thedrifter
02-25-07, 07:30 AM
Push is on for blast-resistant armored vehicles in Iraq
By: JOE BECK - Staff Writer
The race between the development of American military armor and that of insurgents' roadside bombs in Iraq is taking a new turn as pressure builds in Congress and at the Pentagon to increase production and deployment of thousands of special blast-resistant armored vehicles.
The vehicles, called Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, are being hailed by their supporters as nothing less than a long-sought dependable defense to the powerful roadside bombs.
The effectiveness of the fewer than 200 mine-resistant vehicles now in use in Iraq led the Marines earlier this month to ask Congress for an extra $2.8 billion this fiscal year to pay for 2,700 of the vehicles. The Army is asking for an additional $2.2 billion to pay for 2,500 for its own. The money is in addition to items in President Bush's fiscal year 2008 budget request for defense, fiscal year 2007 emergency supplemental request or the fiscal year 2008 supplemental request for costs associated with the war on terrorism.
The Marine Corps' total budget is $20.5 billion in the proposed Department of Defense spending plan for the next fiscal year that President Bush submitted to Congress earlier this month.
The number of deaths caused by the so-called improvised explosive devices has fluctuated sharply over the last year, reaching a high of 70 in December, then falling to 36 in January and 21 in February as of Thursday, according to icasualties.org, a privately run Web site that uses news releases from the military to chart deaths in Iraq.
Capt. Jay Delarosa, a Marine Corps spokesman, said that the Pentagon does not release specific figures on causes of deaths by type of weapon to make it harder for enemy forces to learn what tactics are most effective.
Roadside bombs have killed a total of 1,204 American troops in Iraq during nearly four years of conflict, according to the icasualties.org tally on Thursday. That's more than one-third of the more than 3,100 troops who have died in the war thus far.
Marine officials said they are preparing to hire nine civilian contractors, each producing its own version of the vehicle, in an effort to speed up production and get more of them to Iraq faster.
South African design used
The V-shaped hull of the new vehicles sets them apart from more vulnerable Humvees and is the source of military officials' hope that they can stem the tide of casualties from roadside bombs.
South African security forces pioneered the use of the V-hull design during that country's apartheid era decades ago. They proved effective in deflecting blasts upward and outward, thus protecting occupants against explosions from below, said Daniel Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, a think tank near Washington, D.C., that includes military spending among its list of research topics.
Goure said that the white South African government needed a blast-resistant vehicle to survive ambushes and land mines encountered during its intervention in the civil war in Angola.
"What you had in South Africa was a small military covering a large area," Goure said.
The Humvee has been around since the 1970s, when American military forces say they thought mostly in terms of fighting in open fields in Europe against Soviet forces. They say that the newer, blast-resistant vehicle design is a response to conditions more likely to be encountered in close-quarters urban combat.
The military is now using 183 blast-resistant vehicles in Iraq, 68 of them with the Marines, Capt. Jeff Landis, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Systems Command, said last week.
The blast-resistant vehicle comes in three sizes, Landis said. The smallest, the Cougar, weighs 16,000 pounds in combat and carries a payload capacity of 10,000 pounds. The largest, called the Buffalo, has a listed combat weight of 80,000 pounds and payload of 38,000 pounds.
New vehicles cause buzz
Word of the vehicles' capabilities in deflecting roadside bombs have been filtering back to the United States from grateful service members, said Perry Jeffries, veterans outreach director of the New York-based Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America. The group says its mission is to push for policies that support and protect troops and veterans.
"There needs to be a full-court press on fielding these things. They do work," Jeffries said.
Landis said, "This is a proven vehicle in theater for saving lives. Its mission is a priority of ours, and we're answering that urgent need right now."
Landis said the Marines are fast-tracking the procurement process to produce and deploy the vehicles as quickly as possible. The Marines awarded an initial production contract to South Carolina-based Force Protection Industries last year for more than 200 of the vehicles.
In late January, Landis said, they gave Force Protection ---- and eight other firms ---- testing contracts for the blast-resistant vehicles, a preliminary step toward future contracts for producing thousands of them.
Roadside bombs remain deadly threat
The rush to deploy the mine-resistant vehicles, which were introduced in Iraq in 2004, comes as roadside bombs have grown more powerful and have been inflicting heavy damage on the armored Humvees that are widely used by the American military for transport.
The new interest in the blast-resistant vehicle is welcomed by its supporters, but many are frustrated about what they see as the slowness of military leaders in recognizing the need. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing earlier this month, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., criticized Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, for, in Kennedy's words, failing to include money for blast-resistant vehicles in the Army's budget for fiscal year 2008.
"It is outrageous that the Army has been so slow to respond to this obvious urgent need. It makes no sense whatsoever, to keep ordering our troops into combat without the armor they ought to have to protect themselves," Kennedy said.
Jeffries blamed what he called the military's excessive interest in costly, high-tech weaponry for diverting money and attention from improved armored vehicles that can help rank-and-file Marines and soldiers survive in battle. He cited the Marines' expensive, decades-long commitment to the Osprey tilt rotor transport aircraft, scheduled to deploy this summer, as one example of misplaced priorities.
"No matter what anyone says about a fight, it always turns into boots on the ground, and we've got to take good care of those boots," Jeffries said.
The new vehicles are not intended as replacements for the workhorse Humvees that have received additional layers of armor as the war has gone on, Landis said. Humvees will continue to be used heavily in Iraq as the number of mine-resistant vehicles increases, Landis said.
Congressional push
The military's request for extra money for the blast-resistant vehicle has gained support from prominent Republicans and Democrats in Congress.
Kennedy and Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, ranking minority member on the House Armed Services Committee, both count themselves as ardent supporters of the vehicles.
"We are going to be supplying, with supplemental appropriations and the base bill, all of the dollar requests for (mine-resistant armored vehicles) that the Marine Corps recommends," Hunter said.
The ability of the vehicles to stand up to roadside bomb explosions is unquestioned, but some defense specialists worry that the military and Congress could still spend too much on them.
Goure said the vehicles are expensive, ranging from $600,000 to $800,000 for each one, money that might save even more lives if it was diverted to other worthwhile projects.
"A better idea is, next time don't screw up when you go into Iraq. If you do the occupation right when you go in, you don't need any of this stuff," Goure said.
Contact staff writer Joe Beck at (760) 740-3516 or jbeck@nctimes.com.
Ellie
By: JOE BECK - Staff Writer
The race between the development of American military armor and that of insurgents' roadside bombs in Iraq is taking a new turn as pressure builds in Congress and at the Pentagon to increase production and deployment of thousands of special blast-resistant armored vehicles.
The vehicles, called Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, are being hailed by their supporters as nothing less than a long-sought dependable defense to the powerful roadside bombs.
The effectiveness of the fewer than 200 mine-resistant vehicles now in use in Iraq led the Marines earlier this month to ask Congress for an extra $2.8 billion this fiscal year to pay for 2,700 of the vehicles. The Army is asking for an additional $2.2 billion to pay for 2,500 for its own. The money is in addition to items in President Bush's fiscal year 2008 budget request for defense, fiscal year 2007 emergency supplemental request or the fiscal year 2008 supplemental request for costs associated with the war on terrorism.
The Marine Corps' total budget is $20.5 billion in the proposed Department of Defense spending plan for the next fiscal year that President Bush submitted to Congress earlier this month.
The number of deaths caused by the so-called improvised explosive devices has fluctuated sharply over the last year, reaching a high of 70 in December, then falling to 36 in January and 21 in February as of Thursday, according to icasualties.org, a privately run Web site that uses news releases from the military to chart deaths in Iraq.
Capt. Jay Delarosa, a Marine Corps spokesman, said that the Pentagon does not release specific figures on causes of deaths by type of weapon to make it harder for enemy forces to learn what tactics are most effective.
Roadside bombs have killed a total of 1,204 American troops in Iraq during nearly four years of conflict, according to the icasualties.org tally on Thursday. That's more than one-third of the more than 3,100 troops who have died in the war thus far.
Marine officials said they are preparing to hire nine civilian contractors, each producing its own version of the vehicle, in an effort to speed up production and get more of them to Iraq faster.
South African design used
The V-shaped hull of the new vehicles sets them apart from more vulnerable Humvees and is the source of military officials' hope that they can stem the tide of casualties from roadside bombs.
South African security forces pioneered the use of the V-hull design during that country's apartheid era decades ago. They proved effective in deflecting blasts upward and outward, thus protecting occupants against explosions from below, said Daniel Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, a think tank near Washington, D.C., that includes military spending among its list of research topics.
Goure said that the white South African government needed a blast-resistant vehicle to survive ambushes and land mines encountered during its intervention in the civil war in Angola.
"What you had in South Africa was a small military covering a large area," Goure said.
The Humvee has been around since the 1970s, when American military forces say they thought mostly in terms of fighting in open fields in Europe against Soviet forces. They say that the newer, blast-resistant vehicle design is a response to conditions more likely to be encountered in close-quarters urban combat.
The military is now using 183 blast-resistant vehicles in Iraq, 68 of them with the Marines, Capt. Jeff Landis, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Systems Command, said last week.
The blast-resistant vehicle comes in three sizes, Landis said. The smallest, the Cougar, weighs 16,000 pounds in combat and carries a payload capacity of 10,000 pounds. The largest, called the Buffalo, has a listed combat weight of 80,000 pounds and payload of 38,000 pounds.
New vehicles cause buzz
Word of the vehicles' capabilities in deflecting roadside bombs have been filtering back to the United States from grateful service members, said Perry Jeffries, veterans outreach director of the New York-based Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America. The group says its mission is to push for policies that support and protect troops and veterans.
"There needs to be a full-court press on fielding these things. They do work," Jeffries said.
Landis said, "This is a proven vehicle in theater for saving lives. Its mission is a priority of ours, and we're answering that urgent need right now."
Landis said the Marines are fast-tracking the procurement process to produce and deploy the vehicles as quickly as possible. The Marines awarded an initial production contract to South Carolina-based Force Protection Industries last year for more than 200 of the vehicles.
In late January, Landis said, they gave Force Protection ---- and eight other firms ---- testing contracts for the blast-resistant vehicles, a preliminary step toward future contracts for producing thousands of them.
Roadside bombs remain deadly threat
The rush to deploy the mine-resistant vehicles, which were introduced in Iraq in 2004, comes as roadside bombs have grown more powerful and have been inflicting heavy damage on the armored Humvees that are widely used by the American military for transport.
The new interest in the blast-resistant vehicle is welcomed by its supporters, but many are frustrated about what they see as the slowness of military leaders in recognizing the need. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing earlier this month, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., criticized Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, for, in Kennedy's words, failing to include money for blast-resistant vehicles in the Army's budget for fiscal year 2008.
"It is outrageous that the Army has been so slow to respond to this obvious urgent need. It makes no sense whatsoever, to keep ordering our troops into combat without the armor they ought to have to protect themselves," Kennedy said.
Jeffries blamed what he called the military's excessive interest in costly, high-tech weaponry for diverting money and attention from improved armored vehicles that can help rank-and-file Marines and soldiers survive in battle. He cited the Marines' expensive, decades-long commitment to the Osprey tilt rotor transport aircraft, scheduled to deploy this summer, as one example of misplaced priorities.
"No matter what anyone says about a fight, it always turns into boots on the ground, and we've got to take good care of those boots," Jeffries said.
The new vehicles are not intended as replacements for the workhorse Humvees that have received additional layers of armor as the war has gone on, Landis said. Humvees will continue to be used heavily in Iraq as the number of mine-resistant vehicles increases, Landis said.
Congressional push
The military's request for extra money for the blast-resistant vehicle has gained support from prominent Republicans and Democrats in Congress.
Kennedy and Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, ranking minority member on the House Armed Services Committee, both count themselves as ardent supporters of the vehicles.
"We are going to be supplying, with supplemental appropriations and the base bill, all of the dollar requests for (mine-resistant armored vehicles) that the Marine Corps recommends," Hunter said.
The ability of the vehicles to stand up to roadside bomb explosions is unquestioned, but some defense specialists worry that the military and Congress could still spend too much on them.
Goure said the vehicles are expensive, ranging from $600,000 to $800,000 for each one, money that might save even more lives if it was diverted to other worthwhile projects.
"A better idea is, next time don't screw up when you go into Iraq. If you do the occupation right when you go in, you don't need any of this stuff," Goure said.
Contact staff writer Joe Beck at (760) 740-3516 or jbeck@nctimes.com.
Ellie