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May 09, 2007

Comments

Peter

Defensenews.com is reporting the same story.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=2744949&C=america

Gates per the story is asking a interesting question of the Army. Why are their plans different than the Marines.

"The Marine Corps has indicated an interest in replacing current Humvees in Iraq with the smaller version of the MRAP vehicles, a step which could lead toward replacing the entire Humvee fleet, say U.S. Marine Corps officials. The Army has not indicated similar plans."

Mr. Zippy

Maybe, just maybe, the Army is looking at rolling their proposed Medium Mine Protected Vehicle (MMPV) and their Marine Personal Carrier (MPC) programs in to the MRAP program. If you research the draft RFP's, you will see the requirements are very similar to the Cougar and the newly announced Cheetah, which are both produced by Force Protection, Inc.

Since FPI has already been awarded over $500,000,000 in contracts for their MRAP's (CAT I and CAT II) it would be logical for the military (Army) to continue to leverage their existing logistical capacity.

Plus, by using the MRAP contract as a means for procurement, they would save Program Management money and be able to field the systems well over a year ahead of schedule.

Peter Brown

This raises questions once again as to why Komatsu-built LAVs which first arrived in Iraq with Japanese GSDF personnel in March 2004 were never even considered or subjected to any DoD evaluation. Even months later, in Dec04, DoD drew a complete blank as if these armored vehicles did not exist in their armored vehicle database. This is despite the fact that GSDF had planned to procure a large number of these 4-passenger vehicles. Photos suggest that, among other things, these might have been the first V-shape hulled vehicles deployed in Iraq.

Sean Meade

great comments, guys (?). thanks!

Keith

There is nothing unique about the V-shaped hull design. It's been around for decades in Africa.

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