MRAPs are the end result of a nasty, self-inflicted, vicious circle. In the early days in Iraq, our HMMWVs were underarmored to deal with the IED threat that was faced on the roads. The solution that was applied was to add more armor, and then add some more and then some more and so on. By the time I got there in '07 whatever generation of armor upgrade we were on was obscenely heavy and hard on the vehicle. It was fairly effective against most of the threats we faced on the roads, which was just as well because all the added weight meant that the vehicles were all but incapable of significant off-road travel. Still, there were threats that we could not meet with the armor we had so we added more. Eventually we hit the law of diminishing returns and kept going. When I left Iraq there were plans for a new generation of armor upgrade that was so heavy that turning at faster than thirty miles an hour caused the tires to blow out and I cannot remember what the top speed of the vehicle was but it was ridiculously slow. Interestingly, the idea of bypassing the roads, particularly those roads most prone to being IED'd does not seem to have occurred to a lot of commanders. When we would suggest it to nearby Big Army units they tended to look at us as if we had suggested levitating over the affected areas. IEDs are only effective if you can predict where your enemy will travel through and emplace them there. We made that easier by slavishly sticking to the roads and then we made it so our vehicles couldn't handle off road travel even if we wanted to.

So now we were road bound with vehicles that can survive most of the threats we faced on the roads, however, none of that mattered because no matter how much armor we added to the sides top, we could not do anything about the underbody IED which was, by far, the deadliest kind. So along came the MRAP. It is GREAT against underbody IEDs because that is what it is designed for. Other than that, it is, at best, a mediocre vehicle and at worst, a liability. Let's examine the pros and cons of this vehicle,

Pro

-Protection from underbody IEDs. Note that I say underbody IEDs. As far as I know it is not much more protected from other types of IEDs than vehicles like the Stryker.

Cons

-Size. These things are huge. They are as tall as a five ton and wider than a HMMWV. That makes them HUGE targets and also makes it difficult to maneuver in Urban environments especially in the sort of places we are fighting which tend to have fairly narrow roads.

-Weight. The Cougar is around 16 tons and the RG-33 is between 22 and 37 depending on the version. An M2 Bradley is only 27 tons. That kind of weight, along with its size can only complicate transporting it into theater.

-Mobility. These were made to counter the threats we face on the roads which is just as well because it isn't very good off of them. It is too heavy and too top heavy to be good at off road travel.

I imagine that they are also significantly more expensive than either the HMMWV or the Stryker but I don't have a good source on that so I will not include it on the list.

All in all, the MRAP does one thing well and it does that one thing very well but is it worth the cost? This thing is all but useless in a conventional fight against a peer or near peer competitor except as a troop transport behind the FLOT. It is taller than the Abrams and, depending on the version, heavier than the Bradley and has much worse cross country mobility as compared to either. In Iraq or Afghanistan where the primary threat is IEDs, you can get away with that but against a better trained enemy with access to significant numbers of anti-armor weapons, this thing is just a huge target. What future does the MRAP have? Hopefully, it will be reduction to small numbers for use in specific niche missions. Unfortunately it will probably hang around and when the next war comes along we will have to use them because there will be far too many of them not to use them. Eventually someone will end up standing in front of Congress to explain why we sent our soldiers into combat in these giant targets with poor off-road mobility but excellent protection from underbody IEDs when there is far less of an underbody threat than there is an ATGM threat.