By Emelie Rutherford
The Pentagon is waiting to buy any more all-terrain mine-resistant trucks–1,275 more of which now are planned–until an upcoming ground assessment is delivered on the war in Afghanistan, where increased roadside-bomb attacks could alter immediate vehicle needs, an official said.
Marine Corps Systems Command leader Brig. Gen. Michael Brogan told Defense Daily he and other officials met with Defense Secretary Robert Gates last Thursday about hastening the fielding to Afghanistan of both new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected All-Terrain Vehicles (M-ATVs) and existing Mine Resistant Ambush Projected vehicles (MRAPs) modified with independent-suspension systems for off-road driving in Afghanistan.
U.S. troops have suffered an increasing number of casualties in Afghanistan because of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), many of which exploded under up-armored Humvees, trucks more vulnerable to such explosions than MRAPs and M-ATVs are, Brogan said in an interview last Friday. Thus, he said, current plans to order 1,275 more M-ATVs may be impacted by the near-term effort to rush vehicles to Afghanistan and a September ground assessment by Gen. Stanley McCrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan.
Oshkosh [OSK] won a five-way competition in late June for the M-ATV contract. The Pentagon thus far has ordered 3,969 of the vehicles intended for all of the military services, leaving 1,275 pending out of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council-approved requirement of 5,244 M-ATVs.
Pentagon officials now hope to deliver the first M-ATVs to Afghanistan in early October, sooner than previously planned, Brogan said in his office in Quantico, Va.
“(The) MRAP all-terrain vehicle (M-ATV) is designed to replace the up-armored Humvee in Afghanistan, and so we are pulling out all the stops to collapse the schedule and get these vehicles into theater,” he said.
Brogan, the Joint Program Executive Officer for the MRAP program, said the remaining number of M-ATVs to be ordered could change from 1,275.
“We’re probably not going to know the final requirement, or even the next good view of the requirement, until after Gen. McCrystal delivers his assessment to the (defense) secretary in September,” Brogan said.
That’s one of the reasons the Pentagon opted against buying all of the 5,244 M-ATVs from Oshkosh in June and July, Brogan said, and instead left 1,275 of those vehicles not yet ordered. Brogan had told reporters in early July that orders for all of the 5,244 vehicles were expected by the end of July.
The general said last Friday that the most recent order placed with Oshkosh in July, for 1,700 vehicles, ensures that there is not break in production after a planned ramp up to building 1,000 vehicles per month in December. Current orders will continue M-ATV production into much of February, he said.
“This allows theater and the services to assess what their needs are, and then we’ll make the next determination as to how many more to place on order and whether the number’s going to go up or down from 5,244,” Brogan said.
“Part of the calculus,” he added, is determining the effectiveness of the older MRAPs outfitted with independent-suspension systems and “whether or not (they) can fill any of the role in the Marine Corps that was previously planned for M-ATV.”
Some of those modified MRAPs are in Kuwait and will reach Afghanistan before the first M-ATVs do during their anticipated October arrival, Brogan said.
In addition, he said, some force increases are pending approval in Washington, and part of the requirement for 5,244 M-ATVs “is aligned against those force increases.” Thus, he said, “if they’re not approved, then those vehicles aren’t required.”
A “limiting factor” for fielding M-ATVs is the ability of U.S. forces in Afghanistan to receive the trucks, because the pipeline of equipment going into the country is so full, he said.
“We are going to be producing more than they can absorb,” Brogan said. A benefit to this is some of the M-ATVs can be sent to U.S. training bases early in the process, he said.
Oshkosh, since receiving its first M-ATV order on June 30, exceeded its planned July deliveries to the government and is on track to deliver more than the 50 M-ATVs required in August, Brogan said. He said he is “very confident” the company will ramp up production to 1,000 vehicles a month in December.
For the initial MRAP program, all but 31 of the 16,238 planned vehicles have been produced.
There are approximately 9,500 MRAPs in Iraq, though that number is decreasing, and roughly 3,000 in Afghanistan, a number that is increasing, Brogan said.