By Emelie Rutherford
The Pentagon yesterday placed $612 million worth of orders with General Dynamics [DG] and BAE Systems for 813 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPS), according to a contract announcement.
Because the Pentagon recently shifted funds to arrange for buying 1,576 MRAPs, it appears more orders are on the way for the vehicles with V-shaped bottoms designed to protect troops in Iraq and Afghanistan from underbelly blasts.
Marine Corps Systems Command (MARCORSYSCOM), which is managing the program for all the services, placed with General Dynamics a $552 million delivery order for 773 RG-31 category I MRAPs with engineering change proposal (ECP) upgrades to better protect them from explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), according to the announcement. The vehicles are intended for the Army.
MARCORSYSCOM also ordered from a BAE division in York, Pa., 40 MRAPs with technical-insertion ECPs, at a cost of $60.2 million. Of those vehicles, 36 are category I MRAPs for U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), two are RG-33 category II vehicles, and two are RG-33 category II ambulance vehicles, the announcement says.
Pentagon Comptroller Tina Jonas notified lawmakers on July 3 that the Defense Department intended to transfer $1.737 billion out of its MRAP Vehicle Fund for FY ’08 to buy 1,576 vehicles for the Army and 34 for SOCOM (Defense Daily, July 9). The number of MRAPs ordered yesterday for SOCOM is 36.
“The transfer also provides equipment for vehicles and upgrades such as mobility and survivability enhancements for vehicles already procured,” Jonas wrote in letters to the congressional defense and appropriations committees’ leaders.
The funds will cover government furnished equipment (GFE) for the Army vehicles including radios for communication, Driver’s Vision Enhancer (DVE) for troops to drive at night without night-vision goggles, and Blue Force Tracker (BFT) tools that provide the location of friendly forces during combat operations, according to a Pentagon document detailing the MRAP money transfer.
For the SOCOM vehicles, the monies will fund the same GFE, as well as “Forward-Looking Infrared (FLIR) systems for high resolution thermal imaging capability [and] ROVER III portable terminals for video situational awareness,” the document says.
Companies that have been building MRAPs include BAE, International Military and Government (IMG), Force Protection Industries [FRPT], and General Dynamics.
The Army’s current MRAP requirement–approved by the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) in March–is a range of 10,433 to 15,884 vehicles, with a target of 12,000. Yesterday’s orders do not raise the Army’s total to 12,000.
The overall MRAP requirement for all of the services–most of which have ordered all their planned vehicles–is thus also a range, from just over 14,000 vehicles to just under 20,000.
Commanders in Afghanistan have requested more MRAPs, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Wednesday. Most of the MRAPs fielded have been sent to Iraq, with approximately 800 in Afghanistan.
The unofficial MRAP request from Afghanistan, from Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, commander of Combined Task Force 101 at Bagram Airfield, was relayed to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen when he visited the country. The commanders want the RG-31 MRAP, produced by General Dynamics, Morrell said.