Armor shell games & body bags

Corruption and /or incompetence in government contracting goes as far back as records are kept and if history tells us anything of these situations, it is that eternal vigilance is simply an integral part of the cost of purchasing goods and services.

The subject is modern armor for our troops – something that has been in short supply for a while now and has become increasingly valuable in tactical, political and financial terms. For decades, there has been an increasing trend in the military to provide protection to people on the pointy end of our spear via body armor and vehicle armor.

With the advent of a guerrilla-style campaign in Iraq and Afghanistan, our military purchasing planners once again have been overcome with an excess of reality as the number of people they envisioned having the tactical need for armor has undergone an exponential upward shift – kind of like today's pressing need for ammunition – as five years ago when today's ammo and armor acquisitions were laid out under Clinton's watch, the possibility of a war was simply not factored in. How silly, they thought – “We” don't “do” wars.

So, today, the movers and shooters in the military have to husband what protective materials they get most carefully and, in fact, they are doing as good a job as could possibly be expected, given what they have work with. However, the unstated cost of this has been the stripping of armor and armor products from the rest of the Army. What this does is place any Army units deployed to a new combat area in the near term to be at risk for significantly higher casualty rates because of the lack of armor.

But this is not true at the industrial, testing and acquisition part of the military logistics chain. A brief examination of what we use in the field, and why, is in order here.

A number of years ago, we adopted an armored version of the HUMVEE, the M-1114 and thought to provide them to units we thought could make good use of them – mostly military police units. But, as happens in war, we found that some gear is far more useful due to the changes in enemy tactics we have adapted to. There is also the fact that the M-1114 is one very expensive item, having had to be redesigned, mechanically upgraded and strengthened almost from the ground up because its armor is so heavy.

Overloading a vehicle causes it to break down much more frequently, as well as diminish its combat usefulness, as less equipment and troops can be carried in each one. In a recent presentation on an internal analysis of vehicle and equipment morbidity in Iraq, the Army cites overall weight and environmental conditions as the significant factors in a widespread failure to maintain our vehicles in operational condition.

Our always-adaptable troops have taken to putting many different types of field-expedient armor on the composite-framed standard HUMVEE, but at a very substantial weight penalty and with variable effectiveness in preventing casualties. The reason they have done this is because the present armor kits (that don't always fit the tactical needs) in the inventory are prohibitively expensive and in very short supply.

These last two items go hand in hand – price and availability. Because of the price, the military simply cannot afford to buy many of these items – this is just the reality of budgets and it affects the industrial base as fewer potential orders means a lack of business investment in output capacity. But this view assumes the technology and its costs are stable – a very major assumption.

Take for instance the very expensive "SAPI" ceramic body-armor inserts that have been in desperately short supply. The Army will be almost up to supplying the needs in combat areas this month (if suppliers meet their deadlines, but none of them are). But as the Army leadership is most carefully prioritizing who gets them, the flipside is that very few of our units not in an active combat area have them and no protective gear will go back with units as they rotate out of theater. So we are still in a shortage situation overall and therefore can expect an increased casualty rate in any combat-exposed units that are deployed to another hot spot.

But why is this? One answer lies within the community that develops the standards for items that the military buys. In the case of body armor, it has been said in industry circles that the size tolerances for the ceramic plates are "tighter" than currently used production technology can routinely meet. From an engineering standpoint, it is projected that this is the result of trying to conserve expensive component materials, but has created vastly increased expenses from size-rejected inserts coming off the production line.

Companies making them must charge for this, resulting in a far higher per accepted-unit cost. In an effort to mitigate this waste, companies have taken to grinding down the edges to meet the tight specifications, but in doing so, this can create micro-cracking of the ceramic material's matrix that could cause it to fail if hit by a bullet along its periphery ... but at least it is now within the contract size specs. Currently, only one company has achieved a production backlog of just 3,000 units, but that is far better than the performance of its peers.

Nonetheless, one of the hurdles that any product sold to the military must pass is performance testing and, for the ballistic armor sold to the Army, that means the testing center in Aberdeen, Md. There are a number of penetration standards existent within the industry, such as from Underwriters Laboratory, the National Institute of Justice, law enforcement and corrections. But while these are good enough for the CIA and the FBI, the Army requires companies to go through Aberdeen's Test Center so that items may be tested under simulated field conditions and so as to prevent any tampering with test results in aid of a fraud against the government.

Funding is always a key issue in discussions of this type and this is no exception within the zero-sum scenario. Even callously withholding the human costs from consideration, casualties still cost a lot of money. If you can reduce the number of casualties, it follows that you can spend that money elsewhere to good effect.

Since Sept. 11, suppliers of military-related products and services have enjoyed resurgence of demand, and established armor suppliers have reaped the financial benefits. Because of the increased level of demand there have been new companies entering the marketplace with innovative products that are more cost effective than those already in the inventory. The situation becomes even more fluid when you consider that the present suppliers do not have the manufacturing capacity to supply all the potential orders even if the improvements in technology and new cost efficiencies were not present.

Given the high level of overall expenditures generated by a war, it would seem that simultaneously being able to economize while significantly improving the overall fighting effectiveness of our forces and reduce casualties (and their attendant high costs) would be win-win-win situation that the Pentagon would embrace, but this is not the case when it comes to armor for the Army.

Here are but two examples of the inexplicable problems concerning armor acquisitions that have surfaced.

Deploying units had contacted U.S. Global Nanospace, based in Nevada, to develop an effective, but lighter weight product than those already approved, but not readily available. A newcomer to military armor contracts, USGN had seemingly passed all of the hurdles posed by the acquisitions system by early December and publicly announced that they had an approved effective, lower-cost /weight armor. But USGN had limited success getting its products through the purchasing hoops and into the supply stream, despite its clear superiority to its armored steel equivalent.

From Jan. 5-10, Aberdeen was slated to conduct additional testing specifically to satisfy the urgent armor requirements, yet the results are being withheld despite repeated inquiries. Aberdeen has met these reasonable requests with silence and has now failed to return any calls made to them. In a normally routine and transparent process, the sudden shut down of all communication and their arbitrary actions are becoming alarming.

In this case, the low-cost USGN HUMVEE applique kits weigh a mere 300 pounds compared to the 2,200-pound steel product presently approved. This significant weight reduction and cost savings would solve a number of important vehicle reliability issues, including those noted above. Why would a product such as this be withheld?

Army units getting ready to deploy to Iraq are in a quandary because even though they have pre-deployment orders, they can't acquire armor kits, such as for the HUMVEE, except through a nearly year-long acquisitions process. Because a year's advance warning is not given to units chosen to deploy, additional body and vehicle armor is therefore not available to it before it deploys.

The acquisition rules presently in place preclude it from using many of the services of the "Rapid Equipping Taskforce" until it is actually deployed in a combat area, so the system essentially has placed a "Catch-22" situation between the unit getting the armor it needs before it starts taking casualties. Nobody in the acquisitions portion of the logistics bureaucracy seems to have questioned the monetary, human and political costs of retaining peacetime rules in a wartime scenario.

While all of this is going on, the Army's 1st Cavalry division has also been preparing to deploy and looked at the high-cost kits long approved by the Army for its standard HUMVEEs before it goes into the combat zone of Iraq. So the 1st Cavalry turned to Global Technologies, a small Texas company – run by a veteran of that unit – to get at least some of its "soft" vehicles hardened with armor, specifying that the armor has to stop a bullet from an AK-47, the ubiquitous small arm of the Middle East, as the basic Army standard for such armor requires.

What happened next in this situation is both a small miracle and a nightmare. The armor product developed by Ballistic Solutions – a subsidiary of this Texas upstart – not only worked in independent UL standard tests, but is 20 percent lighter than the presently approved vendor’s composite offerings. And, it was offered to be sold to the 1st Cavalry – at an acceptable profit – for about 80 percent less money than what the presently approved vendor charged for its products, although without the ballistic glass with fittings that the 1st Cavalry specifically did not want.

Additionally, it is field-repairable, though it is kind of homely-looking when compared to the "pretty" stuff currently approved. Now five times as many of the "soft" HUMVEEs the division has could have been protected, the troops could safely carry more gear and the unit could be more effective – and their leaders also knew this would equal fewer casualties.

At the end of last October, when the division's commander went through the paperwork to actually buy the product, the Army soon said "No," it needed to be tested at Aberdeen first. So Bill Frazier, the company's president, immediately next-day-air freighted the samples to the lab and, being brand new to military contracts, neglected to send the written pro-forma proprietary declaration with the materials since he was verbally assured by Aberdeen that it will be treated as such and the testing will be expedited. After all, his old unit needed this product to protect their young soldiers.

Time passed and eventually the company got a phone call back from a staffer at Aberdeen who said "You didn't fail, but you didn't do as well as some other armor we tested." After that, nobody at Aberdeen would return Global Technologies calls, nor was a written report sent. However, a field-grade military staffer at Aberdeen did exchange a few e-mails with the company, then shortly cut them off by stating "This is a very busy office" and referred them to the Public Affairs Office for further non-specific and /or non-responsive answers.

The materials that Global Technologies and U.S. Global Nanospace submitted to Aberdeen have not been selected for field-testing in Iraq either.

And according to a Dec. 24 piece, "Up in Armor" by Bob Cox in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Pentagon's spokesman, Maj. Gary Tallman said: "... that even if Frazier's armor were to prove adequate, the Army would probably opt to buy a superior, albeit heavier and more expensive, armor. That's just the culture here ...”

As for the troopers of the 1st Cavalry division, they’ll just have to make do with whatever they can get.

But it gets still curiouser: Nobody "inside" the acquisitions system is talking to anybody about this issue. Professionals within the armor business for decades are actually getting the "you-don't-want-to-be-asking-about-this-for-your-own-good" kind of responses from colleagues that Hollywood conspiracy films have long favored. Long-time industry insiders have told me they have never seen this kind of a response to a simple matter of testing materials for suitability.

Even if the technical aspects of the test results were to become classified, as sometimes happens, there is still a written report issued that states the test was performed and whether the material passed or failed, as well as the standard that was used.

In discussions with members of the support and procurement community, it has been alleged that about a decade ago, Aberdeen had been suspected of irregularities in testing procedures and of other malfeasance relating to the early development of the Bradley fighting vehicle. After the post-mortem of the Bradley situation, the Army formed the "Joint Live Fire Office" to address some of the issues that had been raised.

Given the items above, there seem to be a number of likely questions for any external investigation to answer.

In light of the circumstances of the long-approved products becoming unexpectedly non-competitive in the military-armor marketplace due to the financial and performance efficiencies achieved by the two independently produced products – why has Aberdeen refused to issue written reports, reversed its own approvals and inexplicably retained some of the submitted test samples that they now say have not been tested?

Has the Army's acquisitions quality watchdog – Aberdeen – and the Pentagon become directly corrupted by commercial influences? If so, why and to what extent?

Why has the Army declined to protect several times as many troops at the same expenditure levels within the same category of already approved funding?

I would hope that the answers to these questions lay in more benign explanations, but there is one thing the troops and I know for certain: Body bags are not in short supply, even if funding and armor is.

This writer provided the information above – along with corroborating evidence – to Republican Congressman Rob Simmons (2nd District, Conn.) who went public on WTIC’s "Connecticut Today Show" on Monday, Feb. 2, and declared that he was taking the membership of the House Armed Services Committee to Aberdeen next week where they will require the armor to be shot at for testing, so they can witness it.

If the materials pass, they will force the Army to get the armor to the troops. Congressman Simmons went on to say that some 60 companies had been stonewalled by Aberdeen and /or were willing to manufacture armor under license in order to provide our troops with the equipment they need and that the situation of single manufacturer, who can not meet our needs, will be ended.

An interview with General Peter J. Schoomaker, Army Chief of Staff

You may have seen what we are doing with the Rapid Fielding Initiative: we are equipping now the three National Guard brigades that are going over. They are getting the very best equipment. Top of the line stuff. We have worked the armored vest, maximized production, increased from one to six vendors. This month we have finally provided enough body armor for every soldier in Iraq.

On the question of up-armored humvees, we are approaching that from multiple avenues. We have ramped up production, going from producing 80 up-armored humvees a month to 120.

We are spending over a billion dollars this year to better equip our soldiers. This is a big investment in soldiers. Our central focus is on the soldier.

As a former infantry officer, this shows another reason why I have never liked Aberdeen. I also have seen this problem first hand with Aberdeen. I raised a safety issue with them, and I will always be convinced I lost a contract because of my action. The fix was simple and presented to them. I just hope I wasn't blown off and later hear about soldiers dying because of it. I was involved in submitting a proposal in their SBIR program on the development of a plastic 5.56mm casing (it is really easy to do and a good idea...). I discovered a problem in their requirements not showing a need for Electro Static Dissipative (ESD)resin. Plastic normally builds electrical charges (gunpowder & electricity don't mix well). ESD plastics stop charges from building .... to make a long story short .... I'm sure I was blown off and I hope no one dies because of it.

April 6, 1945 USS Bush DD-529

April 6, 1945 USS Colhoun DD-801

April 12, 1945 USS Manert L Abel DD-733

April 16, 1945 USS Pringle DD-477

May 3, 1945 USS Little DD-803

May 3, 1945 USS Luce DD-522

May 4, 1945 USS Morrison DD-560

May 28, 1945 USS Drexler DD-741

June 10, 1945 USS William D Porter DD-579

June 16, 1945 USS Twiggs DD-591

July 28, 1945 USS Callaghan DD-792

Was pure incompetence within the Navy the root cause of tin can losses to kamikazes off Okinawa? Did Republican senators grill Admiral King about replacing destroyers with battleships?

All sailors couldn't be assigned to battleships back then. Some had to do their duty in unarmored destroyers. Far too many died in the performance of that duty. Was that the Navy's fault, or did the Japanese have something to do with it?

It is not too much to ask that effective body armor and vehicular protection be provided in a timely manner. If in WWII we can produce 40,000 Sherman Tanks, it seems well within our power to make an incremental 2000 armored humvees and a few thousand retrofit kits within a few months. To say it will take 2 years to bring 4000 armored humvees into theater is B.S. of the first order. As I think you will find, most of the contracts have not even been let by the army and a research on the topic will show sufficient production capacity for both body armor and vehicular protection exists, but has for some reason not be contracted for, yet in theater, they are jerry-rigging vehicles with whatever material they can get their hands on.

This was taken from today's armed services committee hearing.

"BEN NELSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, General, it's a pleasure to be able to recognize the men and women in the military and the wonderful job that they do. It's also a sobering experience for my colleagues and I to call the parents, the spouses of those who have been lost in Iraq or anywhere around the world. My question today is going to be a basic question. General Pace, last November I asked Acting Secretary of the Army Brownlee when every soldier in Iraq would be equipped with the most advanced body armor. I asked this question after a constituent called my office to complain that his son was conducting house-to-house searches in Iraq and still wearing Kevlar. Secretary Brownlee said that all troops in Iraq would have the advanced body armor by December. My question, of course, is, do you know if this is now the case? PACE: Sir, it is the case. In fact, it was January, last month, that 100 percent of DOD, military and civilians, in Iraq had been issued to them individually the advanced body armor. And as we rotate the force, before they go into Iraq, the new troops will have issued to them the new body armor. And thanks to the funding of Congress, we have been able to take the initial capacity of industry -- when this war began, it was still in the technology environment -- we were able to take that 1,600-set- per-month capacity and we have built it up now, thanks to your funding, to 25,000 sets per month. PACE: So we have met the objective and we will be able to ensure that everyone continues to have it as they enter this country. BEN NELSON: Well, I now hear that the 1057th Transportation Company, part of the 37th Theater Company, isn't outfitted with advanced body armor. They have some newer vests, but not the insert of the body armor. And their mission, as you may know, is the transportation of supplies and personnel into southern Iraq, which then also takes them into harm's way on a very regular basis. Do you know whether they have or can you look into that if you don't know whether they have it by now? PACE: Sir, I will find out specifically whether or not every soldier in that unit has currently that. I can tell you for a fact that there are sufficient sets in Kuwait and in Iraq to have every single servicemember and DOD civilian have their own personal set and it is the plan to -- as they rotate, to ensure that each gets a set before they go in. But I will find out on that unit. BEN NELSON: Well, I thank you. And I know that all of you are committed to the best protection for our men and women in uniform and so you can appreciate the fact that when a call comes in from a parent concerned about the safety of his son or daughter, that that's a matter of critical interest and as well it should be. So I'll communicate that information back to that very concerned parent. PACE: Thank you, sir.

Take for instance the very expensive "SAPI" ceramic body-armor inserts that have been in desperately short supply. The Army will be almost up to supplying the needs in combat areas this month (if suppliers meet their deadlines, but none of them are). But as the Army leadership is most carefully prioritizing who gets them, the flipside is that very few of our units not in an active combat area have them and no protective gear will go back with units as they rotate out of theater.

Speaking for my own experience, but my son will be on the ground in Iraq very, very shortly as they finish their "area-specific training." I asked him POINTEDLY about Sapi. He says that he has it and so does ALL of his unit.

They are a heavy com. engr. unit going to construction projects as near as I can tell -- not frontline troops.

I was relieved. Everything has been recently issued.

As a chaplain from the army, I believe I know when smoke is being blown. Are there some lowlifes in the procurement world...yes. But, having served in a variety of units that were in a constant R&D cycle (TF 160 was one), let me tell you that the commanders ON THE GROUND are intense about any new stuff ACTUALLY WORKING. Not only does their career hinge on it, but so does their troops lives and their own lives.

Finally, also as a chaplain; let me encourage you to pray daily for our troops.

There are some pieces of this story that don't ring true - think there is room to be skeptical.

That said, the bureaucracy has been slow to get off the mark on this one. PM HMWWV's first response was that he didn't have a "requirement" for vehicle kits - bureaucratic jargon for "I'm not going to do anything until I get a piece of paper to cover my rear end". He has since changed his tune and has found a vendor to produce kits

Meanwhile, two other Army agencies found vendors, figured ways around the bureaucratic roadblocks, and have shipped kits to Iraq. In one case, two young Majors personally off-loaded kits from the pallets at the Bagdhad airport and personally bolted the kits on unit vehicles. The next day, one of these vehicles was involved in an IED attack and the crew emerged uninjured - they owe their lives to the kit.

The company mentioned in this article is one of four companies being evaluated for a phase II effort. Lots of people peddling their wares out there - some of it is good stuff - some of it is junk. Don't know how these guys stack up, but the bottom line is that kits are getting to the troops.

As for those advocating letters and emails to their Congress criters, I recommend that they save their electrons. The blowhards on the Hill will try to make political hay out of this, but a big reason that the bureaucrats have screwed this up is that the Congress wrote the acquistion laws so that they could meddle in the process to ensure that their constituents get a cut of the action. The system is set up so that acquistion guys can't make quick, common sense decisions.

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