By Ann Roosevelt
The Army is approaching a solution to the long-term use of the many varieties of Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles in heavy use protecting soldiers and Marines in Afghanistan and Iraq, a service official said.
“We don’t have all the answers, but the Army is coming to completion of (deciding) what is the long-term use of MRAPs,” Kevin Fahey, program executive officer, combat support and combat service support (PEO CS & CSS), told Defense Daily at the Association of the United States Army annual conference in Washington, D.C., this week.
There are approximately 20,000 of the MRAP vehicles, in many different variants that make maintenance and sustainment a challenge for Fahey who includes MRAPs in his portfolio.
The Army is considering what to do with the different vehicles, to include the large RG-33L–the mine resistant recovery and maintenance vehicle–an MRAP tow truck–designed by BAE Systems.
“The plan today is to harvest the vehicle and make it a medium mine protection vehicle so it could go to road clearance companies,” Fahey said. That’s what the service is considering–the long-term use–for each MRAP variant.
“That’s the only thing missing…from the program of record,” he said.
Another strategy is working to standardize the vehicles as much as possible, for example, all moving to independent suspension, so the fleet is less complex to maintain and sustain.
Fahey’s portfolio includes the light, medium and heavy tactical vehicle fleets, and his job is managing that fleet. “How do we reset the ones we have, recap–add capability– and buy new,” he said.
The Army is preparing to release as soon as next week its Tactical Wheeled Vehicle strategy on how it plans to acquire, maintain and sustain its fleets. The strategy was briefly posted on the Web then removed to rework the language, an officer said.
The questions are not simple. For example, the light tactical fleet includes 30 versions of Humvees. If upgrades are called for in the strategy, Fahey would want to know what innovations and possibilities are available from industry.
For the future, the Army remains committed to the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV)–where Fahey sees the most room for innovation in the engineering and manufacturing development phase.
Right now, three teams are working the JLTV technology development phase: General Tactical Vehicles (GTV) team of General Dynamics [GD] and AM General, BAE-Navistar Defense LLC, an affiliate of Navistar International Corp. [NAV], and Lockheed Martin [LMT]-BAE (Defense Daily, July 23).
The Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV) trucks come in 17 varieties, some of the earlier ones are being phased out, some bought in the early 1990s are already being reset and new FMTVs are being built.
The heavy fleet, to name just two, the Palletized Load System (PLS) truck and the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT), both produced by Oshkosh Corp. [OSK], raise questions of what is the right number, the right way to reset, recapitalize and buy new, and since the fleet is in pretty good shape, what is the best way to invest over time to keep it that way, he said.
Beyond the light, medium and heavy fleets, there are small density items, such as backhoes and forklifts. “The focus is the supply and support situation,” Fahey said. The Army doesn’t buy many of them, but they must be maintained and sustained. Most were bought straight from commercial companies, such as Caterpillar [CAT] and Case [CNH], and put to work. “Now, every commercial truck is uparmored,” he said.
“We don’t buy a truck today that doesn’t come with an A kit to put B kit armor on,” Fahey said. Now, his office also manages the kits.