By Emelie Rutherford
The head of a congressional panel questioned yesterday why the Army needs seven years to develop a new infantry-fighting vehicle and can’t emulate the speedy production of mine-resistant trucks developed for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
House Appropriations Defense subcommittee Chairman Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) quizzed an Army official on why his service doesn’t plan to start fielding the new vehicle–the first one planned for the new brigade combat team modernization effort succeeding the defunct Future Combat Systems (FCS) program–until 2017.
“Given all the work done on the FCS program, the lessons learned in Iraq an Afghanistan…and the experience directly fielding the (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) MRAP vehicles, isn’t seven years a long time?” Dicks said during a hearing on Army and Marine Corps ground equipment. “Why can’t we use the model of the MRAP as the way to go forward on this manned-ground vehicle?”
Army Lt. Gen. William Phillips emphasized that the MRAP program–through which more than 16,000 vehicles were rapidly developed and sent to theater–received special permission to skip steps in the Pentagon acquisition process, and was based on commercial off-the-shelf vehicles.
“It’s a much different acquisition,” said Phillips, the military deputy to the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology.
“We did limited testing and we simply went out to try to (get) the best armored vehicle we could with the requirements that we (had),” he said.
When Phillips noted the multi-service MRAP program had “some mistakes along the way”–which were documented by overseers including the Pentagon’s inspector general–Dicks interjected that those problems were corrected.
“You’ve done better on the quicker (programs),” the HAC-D chairman said. “The ones you’ve taken a long time to do it, the results haven’t been as good as when you expedited it and just said here’s what we need and go do it.”
He cited the canceled FCS, Crusader howitzer, and RAH-66 Commanche helicopter efforts as examples of longer-term yet unsuccessful programs.
Still Phillips–who acknowledged “a great debate” within the Army on the speed of fielding the infantry-fighting vehicle–insisted the defense industry could not build the desired vehicle in a shorter timeframe.
“We’re looking at the requirements that we want for this vehicle to have, a network capability, mobility, efficiencies, force protection,” he said. “It would be very difficult for industry to develop a vehicle that would meet all those requirements (in less time).”
The Army released a request for proposals for the new vehicle in February, and responses are due late next month.
The service hopes to have initial prototypes ready for test and evaluation in 2015, followed by first production two years later, Phillips said.
He noted the speed of the infantry-combat vehicle development is impacted by the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009, which President Barack Obama signed into law in May 2009.
In line with the law, the Army has set out a competitive prototyping strategy. The service plans to choose two or three vehicle offerings developed by industry this September and take them through a 27-month technology-demonstration phase, he said. Then, Army officials plan to select two prototypes for engineering and manufacturing development, he said.
“So that’s following (the) Weapons Systems…Acquisition Reform (Act) of 2009 to carry competitive prototyping all the way through, essentially to production,” Phillips said.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey and Secretary John McHugh faced similar questions on the speed of the infantry-combat vehicle development from the HAC-D during a budget hearing on Tuesday.