All matters MRAP JLTV (merged thread)

[Surferbeetle]

J,

Preach on. During OIF 1 no armor meant me and my team had the doors off, weapons outboard, good visibility, and good speed. One day, being a bit on the tired side I missed the initial signal, but rapidly got with the program when all of the Iraqi's bailed from both sides of the road around me & my team. Gotta love them HMMWV's, they are tough & maneuverable and we all cleared the zone.

The current war is a different one than OIF 1 however, and it would appear that armor has it's place.

Regards,

Steve

[Ken White]

... and it would appear that armor has it's place.

It also has the significant and far too often overlooked disadvantage of lulling the unwary into a false sense of being protected. That's a pernicious and dangerous affliction.

No matter how good the armor -- or the active countermeasures in lieu of ever more of it -- it can and will be defeated. Tactical agility OTOH can easily compensate for a lack of 'protection.'

The old saw is wrong; speed does not kill, incompetence does. Speed is good...

[patmc]

My unit received ASV's in late OIF IV to supplement our humvees and Mad Max trucks. It had better armor than our other vehicles, was faster, and had the turret with optics and protected crew-served weapon. It was hard to get in and out, and took more maintenance time when it did break.

I liked the ASV for Convoy Security, but for missions requiring constant dismounting, it would work for overwatch, but not troop transport.

The only people with MRAPs during my tour were EOD or "special," so we saw them out there, and thought, "be nice to have that." Speaking with a MSG currently on a MiTT that uses MRAPs, he is a big supporter. He just reiterated, make sure you buckle up.

[Randy Brown]

The only people with MRAPs during my tour were EOD or "special," so we saw them out there, and thought, "be nice to have that." Speaking with a MSG currently on a MiTT that uses MRAPs, he is a big supporter. He just reiterated, make sure you buckle up.

Roger your earlier points on the ASV. I'd also be interested to find out if they were ever used in mixed tracked-and-wheeled formations, or used to overwatch dismounted troops in urban settings.

My only (indirect) experience with MRAP is with a couple of engineer units performing route-clearance missions. Given the intent of GEN Petraeus's Rule No. 4 "Get out and walk--move mounted, work dismounted"--I'm curious if you could shed any non-OPSEC skinny on how the MRAP worked in the MiTT mission.

(And, in a possible corollary to Petraeus, I swear I once heard SECSTATE Rice make an MRAP-related on-air comment to National Public Radio in late-2007. It was something about how "sometimes, you have to get out of the Buffalo." Haven't been able to find the cite since. It's part of an ongoing research project, if anyone else can point me to the original quote.)

I see no all-round solution. I doubt that infantry that's properly embedded in the population really needs armoured trucks for road travels in COIN.

...

For higher intensity conflict I'd suggest light trucks (a new category of light trucks!)

- partially fragmentation protected (up to level I (~ 9x19mm ball short barrel, a bit more protection than old kevlar flak vests), also the tarpaulin, windshield and door windows)
- minimized ground clearance when parking (hydropneumatic suspension)
- low height (folding windshield, fragmentation protection panels and roll-over bar)
- probably small enough for civilian car garages (folding mirrors, cabin accessible through folded windshield, bumpers all-round)
- prepared for quick camouflage and de-camouflaging with nets (also capable to fake urban objects with different camouflage materials)
- very low noise level
- self-recovery winch on 50% of vehicles
- several large fuel tanks, several small fresh water tanks, high mpg
- capable to cross irrigation trenches, fences, wet grassland
- driver sits in center, left and right sit gunners with good automatic firepower (pintle mounts).

I liked how Fuchs started to break the intellectual problem down as a wish-list for equipment capabilities, as well as the rationale behind each of his criteria. Granted, he prefaces his comments in terms of High-Intensity Conflict (HIC), rather than Low-Intensity Conflict (LIC), but I like the approach. In fact, I originally thought that's where this thread might be headed: Using a couple of existing platforms as conversation starters and examples, what would you want out of a future mobile infantry platform?

(Of course, remember the Alamo--and remember the painful developmental process of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.)

It's an interesting question, and one that forces a horse-and-armored-cart dilemma, the parallel being "how-do-you-want-to-fight" vs. "how-your-current-equipment-constrains/enables-you-to-fight."

[Distiller]

MRAP - just another word for a heavy, truck-shaped APC? Or re-inventing motorized infantry with super-heavy trucks instead of ACMATs?

I still fail to understand the fascination with MRAPs, especially since most of them are a far cry from the original - and in their ops environ - valid idea. When they were invented by the Rhodesians (mines, embargo), they were infantry taxis with widely seperated wheels, mine bottom, protection against rifle bullets and provided an elevated shooter platform.

But the latest MRAPs try to become APCs plus IFVs plus a dash of CFV - all in one vehicle. And that is just wrong. MRAPs are funny shaped, fashionable APC, taxis for light infantry, pax hauler. To actually fight, the infantry gets out. They are not supposed to be in there when the shooting starts. In infested territory they should get out and clean, not ignore and safely drive by. And besides the fact, that MRAPs can't really go offroad, they also can't swim. And with the proliferation of EFP know-how the MRAP will face a threat it can't defuse.

Leaves the medium (4x4) MRAP the role as urban riot control vehicle (people with too much money can glue some reactive armor onto them). And for the heavy (6x6) MRAP the niche as engineering and mine clearing vehicles.
The propsed heavy German MRAPs (GFF4) are just nonsense. For transport duties something like a SISU or MAN SX with a protected cabin is more suited. Convoy protection by APCs or JLTVs.

Basically there is no reason why APCs shouldn't get more protection, learning from MRAPs, but keeping the good parts of the APC concept. The proposed Marine MPC already goes that way.


On the JLTV: Good as liaison and scout cars, esp when not heavier than e.g. the MOWAG Eagle IV. Here to stay, something I have a hard time seeing the MRAP.

[William F. Owen]

Basically there is no reason why APCs shouldn't get more protection, learning from MRAPs, but keeping the good parts of the APC concept. The proposed Marine MPC already goes that way.

...and how long and how much funding will that require? The USMC MPC may have some merit but it risks same technology dead end that came to light in the UK FRES trials with Boxer, VBCI and the mythical Piranha V - the vehicle that won the trial despite not being there to take part!

If the well understood APCs designs had such potential, how come commercially derived and configured vehicles are now offering lower acquisition cost, (even with reactive armour and APS) great protection, and lower cost of ownership? All this has been achieved in less than 5 years, in most cases, while the cold war APC designs seem to offer less and less, in terms of flexibility across the missions being encountered.

Yes, you do have to make physical compromises. Size is one, but for the more mature designs they are no bigger than an average commercial truck. Some are C-130 transportable and Wildcat is possibly Cargo 747/C-33 transportable. Yes they are not good at crossing north German ploughed fields on rainy winter nights and they could not follow same cross country routes taken by tracked armoured vehicles.

Food for thought, as the result of some discussion in France recently. A generic MRAP based battle group can theoretically move 1,000 dismountable infantrymen, 500 km in 12 hours, (assuming a convoy planning rate of 41-45kph) to a tactical dismounted task of 24 hours and recover them back 1,000km, in 12 hours, using <150 well protected vehicles, based all on the same chassis, with no external logistic support.

I am still crunching a few numbers to confirm this, but in basic form it is, in itself, is an intriguing capability.

[jcustis]

The problem you have Wilf, is that you could do the same with MTVR trucks, and many Marines would prefer to do so.

I guess that's not really a problem though.

[patmc]

He did not give me any real specifics, other than that they replaced their humvees for force protection. They still did mix of mounted/dis-mounted, with face to face interaction and advising. We didn't get deep into the TTPs or SOPs.

My only (indirect) experience with MRAP is with a couple of engineer units performing route-clearance missions. Given the intent of GEN Petraeus's Rule No. 4 "Get out and walk--move mounted, work dismounted"--I'm curious if you could shed any non-OPSEC skinny on how the MRAP worked in the MiTT mission.

[krsna]

Hi Guys,
Nice to be back. Best comments on the issue are of the guy who was in one such contraption. For others out of it and no hope or desire to get into one such machine there are some threads to hang on to:
1. The future is counter terrorism. Call it LIC or HIC, terrorists care a damn. Organized wars are over.
2. What is our role then? Hunters or Stabilizers? Each option has has its own dimensions.
3. If terrorist is to be beaten in Urban ops, it is the matter of locating him and pre-empting him first. Else he shall have the initiative always and every time. This is matter of intelligence. Stability ops in the city need more safety and some speed to maintain monopoly. This is where enemy can gain psychological advantage by IED attacks. Nothing is safe here. They blew a T- 72 of IPKF in SriLanka into pieces with just the right amount of RDX.
4. If we are looking at Complex or Off town ops we need to get there faster, quieter and safer. MRAP seems to foot the bill to some extent less the speed. Any armor and monocoque design with heavy suspension will cause that to happen. MPV of South Africa that we use is a monster but we swear by its reasonable invincibility despite its heavy and high frame and some what limited maneuvrability.
5. Strykers are good, but for another dimension of ops. MRAP seems to be filling the gap of light armored vehicle (hull protected) for on road tactical mobility and off road transportation to some extent. Similar protection on Stryker will make it slower too.
6. In conclusion, options must be weighed for the role than as a contest of inter-vehicle capabilities.

[Ken White]

...1. The future is counter terrorism. Call it LIC or HIC, terrorists care a damn. Organized wars are over.

For a while -- never say never...

Agree with the rest but most particularly with this:

6. In conclusion, options must be weighed for the role than as a contest of inter-vehicle capabilities.

Hmm -- that has to mean, as always in equipment selection, that the factors of METT-TC must apply.

I knew that!

[Fuchs]

Hi Guys,
1. The future is counter terrorism. Call it LIC or HIC, terrorists care a damn. Organized wars are over.

Complete disagreement.
You sounds very much like a stock trader talking about ever-lasting hausse.

I recently read a 1988 magazine, one article was about the then-new Bundeswehr structure "2000". Think about that.

[Sabre]

Hi Guys,
1. The future is counter terrorism. Call it LIC or HIC, terrorists care a damn. Organized wars are over.

Constancy-bias is big mistake.
How ironic, often those that are so quick to, for example, damn the military for the hide-bound thinking that low-intensity conflict in Vietnam was an aberration and that nation-state conventional warfare was the only possibile future, then proceed to make the exact same mistake, only in the opposite direction.

Let's not forget that the U.S. had to stage a good ole' fashioned conventional invasion to get into Iraq in 2003... and did the same thing back in 1991...

Saying "never" is a sure way to be wrong...

As long as there are consistuted nation-states in the world, and there still are a few, the possibility for conflict exists. Alliances can shift dramatically in only a mere decade.

Back to topic:
I really don't think that, starting from a blank (design) slate, a MRAP would have inherently better armor than a tracked-APC. Holding everything else constant, the only way to have better armor for the same mass is to have less surface area to armor - MRAP's tend to have greater surface area, and wheeled drivetrains require more volume (not much, but perhaps 10% more), and the V-shaped hull requires more still, driving up surface area to be armored (unless that is to be unprotected).

While the MRAP may have better protection from IED's, I don't see how an MRAP vehicle with the exact same mass as a tracked APC can have thicker armor to protect from other threats (i.e., direct-fire).

If I am sending an entire battalion on a road march for 1,000 km, why can't I just have a few MRAP's at the front of the column to hit any mines, and trucks for the rest of the column? (Yes, some particularly well-disciplined insurgent could wait to trigger a command-detonated mine, but those odds are much lower). Of course, this brings to mind the fate of Groupement Mobile 100, but then again, if you are facing a resistance organized into entire regiments... (You could also airlift that battalion, and worry about mines not at all.)

I would say that there is much more to be gained from incorporating MRAP features into the design of the next standard truck, since a supply truck that will not face a high threat of direct fire contact can afford to be fairly high, and not have wonderous off-road mobility.