| The Pentagon
plans to deploy about 3,500 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected
(MRAP) vehicles to Iraq by the year's end, to help protecting
US troops battling improvised explosive devices. The armoured
trucks, designed with raised chassis and a V-shaped undercarriage
are built to withstand the devastating effects of buried IEDs,
mines and roadside IEDs. Initially, completed MRAPs will be
air transported to Iraq. Further shipments will be delivered
by sea, utilizing the sea voyage to install some of the mission
equipment and government furnished equipment (weapon stations,
radios, IED jammers, etc. on the 'plain' vehicles.
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The Pentagon is asking Congress for the approval to fund the
urgent acquisition of Mine Resistant
Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles by transferring nearly
$1.2 billion, in addition to the four billion already earmarked
for the program, to speed up production and delivery of vehicles
to US troops in Iraq by the year’s end. The additional
funding will enable the program manager to expedite orders for
2,650 ahead of schedule, bringing the department’s total
MRAP order to 6,415. “By the end of the year, we hope
to have delivered 3,935 vehicles” said John Young, director
of defense research and engineering and chairman of the Defense
Department’s MRAP task force. Factoring in the time required
to equip those vehicles with jammers,
communication equipment and other gear and to deliver them to
the theater, Young estimated that about 3,500 of the MRAPs will
be in Iraq by Dec. 31.
Congress already has shown solid support for MRAPs. The legislators
added $1.2 billion to the department’s initial $2.6 billion
request for the program for fiscal 2007, Young said. If approved,
the fund transfer to the MRAP program will make it the Defense
Department’s third-largest acquisition program, he noted.
Only the missile defense and Joint Strike Fighter programs will
be bigger.
Four companies currently producing MRAPs have increased their
production rates to keep up with demand – a joint
venture by Force Protection and General Dynamics Land Systems,
International
Trucks and Engines, BAE
Systems and Armor
Holdings' Stewart Stevenson. Protected
Vehicles International and Oshkosh
Trucks have also received pilot orders for less than a hundred
vehicles each. According to Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Michael
Brogan, commander of Marine Corps Systems Command, another company
could soon join the effort if its prototype model measures up.
One of the program's challenges was to develop the supply chain
to support the sudden increase. For example, the tire industry
was able to produce only about 1,000 of the large, heavy-duty
MRAP tires per month in June. To keep pace with plans to build
about 1,300 MRAPs per month by December, at least 6,000 tires
a month would be needed. “We have taken steps to help
two vendors increase their ability to build tires, and we are
buying tires as fast as they can produce them so that we don’t
have a shortage,” Young said. The task force faced similar
issues with steel, axles, engines and other MRAP components,
and is taking similar measures to ensure they’re available,
he said. To help their efforts, Defense Secretary Robert M.
Gates assigned the MRAP program a “DX” rating in
June to ensure other defense programs don’t interfere
with MRAP production, said Young. DX ratings are reserved for
top-priority defense acquisition programs. “The DX rating
provides MRAP the highest-priority access to components and
materials if supplier capacity cannot meet the demand from all
programs,” Young explained.
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