our vehicle composition depended on the route and threat. We had both up-armored HMMWVs and MRAPs available and we used both sets during the deployment.

While I agree with all the tenets through this thread about having boots on the ground, the importance of dismounted patrolling and securing key areas to ensure IEDs are minimized, how do you do that when you do not own the battlespace? The ISF owned the battlespace - we were their supporting partners. The funny thing was the Iraqi division commanders started acting like two-star generals and owning their own areas of operation. We could not conduct unilateral operations - everything was partnered. We could not send a US only dismounted patrol to look for IEDs, and with all the roadways in Baghdad, that would be impossible. Instead we had to coordinate our C-IED efforts with our Iraqi partners and did everything we could to conduct combined patrols, operations, raids and intelligence collection to ensure we were integrated with the land owners: the Iraqi Divisions.

Our battalions/squadron maintained relations with all the Iraqi Divisions and most of the Iraqi Brigade HQs. In order to maintain freedom of movement, the MRAPs were critical assets to maintain our partnership with the ISF. We could not fly everywhere, we could not walk across Baghdad: our Soldiers had to drive.

As I mentioned before, the vehicle type depended on the route. MRAPs were not pratical going through the Mulhallahs or along the canal roads. The damage they caused to the fledgling infrastructure along with their lack of maneuverability in the tight streets limited their uses for those missions. However, moving along better roads or from base to base, MRAPs were the preferred choice. I saw countless Soldiers walk away from IED hits which would have destroyed up-armored HMMWVs and kill those inside.

We worked with our ISF partners to conducted intel-driven raids to mitigate the IED networks. The sad part is, however, the politically established safe havens within Baghdad itself (Sadr City, Shulla, etc) severely limited conventional partnered operations. Even the SF guys had a hard time getting access since the ISF divisions owned the battlespace and started to crack down on Special Operations missions in their OE. If the SF wanted access, they had to work through us to work through our partners. Again, the Iraqis were in the lead, not us. Obviously this is not the case with Afghanistan and the ANA...but that should be the goal.

Of course I've only talked about our maneuver battalions. Everyone from our Transition Teams, Route Clearance Teams, logistic convoys and escorts ran MRAPs a majority of the time as well.

I'd offer to JMA that he's obviously not familiar with U.S. forces. While we would always request helicopter lift assets, the sad fact of the matter is there is never enough resources, even for the U.S. military. Iraq has switched roles with Afghanistan as the "forgotten war" resulting in a shortage of assets. Even in the land of plenty, there will never be enough lift assets to support all the movement requests needed. Air is the best option, but often is the most unpredictable.

Additionally, I'd offer that you can no longer tell the difference (for good or worse) between an infantryman or tanker, especially in the heavy brigades. Our Soldiers and leaders performed the same missions regardless of their occupational specialty. At the battalion level, we no longer have pure armor or mech infantry anymore. 10 years of combat has blurred the lines between combat arms troopers.

Not sure how much time you have deployed but I'd offer Cav Guy has a heck of a lot of time and experience having "been there and done that" and recently.

The MRAP is a valuable tool in our kitbag and should not be discounted. The need for increased MRAPs in the states for drivers training is critical - we suffered from a shortage of properly licensed drivers due to the limited training opportunities and it plagued us through most of the deployment. Everything is METT-T dependent but the need for MRAPs will not go away. It is another tool in the kitbag both leaders and Soldiers need to maintain proficiency with.

Sully Out!