By Ann Roosevelt
Production ceased Nov. 20 after more than 5,000 vehicles at BAE Systems‘ facilities for the Caiman and RG33 Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP).
“We’ve been delivering week to weekly contracts from day one,” Chris Chambers, vice president Medium/Heavy Vehicles at BAE Systems, told Defense Daily in a recent interview. The 22-month production run saw deliveries of 2,862 Caiman vehicles and 2,192 RG33 vehicles, the company said. Both vehicles were developed in 2006 to protect ground forces from RPGs, IEDs and explosively formed projectiles The first production contracts were awarded in 2007.
“The Caiman is still has the highest sustained operational readiness rate [95 percent] of any MRAP that’s out there,” Chambers said. “From our perspective we’re expecting the Army very shortly to effectively take the Caiman under it’s wing and start to manage the Caiman alongside FMTV which is what we’ve been trying to encourage, because of course, Caiman shares an awful lot of its parts with FMTV.”
For example, he said, “When a soldier jumps in a Caiman it looks exactly like an armored FMTV.”
BAE is discussing with the Army is that Caiman a way to move to a fleet strategy.
“It’s my understanding there’s no further requirement on the current MRAPs,” Chambers said. “That’s not to say there’s not another requirement for MRAP-type vehicles because we are getting indications that there’s an urgent requirement coming out for much, much lighter vehicles, much more mobile vehicles.”
BAE wouldn’t offer the current Caiman configuration for such a light MRAP, but does intend to offer and use the expertise garnered from working with Caiman and other vehicles for such an emerging requirement.
Internationally, the Caiman is available. “We have actually remained relatively under the radar, in terms of people’s recognition of MRAP, and I think part of that is because what we tended do was spend our time and effort on delivery to contract, which we did very successfully so now it’s time for us to go out and say actually all of you out there don’t overlook Caiman because in my opinion it is the best value for money MRAP that is out there,” he said.
The Caiman competes well on cost to the protective level, Chambers said. It is adaptable. “Again, it’s not recognized by many, but Caiman is based on an appliqu� system which can also be taken off. So if the threat reduces you can actually take that appliqu� off, save weight, be more economic and use the vehicle perhaps more that you would normally.”
Caiman, manufactured among six BAE facilities, is named for a crocodilian species that is not found in the United States. Chambers said the name “Caiman” came from one of the lead engineers who had just returned from a South American holiday, saw a photo of an early prototype of the vehicle and remarked it looked just like the South American crocodilian beast.