A new Army report detailing its plans for the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP) fleet is on track to be briefed to the Army’s vice chief of staff in December, according to a service official.
Kevin Fahey, Army’s program executive officer for combat support and combat service support, said the MRAP fleet study will tell the Army where the heavily-armored vehicles will be used in the future, “which will allow us to do real good long-term sustainment planning.”
The Army and Marine Corps have already made some decisions about the seven-variant MRAP fleet, including that the RG-33s will be converted to medium-mine-protection vehicles. The RG-31s already have been transferred to Army for route clearance. The Marine Corps also has decided to keep only Cougar MRAPs.
In terms of future decisions the study will address, “there’s all kinds of courses of action,” Fahey tells reporters Oct. 24 during a briefing at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) annual conference in Washington. That includes whether the Army will mimic the Marine Corps and not keep all of the MRAPs in its fleet.
Fahey said the study should come together in November. Then in December he plans to present the results of the analysis to the vice chief in December during a capability portfolio review.
Multiple companies have built more than 28,000 MRAPs over the past five years, and roughly 24,000 of them were fielded to Iraq and Afghanistan to protect troops from improvised explosive devices. Nearly 13,000 of them are still being used in Afghanistan. Congress appropriated more than $47 billion for MRAPs through fiscal year 2012, according to the Pentagon.
The Pentagon marked the end of MRAP production at an Oct. 1 ceremony that included Vice President Joe Biden and Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. The MRAP is now an official program of record.