By Emelie Rutherford
The Pentagon is expected to order as soon as today thousands of a new off-road variety of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle (MRAP) for troops in Afghanistan.
Congressional, military, and industry sources said they expect just one of five teams that received contracts in April for test vehicles to receive a final production-delivery- order award for the MRAP All-Terrain Vehicle (M-ATV); this jibes with comments in both solicitation documents and from Marine Corps officials that the government wanted one final M-ATV vendor.
That MAT-V order award is expected this week and most likely will be announced at the end of the day today, sources said.
Since the Marine Corps and Army officially acknowledged the new M-ATV program last November, the desired number of vehicles has grown from 2,080 to the current 5,244-tally set by the Pentagon’s Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) on June 2.
Yet the coming order may not be for all of the 5,244 M-ATVs, several non-military sources speculated. The JROC requirement–and thus pricetag–grew as Congress was approving funds for the vehicles in fiscal year 2009, which ends Sept. 30, and FY ’10.
The M-ATV builder will be picked from the five competitors awarded indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts on April 30 for production-ready vehicles: BAE Systems’ Global Tactical Systems business; BAE’s U.S. Combat Systems unit; Oshkosh Corp. [OSK] , Navistar Defense LLC [NAV]; and Force Dynamics LLC, a joint venture between Force Protection, Inc. [FRPT] and General Dynamics Corp. [GD].
M-ATVs, like the MRAPs that preceded them, enjoy strong support on Capitol Hill.
The supplemental war-funding bill for the latter part of FY ’09 that President Obama signed into law on June 24 includes $4.5 billion for the M-ATVs, which is $1.9 billion more the White House requested. The approved FY ’09 supplemental funds, combined with previously appropriated monies, are estimated by sources to cover a vehicle total somewhat close to the previous 2,080 M-ATV requirement, with forthcoming FY ’10 monies covering additional vehicles.
“M-ATVs are urgently needed to protect service members against improvised explosive devices and other threats in Afghanistan,” the House-Senate report on the FY ’09 supplemental states. “These new, lightweight MRAPs operate better than current vehicles in the close urban environments and challenging terrain of Afghanistan. The conferees expect that the Joint Program Office will move rapidly to field these critical force protection assets to the Warfighter.”
For FY ’10, the White House requested $5.5 billion for the MRAP fund, through which M-ATVs are supported. The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), in the FY ’10 defense authorization bill it approved June 25, called for boosting the MRAP funding by $1.2 billion, raising it to $6.7 billion. The version of the authorization passed the House on June 25, though, sticks to the administration’s $5.5 billion request.
House and Senate appropriators have not yet marked up their FY ’10 defense bills.
From late 2006 to 2008, all of the military services tapped multiple contractors for just over 16,200 of the underbelly-blast-deflecting MRAPs for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. The new M-ATV versions are intended to be lighter and more maneuverable in Afghanistan’s mountainous terrain.
M-ATV solicitation documents state the maximum possible M-ATV quantity is 10,000.
Some sources raised the possibility that one or more losing M-ATV bidders may aid the efforts of the winning contractor.
The Army expects to begin producing M-ATVs “by the end of the summer and begin fielding them in the fall,” Army Lt. Gen. Ross Thompson, military deputy to the Army’s top acquisition official, told the SASC on June 16.
While the Army is expected to receive the bulk of the M-ATVs, the other services are slated to buy some as well.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway told reporters on June 2 his service “is not waiting for” the M-ATVs and was proceeding with a project to add independent-wheel suspensions to its existing category 1 MRAPs, to make them better suited for Afghanistan. Conway said at the time he expected 40 of those modified MRAPs to be in theater by “the end of July.” (Defense Daily, June 3).