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Army Considers Trading Armor for Speed
Military.com ^ | Feb 12, 2014 | Matthew Cox

Posted on 02/16/2014 11:52:44 AM PST by null and void

For the past decade, armor protection has dominated U.S. combat vehicle programs. Now, maneuver officials are breaking with that tradition, abandoning armor for highly transportable, all-terrain vehicles.

The Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Ga., recently reached out to the defense industry to see if it could build the new Ultra Light Combat Vehicle -- a new effort to equip infantry brigade combat teams with go-anywhere vehicles capable of carrying a nine-man squad.

Lawmakers recently cut most of the funding for the U.S. Army's Ground Combat Vehicle -- a move that has all but killed the high-profile acquisitions effort.

The ULCV instead would be designed to travel 75 percent of the time across country and on rough trails.

Army officials continue to work with the Marine Corps to deliver the Humvee replacement, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. Leaders from both services were forced to pare down expectations for this truck as costs spiraled out of control as officials wanted to increase armor while lightening the overall weight.

Maneuver officials maintain that the ULCV is not competing against the JLTV. The ULCV is designed to fill a capability gap of being large enough to carry a nine-man squad but light enough -- at 4,500 pounds -- to be sling-loaded by a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter.

The only way to achieve this weight and meet the capability is to trade armor protection for speed and mobility, Parker said.

"A lot of the stuff we have seen is more ATV-looking rather than enclosed with a cab," Parker said. "Then again, if someone brings something with a cab, we are not telling them not to."

(Excerpt) Read more at military.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: stupidity; usarmy; usnavy
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To: BwanaNdege

I quoted Sherman in a medium length rant I sent out on 9/12/01.

Would that our national leadership had similar historical grounding. Instead, we got “Islam is a religion of peace,” the expenditure of way too much blood and treasure over far too many years, and damned little to show for it.


61 posted on 02/16/2014 2:29:02 PM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: TADSLOS
This is about the circle of life inside the DoD and defense industry church of procurement. These two things only incidentally match up on rare occasion, like a giant asteroid hitting the earth.

An ungodly sad truism.

62 posted on 02/16/2014 2:29:33 PM PST by Covenantor ("Men are ruled...by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who cannot govern." Chesterton)
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To: dennisw
Google is a search engine? Amazing what one can learn when asking for opinions about naval history. /s
63 posted on 02/16/2014 2:46:13 PM PST by 1rudeboy
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To: arthurus
The Gulf War saw the effective use of a ww2 battleship, actually.

As a standoff weapon, using missiles, where we had air superiority.

64 posted on 02/16/2014 2:49:35 PM PST by 1rudeboy
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Check that, air supremacy.
65 posted on 02/16/2014 2:50:55 PM PST by 1rudeboy
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To: BwanaNdege

Yes they are. “Fight as a combined arms team.” I remember some of that stuff. My Infantry Lieutenants told me that they never wore helmets at Ranger school. I told them that when they outranked me, they could wear whatever they wanted to wear. Panama happened and the story about the guy getting shot in the head and surviving because he had his Kevlar on seemed to change everyone’s mind. Armor, even personal armor, is a pain in the behind until you need it.


66 posted on 02/16/2014 2:52:38 PM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: FreedomPoster

The problem with the West and its relations with Islam are two fold.

One, the fallacious mantra, “Islam is a religion of peace”, even if it were true, ignores the fact that Islam is an entire world view, religion, commerce AND government rolled into one that, by definition, requires dominance.

“Islam” means submission!

Islam demands submission, either voluntarily or because of the sword, to the governance of Islam. Our “intellectual elites” have some fuzzy idea about quaintly praying 5 times every day and making the Haj, “you know, all that National Geographic stuff.” For all their pretensions about Women’s Liberation, the Elites seem to have very little problem with the burka and everything that goes with that mindset.

The second problem with our Western Elite “leaders” is that they are running as hard and fast as they can from God, the one true God of Abraham and Moses, who came to Earth as Jesus to redeem us. The Elites prefer to worship themselves, but often Reality bites them and they are forced to acknowledge a power greater than themselves. Their problem is, many will choose to worship ANYTHING other than God.

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”

C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce


67 posted on 02/16/2014 3:18:04 PM PST by BwanaNdege
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To: 1rudeboy

Battleships depended on air superiority in WW2 in the Pacific. They are finally gone, yes, but it was a long time after their WW2 “demise.”


68 posted on 02/16/2014 3:18:31 PM PST by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson ONLINEhttp://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/)
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To: Tailback
#30 is just tooo damn funny and prolly not far from the mark, your post #34 is 100% spot on!!!

days of suture past...

Steel Wheels...














69 posted on 02/16/2014 3:47:52 PM PST by Chode (Stand UP and Be Counted, or line up and be numbered - *DTOM* -vvv- NO Pity for the LAZY - 86-44)
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To: Chode
Days of FUTURE Past...
70 posted on 02/16/2014 3:54:17 PM PST by Chode (Stand UP and Be Counted, or line up and be numbered - *DTOM* -vvv- NO Pity for the LAZY - 86-44)
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To: null and void

What, no votes from the guys actually riding in these death traps? Why is it that the REMF’s get to make all these decisions?


71 posted on 02/16/2014 4:02:13 PM PST by batterycommander (a little more rubble, a lot less trouble)
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To: FreedomCalls

“it’s inexpensive as hell”

Pity the civvy versions aren’t. New Jeep Wranglers run some $20,000 and up fast. I’m looking for a cheap one that isn’t several decades old.


72 posted on 02/16/2014 4:19:38 PM PST by ctdonath2 (Making good people helpless doesn't make bad people harmless.)
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To: batterycommander

No idea.

There’s a company that builds a little goober that consists of two steel plates with a a pressurized gap between them that has the same powder that goes into a fire extinguisher.

It isn’t very expensive, it doesn’t weigh much, it doesn’t take up much space, and when they make a box of them around a fuel tank it prevents a fire subsequent to an IED explosion some 80% of the time.

The REMFs refuse to buy and incorporate into combat vehicles because it doesn’t suppress a fire 99% of the time.


73 posted on 02/16/2014 4:19:53 PM PST by null and void (<--- unwilling cattle-car passenger on the bullet train to serfdom)
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To: Chode
Fascinating thread. Wish it had not run its course. Saw things I could relate to like working for a general who complained mightily about losing his planes over a major Viet city in a similar win/loose war. As a result he lost his promotion and had to retire. Small issues like using same time, coordinates, altitude and direction so that SAMS could be salvo-ed at the bomber boxes. Good man who wanted to get the job done and his airmen home.
74 posted on 02/16/2014 4:25:14 PM PST by mcshot (We don't know much other then it's fraud.)
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To: mcshot

bump


75 posted on 02/16/2014 4:29:04 PM PST by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans!)
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To: null and void

Right, why would I want a Bradley when I could zoom to Valhalla on a four wheeler with shrapnel flying.


76 posted on 02/16/2014 4:31:23 PM PST by jwalsh07
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To: null and void

The Japanese Zero trade speed for armor and “they blowed up good they blowed up real good”.


77 posted on 02/16/2014 4:36:23 PM PST by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again,")
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To: batterycommander
Source: Army Withholds Anti-Burn Humvee Panels as IED Deaths Continue
78 posted on 02/16/2014 4:43:58 PM PST by null and void (<--- unwilling cattle-car passenger on the bullet train to serfdom)
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To: jim999
"Modern tanks are survivable.

That means you hose them out, replace the electronics and optics, and put in a new crew."

Sounds just like the old Shermans.

79 posted on 02/16/2014 4:46:12 PM PST by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again,")
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To: mcshot
well, it's not dead yet... pls continue
80 posted on 02/16/2014 5:00:32 PM PST by Chode (Stand UP and Be Counted, or line up and be numbered - *DTOM* -vvv- NO Pity for the LAZY - 86-44)
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