thedrifter
06-26-08, 07:11 AM
Long-term needs lessen, but vehicles still sought
By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY
BAGHDAD — When the new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle rolled over a roadside bomb on Thanksgiving, the explosion shredded the right front tire, gouged the passenger door, destroyed the radiator and shattered the windshield's thick ballistic glass.
But Army Sgt. Peter Rosie, perched atop the vehicle in the gunner's turret, survived with only a minor concussion. No one else was hurt; Rosie returned to duty.
Rosie, 45, a New York City firefighter who re-enlisted after the 9/11 attacks, was glad he had not been in an armored Humvee, the standard combat vehicle since early in the Iraq war. "There would have been a lot more damage," he says. "I might have been killed. The MRAP saved my life."
MRAPs are designed to save lives. Their chassis, high off the ground, and their V-shaped hulls deflect the explosive force of roadside bombs away from the vehicles' occupants. Such bombs, often called improvised explosive devices (IEDs), account for at least 60% of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq, the Pentagon says.
In the past few weeks, the Marines have determined they need fewer MRAPs, and the Army has indicated it will probably follow, mostly because violence is down in Iraq and counterinsurgency efforts are taking hold. Where deployed, MRAPs are helping to tamp down IED attacks by making it safe for troops to move deeper into neighborhoods to find IEDs and the insurgents who plant them, officers in the field say. A USA TODAY team embedded with combat units here in early December found that the news from the Pentagon had not dampened the demand for MRAPs on the front lines.
Troops here will soon be getting more. The military services have ordered 8,815 MRAPs from four companies, and about 2,500 of them have been manufactured. Only 916 have been fielded in Iraq, according to the Marine Corps Systems Command, which coordinates the vehicles' development for the Pentagon. The Pentagon's goal is to have 1,500 MRAPs in Iraq by the end of the year.
Even with factories running flat out, it still takes a week, on average, to produce a vehicle like the one that saved Rosie. USA TODAY, in examining what it takes to get the new vehicles to troops in the field, found that bottlenecks lurk everywhere in the production process. Navistar's International Military and Government division, which made Rosie's MRAP, buys components from at least eight states and several foreign countries, including armor from Israel and tires from France.
The 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Rosie's unit, was the first Army infantry outfit to receive MRAPs. That's because its need was greatest and its casualties were high, says Col. Ricky Gibbs, its commander. The brigade lost 19 soldiers in June alone, 20% of the U.S. deaths reported countrywide that month. The troops patrol what were once some of southern Baghdad's most deadly neighborhoods, where large, deeply buried IEDs were commonplace.
Gibbs, whose brigade received its first MRAPs in October, now wants to swap out most of his Humvees for MRAPs. "The MRAP gives confidence to your soldiers," as well as protection on patrols, he says.
His 5,400 troops already are seeing positive results, Gibbs says. They are getting more tips from local residents about possible bombmakers. There are fewer IEDs, fewer casualties and a greater sense of security in the area, he says.
"I wish we'd had the MRAP a lot sooner," Gibbs says.
Gibbs didn't see MRAPs sooner because the vehicles' path to Iraq has been tortuous. The vehicles, first requested in early 2005, were blocked at first by top officials, both military and civilian, who were certain the war would be a short one.
More recently the MRAPs have been delayed by the logistical difficulties of manufacturing trucks tough enough to withstand bombs that have become bigger, more sophisticated and more deadly.
The program gathered momentum only after Robert Gates replaced Donald Rumsfeld as Defense secretary late last year. Gates designated MRAPs as the Pentagon's top priority in May and ordered expedited production.
And, despite the recent notices that overall requirements will be cut — as many as 15,000 were once contemplated — Gates' spokesman Geoff Morrell said last week that MRAPs remain a major priority. "As it stands right now, we continue to buy as many MRAPs as can be produced, and that has not changed."
'Not business-as-usual'
MRAPs for Gibbs' brigade came from a company that didn't even make the vehicles at this time last year. For a long time, in fact, only one U.S. company made MRAPs. That pioneer, Force Protection Inc. of Ladson, S.C., was instrumental in proving the value of MRAPs but ran behind its production targets in 2005 and 2006.
Gates' decision to boost MRAP production changed the industry. On June 1, he gave the program a top priority rating to guarantee manufacturers access to critical material such as axles and armor.
John Young, undersecretary of Defense, last month praised the manufacturers for doing their best "to accelerate MRAP vehicle deliveries," even buying materials before receiving contracts. "This is not a business-as-usual process."
Exhibit A of the accelerated process: the MRAP that saved Rosie's life on Thanksgiving — MaxxPro Registration No. NZ1J83.
Officials at International first considered developing what turned into the MaxxPro after seeing similar vehicles at a convention in October 2006, president Archie Massicotte says. International won its first significant MRAP contract, worth $623 million, for 1,200 vehicles in May. Its MRAP plant in West Point, Miss., is on track to build nearly 3,000 by April 2008.
No. NZ1J83's journey to Iraq started about three months ago in Garland, Texas, when its chassis started down the line. Workers took the 7000-series chassis, normally used for commercial vehicles such as dump trucks, and attached a cab also made in Garland.
Under the hood, they installed engines from a company factory in Melrose Park, Ill. On each wheel, their power wrenches twisted the lug nuts for Michelin tires from France.
Young told the House Armed Services Committee last month that supply problems have dogged MRAPs. In August, the Pentagon said it was seeking an additional tiremaker; at that point only Michelin tires fit MRAPs. In January, the Pentagon expects to expand tire capacity to 17,000 a month; a new supplier, Goodyear, has joined the MRAP program, Young said.
From Texas, the frames for the MaxxPro are trucked 570 miles east to International's Mississippi plant. There, 753 workers on two assembly lines now bolt on the vehicle's thick armor, which comes from Plasan Sasa of Kibbutz Sasa, Israel. In the vehicle's windows, they place ballistic glass from another Israeli company, Oran Safety Glass.
Workers also spray the vehicles with desert brown paint and back them onto flat-bed tractor-trailer trucks bound for Charleston, S.C., and the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, where electronic equipment is added.
This extra equipment can jack up the price of a Category I MRAP, such as the MaxxPro or Force Protection's Cougar, from its $528,000 base price by as much as another $522,000. At least 11 pieces of this gear — radios, anti-IED jammers, and global positioning systems — come from manufacturers in states from Texas to Massachusetts.
Like 'Battlestar Galactica'
The next leg of No. NZIJ83's path to Iraq is equally daunting and expensive.
Quick turnarounds are the rule at the 16th Airlift Squadron at Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina. On Nov. 30, a team from USA TODAY flew from Charleston to Baghdad's airport with a crew delivering MRAPs. It took airmen less than an hour to roll three International MRAPs into the cargo bay of a C-17, one of the Air Force's largest cargo planes, and anchor them to the jet's floor with chains for takeoff to Iraq.
The cost to fly each MRAP from Charleston to Iraq: $135,000, Pentagon budget documents show. The Pentagon will spend up to $750 million this year to deliver MRAPs from all four manufacturers — Force Protection, International, BAE Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems Canada — to the theater.
(Ships can hold more MRAPs, and per-vehicle costs would be far less — $18,000, Pentagon records show. But shipping MRAPs takes 30 days, while the airlift gets the vehicles to Iraq within a day. About 300 MRAPs are en route to Iraq on ships.)
The C-17 roared down the runway late in the afternoon. In the cockpit, Air Force pilots Maj. Scott Berndt and Capt. Zach Hall plotted a course for Nantucket, Mass., where they rendezvoused with a tanker for midair refueling. It was a tightly choreographed dance 20,000 feet above the Atlantic ocean. Under a moonless sky, Berndt and Hall caught sight of the KC-10, its lights blinking and fuel-spigot boom extended behind.
"It looks like Battlestar Galactica," Berndt said.
Hall and Berndt can nose their jet within 6 feet of the tanker. Any closer, and suction could pull the jets together and send them tumbling into the ocean. They took on fuel and began plotting their course across the Atlantic to an Air Force base in Europe. Another crew flew the final leg of the MRAPs' journey into Baghdad.
"We're not wasting any time getting these to the guys," Berndt said of the trip, which took 17 hours. "It means we don't have to do a medevac later on."
First Army unit with MRAPs
The 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team was the second of the five "surge" brigades sent to Iraq earlier this year to bolster the counterinsurgency strategy pushed by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. Gibbs' mission at Forward Operating Base Falcon: securing one of the most restive parts of a fractious city.
In the spring and summer, soldiers fought from house to house in some areas as they vied with al-Qaeda militants for control of neighborhoods. The toll was high: 80 troops killed, 600 wounded, Gibbs says.
These days, Gibbs travels around south Baghdad in a customized MRAP that serves as a mobile command post. In it, he can view video imagery in real time from drones that fly overhead, looking for insurgents and IEDs. Gibbs can stay in touch with his staff at brigade headquarters and relay orders.
The new counterinsurgency strategy here divides neighborhoods by 15-foot-high concrete traffic barriers. Exit and entry are controlled at checkpoints, in an attempt to deny insurgents the ability to move the munitions needed to make IEDs. Troops in MRAPs also provide a 24-hour presence, often leaving their vehicles to talk with people in their homes or shops.
Capt. Joe Schwankhaus, who commands a company in Gibbs' brigade, says the MRAP "does a lot for the guys' mental state," he says. "It's a huge motivational thing."
The big trucks also confuse insurgents, who don't know how to attack them or even how many troops they can hold, he says. "It at least makes insurgents. .. think twice. They have to be asking themselves, 'What the hell is going to come out of these things?' "
Throughout Iraq, the number of IEDs is declining, but they remain deadly. In November, 25 of the 28 U.S. troops who died in combat were killed by IEDs, according to the Pentagon. So far, in December, seven of 10 combat deaths reported were blamed on IEDs.
Although proven lifesavers — only a few troops have been killed riding in MRAPs — the vehicles are not failsafe. Armor-penetrating explosives, called explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, have breached them in Iraq.
Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, Army deputy chief of staff, says, "Whatever we put a soldier or Marine in, ultimately there is a bigger boom possible, something that can undo that particular design."
As the counterinsurgency strategy has brought relative security to parts of Iraq, new questions are being raised about MRAPs. Are they worth their price tag, $699,000 to $1.5 million each? And, in the long run, will they be of any use to the Marine Corps and the Army when the war in Iraq ends?
It is those considerations that have inspired both the Marine Corps and the Army to publicly discuss cutting their requirements.
On Nov. 30, Marine Corps Commandant James Conway said he would ask the Pentagon to cut the Corps' projected MRAP need to 2,300 vehicles from 3,700. On Dec. 8, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the No. 2 military commander in Iraq, said the Army will probably need fewer than the 10,000 vehicles it originally sought but he has not decided how many.
Gibbs acknowledges the MRAP's limitations. He says the vehicle's turret, which rides more than 12 feet above the road, can rip through the low-hanging electrical wires that hang over Iraqi streets.
Its many advantages, however, are also evident.
Spc. Brian Wilson, 22, says its height also allows the gunner to peer over concrete traffic barriers to see insurgent activity on the other side. "It's a good investment for the Army," he says. "It will save lives."
It already has. Gunner Rosie, a British citizen with a U.S. green card, has no doubt about that. As he thinks about returning home to New York and to his career as a firefighter, Rosie says, "Anything that can give us better protection is really appreciated. It shows that people back home care."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/gallery/n071217_mraps/flash.htm
Ellie
By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY
BAGHDAD — When the new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle rolled over a roadside bomb on Thanksgiving, the explosion shredded the right front tire, gouged the passenger door, destroyed the radiator and shattered the windshield's thick ballistic glass.
But Army Sgt. Peter Rosie, perched atop the vehicle in the gunner's turret, survived with only a minor concussion. No one else was hurt; Rosie returned to duty.
Rosie, 45, a New York City firefighter who re-enlisted after the 9/11 attacks, was glad he had not been in an armored Humvee, the standard combat vehicle since early in the Iraq war. "There would have been a lot more damage," he says. "I might have been killed. The MRAP saved my life."
MRAPs are designed to save lives. Their chassis, high off the ground, and their V-shaped hulls deflect the explosive force of roadside bombs away from the vehicles' occupants. Such bombs, often called improvised explosive devices (IEDs), account for at least 60% of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq, the Pentagon says.
In the past few weeks, the Marines have determined they need fewer MRAPs, and the Army has indicated it will probably follow, mostly because violence is down in Iraq and counterinsurgency efforts are taking hold. Where deployed, MRAPs are helping to tamp down IED attacks by making it safe for troops to move deeper into neighborhoods to find IEDs and the insurgents who plant them, officers in the field say. A USA TODAY team embedded with combat units here in early December found that the news from the Pentagon had not dampened the demand for MRAPs on the front lines.
Troops here will soon be getting more. The military services have ordered 8,815 MRAPs from four companies, and about 2,500 of them have been manufactured. Only 916 have been fielded in Iraq, according to the Marine Corps Systems Command, which coordinates the vehicles' development for the Pentagon. The Pentagon's goal is to have 1,500 MRAPs in Iraq by the end of the year.
Even with factories running flat out, it still takes a week, on average, to produce a vehicle like the one that saved Rosie. USA TODAY, in examining what it takes to get the new vehicles to troops in the field, found that bottlenecks lurk everywhere in the production process. Navistar's International Military and Government division, which made Rosie's MRAP, buys components from at least eight states and several foreign countries, including armor from Israel and tires from France.
The 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Rosie's unit, was the first Army infantry outfit to receive MRAPs. That's because its need was greatest and its casualties were high, says Col. Ricky Gibbs, its commander. The brigade lost 19 soldiers in June alone, 20% of the U.S. deaths reported countrywide that month. The troops patrol what were once some of southern Baghdad's most deadly neighborhoods, where large, deeply buried IEDs were commonplace.
Gibbs, whose brigade received its first MRAPs in October, now wants to swap out most of his Humvees for MRAPs. "The MRAP gives confidence to your soldiers," as well as protection on patrols, he says.
His 5,400 troops already are seeing positive results, Gibbs says. They are getting more tips from local residents about possible bombmakers. There are fewer IEDs, fewer casualties and a greater sense of security in the area, he says.
"I wish we'd had the MRAP a lot sooner," Gibbs says.
Gibbs didn't see MRAPs sooner because the vehicles' path to Iraq has been tortuous. The vehicles, first requested in early 2005, were blocked at first by top officials, both military and civilian, who were certain the war would be a short one.
More recently the MRAPs have been delayed by the logistical difficulties of manufacturing trucks tough enough to withstand bombs that have become bigger, more sophisticated and more deadly.
The program gathered momentum only after Robert Gates replaced Donald Rumsfeld as Defense secretary late last year. Gates designated MRAPs as the Pentagon's top priority in May and ordered expedited production.
And, despite the recent notices that overall requirements will be cut — as many as 15,000 were once contemplated — Gates' spokesman Geoff Morrell said last week that MRAPs remain a major priority. "As it stands right now, we continue to buy as many MRAPs as can be produced, and that has not changed."
'Not business-as-usual'
MRAPs for Gibbs' brigade came from a company that didn't even make the vehicles at this time last year. For a long time, in fact, only one U.S. company made MRAPs. That pioneer, Force Protection Inc. of Ladson, S.C., was instrumental in proving the value of MRAPs but ran behind its production targets in 2005 and 2006.
Gates' decision to boost MRAP production changed the industry. On June 1, he gave the program a top priority rating to guarantee manufacturers access to critical material such as axles and armor.
John Young, undersecretary of Defense, last month praised the manufacturers for doing their best "to accelerate MRAP vehicle deliveries," even buying materials before receiving contracts. "This is not a business-as-usual process."
Exhibit A of the accelerated process: the MRAP that saved Rosie's life on Thanksgiving — MaxxPro Registration No. NZ1J83.
Officials at International first considered developing what turned into the MaxxPro after seeing similar vehicles at a convention in October 2006, president Archie Massicotte says. International won its first significant MRAP contract, worth $623 million, for 1,200 vehicles in May. Its MRAP plant in West Point, Miss., is on track to build nearly 3,000 by April 2008.
No. NZ1J83's journey to Iraq started about three months ago in Garland, Texas, when its chassis started down the line. Workers took the 7000-series chassis, normally used for commercial vehicles such as dump trucks, and attached a cab also made in Garland.
Under the hood, they installed engines from a company factory in Melrose Park, Ill. On each wheel, their power wrenches twisted the lug nuts for Michelin tires from France.
Young told the House Armed Services Committee last month that supply problems have dogged MRAPs. In August, the Pentagon said it was seeking an additional tiremaker; at that point only Michelin tires fit MRAPs. In January, the Pentagon expects to expand tire capacity to 17,000 a month; a new supplier, Goodyear, has joined the MRAP program, Young said.
From Texas, the frames for the MaxxPro are trucked 570 miles east to International's Mississippi plant. There, 753 workers on two assembly lines now bolt on the vehicle's thick armor, which comes from Plasan Sasa of Kibbutz Sasa, Israel. In the vehicle's windows, they place ballistic glass from another Israeli company, Oran Safety Glass.
Workers also spray the vehicles with desert brown paint and back them onto flat-bed tractor-trailer trucks bound for Charleston, S.C., and the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, where electronic equipment is added.
This extra equipment can jack up the price of a Category I MRAP, such as the MaxxPro or Force Protection's Cougar, from its $528,000 base price by as much as another $522,000. At least 11 pieces of this gear — radios, anti-IED jammers, and global positioning systems — come from manufacturers in states from Texas to Massachusetts.
Like 'Battlestar Galactica'
The next leg of No. NZIJ83's path to Iraq is equally daunting and expensive.
Quick turnarounds are the rule at the 16th Airlift Squadron at Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina. On Nov. 30, a team from USA TODAY flew from Charleston to Baghdad's airport with a crew delivering MRAPs. It took airmen less than an hour to roll three International MRAPs into the cargo bay of a C-17, one of the Air Force's largest cargo planes, and anchor them to the jet's floor with chains for takeoff to Iraq.
The cost to fly each MRAP from Charleston to Iraq: $135,000, Pentagon budget documents show. The Pentagon will spend up to $750 million this year to deliver MRAPs from all four manufacturers — Force Protection, International, BAE Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems Canada — to the theater.
(Ships can hold more MRAPs, and per-vehicle costs would be far less — $18,000, Pentagon records show. But shipping MRAPs takes 30 days, while the airlift gets the vehicles to Iraq within a day. About 300 MRAPs are en route to Iraq on ships.)
The C-17 roared down the runway late in the afternoon. In the cockpit, Air Force pilots Maj. Scott Berndt and Capt. Zach Hall plotted a course for Nantucket, Mass., where they rendezvoused with a tanker for midair refueling. It was a tightly choreographed dance 20,000 feet above the Atlantic ocean. Under a moonless sky, Berndt and Hall caught sight of the KC-10, its lights blinking and fuel-spigot boom extended behind.
"It looks like Battlestar Galactica," Berndt said.
Hall and Berndt can nose their jet within 6 feet of the tanker. Any closer, and suction could pull the jets together and send them tumbling into the ocean. They took on fuel and began plotting their course across the Atlantic to an Air Force base in Europe. Another crew flew the final leg of the MRAPs' journey into Baghdad.
"We're not wasting any time getting these to the guys," Berndt said of the trip, which took 17 hours. "It means we don't have to do a medevac later on."
First Army unit with MRAPs
The 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team was the second of the five "surge" brigades sent to Iraq earlier this year to bolster the counterinsurgency strategy pushed by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. Gibbs' mission at Forward Operating Base Falcon: securing one of the most restive parts of a fractious city.
In the spring and summer, soldiers fought from house to house in some areas as they vied with al-Qaeda militants for control of neighborhoods. The toll was high: 80 troops killed, 600 wounded, Gibbs says.
These days, Gibbs travels around south Baghdad in a customized MRAP that serves as a mobile command post. In it, he can view video imagery in real time from drones that fly overhead, looking for insurgents and IEDs. Gibbs can stay in touch with his staff at brigade headquarters and relay orders.
The new counterinsurgency strategy here divides neighborhoods by 15-foot-high concrete traffic barriers. Exit and entry are controlled at checkpoints, in an attempt to deny insurgents the ability to move the munitions needed to make IEDs. Troops in MRAPs also provide a 24-hour presence, often leaving their vehicles to talk with people in their homes or shops.
Capt. Joe Schwankhaus, who commands a company in Gibbs' brigade, says the MRAP "does a lot for the guys' mental state," he says. "It's a huge motivational thing."
The big trucks also confuse insurgents, who don't know how to attack them or even how many troops they can hold, he says. "It at least makes insurgents. .. think twice. They have to be asking themselves, 'What the hell is going to come out of these things?' "
Throughout Iraq, the number of IEDs is declining, but they remain deadly. In November, 25 of the 28 U.S. troops who died in combat were killed by IEDs, according to the Pentagon. So far, in December, seven of 10 combat deaths reported were blamed on IEDs.
Although proven lifesavers — only a few troops have been killed riding in MRAPs — the vehicles are not failsafe. Armor-penetrating explosives, called explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, have breached them in Iraq.
Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, Army deputy chief of staff, says, "Whatever we put a soldier or Marine in, ultimately there is a bigger boom possible, something that can undo that particular design."
As the counterinsurgency strategy has brought relative security to parts of Iraq, new questions are being raised about MRAPs. Are they worth their price tag, $699,000 to $1.5 million each? And, in the long run, will they be of any use to the Marine Corps and the Army when the war in Iraq ends?
It is those considerations that have inspired both the Marine Corps and the Army to publicly discuss cutting their requirements.
On Nov. 30, Marine Corps Commandant James Conway said he would ask the Pentagon to cut the Corps' projected MRAP need to 2,300 vehicles from 3,700. On Dec. 8, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the No. 2 military commander in Iraq, said the Army will probably need fewer than the 10,000 vehicles it originally sought but he has not decided how many.
Gibbs acknowledges the MRAP's limitations. He says the vehicle's turret, which rides more than 12 feet above the road, can rip through the low-hanging electrical wires that hang over Iraqi streets.
Its many advantages, however, are also evident.
Spc. Brian Wilson, 22, says its height also allows the gunner to peer over concrete traffic barriers to see insurgent activity on the other side. "It's a good investment for the Army," he says. "It will save lives."
It already has. Gunner Rosie, a British citizen with a U.S. green card, has no doubt about that. As he thinks about returning home to New York and to his career as a firefighter, Rosie says, "Anything that can give us better protection is really appreciated. It shows that people back home care."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/gallery/n071217_mraps/flash.htm
Ellie