Posted on 12/14/2004 8:49:42 PM PST by Former Military Chick
The Pentagon yesterday blamed miscommunication for the Army's not capitalizing on a firm's ability to produce more armored Humvee utility vehicles for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The issue goes back to last Wednesday in Kuwait, when Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld heard an Army National Guardsman complain about a lack of armored vehicles.
After the well-publicized complaint, Armor Holdings Inc., the sole-source provider of Humvee armor, announced that it could produce an additional 100 armored Humvees monthly, if only the Army had asked.
The soldier's question and Armor Holdings' statement helped fuel a rash of negative press reports about Mr. Rumsfeld and whether the Pentagon was doing all it could to get more armor into Iraq, where troops face hidden explosives that rip apart vehicles.
Larry Di Rita, Pentagon chief spokesman, laid the problem squarely on miscommunication between the Army and Armor Holdings.
"The company was operating at the maximum capacity for what the Army was ordering," Mr. Di Rita told reporters at the Pentagon. "It had other capability, but it required retooling to be able to do what the Army wanted. The Army was operating under the belief that this company could make no more than ... 450 up-armored Humvees a month."
The ubiquitous Humvee has a number of uses: patrol, missile platform, tactical command post and ambulance.
Before the Iraq war, the Army required relatively few armored Humvees. On a traditional battlefield, Humvees generally stayed away from the line of fire.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Hmmmmm......
LVM
Waita justa galldarnminnit. Just yesterday some dang pajama dihn on here posted the Public Law stating only 450/mo were authorized by congress for purchase. Which isit.
Hush....the MSM doesn't need anymore help.
Ox, what's goin on here?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1300302/posts
When was the last time that we had a traditional battlefield? Since WWI we have to assume when we are engaged with an enemy, we are all in danger. There is rear areas, the Scud that hit the folks in GWI confirmed that.
FWIW - from what I have read the Stryker can not handle an RPG-7, which is a very common weapon. To protect against the RPG-7 the Stryker requires the upgraded armor. Why even design, much less buy, an armored vehicle that can't defeat an RPG-7?
OOOOCH...OOOOUCH...HOT POTATO....
The company HAD to know about the "armor" issue from all the scuttlebutt that's been going on since that Quartermaster company balked at a run without it. I would have expected the armor-making company to come to Army and say, "This is what we're contracted to do for you. This is what we're capable of if we do x, y, and z. Why don't we work out a deal where you get more armor for your vehicles and we get a bigger contract?"
Goodness knows NOTHING is that cut and dried where bureaucracy and money are concerned, but Rumsfeld could have been in a position to point to a contractor and say, "We are working with this company on exactly that issue as of last month. We expect to turn this situation around damn soon."
But as a another poster said, the snarl is unsnarled now, so, let's get moving.
Since the Humvee was originally meant to replace the Jeep, and not be in the thick of battle, it's obvious that the Humvee isn't being used properly in the Iraqi campaign.
It wouldn't be surprising if the Army soon introduced an armored platform that could cruise the streets of Iraq without the pitfalls of the Humvee.
Posted on 12/13/2004 9:03:15 AM CST by OXENinFLA
S.2401
Department of Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005
SEC. 112. UP-ARMORED HIGH MOBILITY MULTI-PURPOSE WHEELED VEHICLES OR WHEELED VEHICLE BALLISTIC ADD-ON ARMOR PROTECTION.
(a) AMOUNT- Of the amount authorized to be appropriated for the Army for fiscal year 2005 for other procurement under section 101(5), $610,000,000 shall be available for both of the purposes described in subsection (b) and may be used for either or both of such purposes.
(b) PURPOSES- The purposes referred to in subsection (a) are as follows:
(1) The procurement of up-armored high mobility multi-purpose wheeled vehicles at a rate up to 450 such vehicles each month.
(2) The procurement of wheeled vehicle ballistic add-on armor protection.
(c) ALLOCATION BY SECRETARY OF THE ARMY- (1) The Secretary of the Army shall allocate the amount available under subsection (a) between the two purposes set forth in subsection (b) as the Secretary determines appropriate to meet the requirements of the Army.
(2) Not later than 15 days before making an allocation under paragraph (1), the Secretary shall transmit a notification of the proposed allocation to the congressional defense committees.
(d) PROHIBITION ON USE FOR OTHER PURPOSES- The amount available under subsection (a) may not be used for any purpose other than a purpose specified in subsection (b).
Army could have bought more armored Humvees
Military understated how many can be made; Senate panel approves $1.2 billion for vehicles, armor
In-Depth Coverage
By Ted Evanoff
While U.S. troops facing ambush in Iraq for months demanded more armored Humvees, top Army officials insisted they were ordering as many of the trucks as could be made in Indiana and armored in Ohio.
They turned out to be wrong. Last fall, Army officials insisted that 80 armored Humvees could be produced a month, then raised that estimate to 220. In reality, AM General Corp. of South Bend and Armor Holdings of Fairfield, Ohio, are capable of turning out hundreds more a month, according to company officials.
On Thursday, a Senate panel came up with $1.2 billion for up to 6,000 more of the armored Humvees.
The Senate Armed Services Committee appropriated $618 million for the reinforced trucks and $610 million more to be spent on truck armor. The measure, an amendment sponsored by Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., still must pass the full Senate.
The secretary of the Army said in November that the military was buying every armored Humvee that could be made.
Politicians and parents pointed out that the factories could turn out thousands more of the steel-plated trucks.
"They have consistently underestimated the need for this kind of protection for our troops," Bayh said. "Unfortunately, soldiers have been killed because of that."
U.S. casualties mounted through the summer and fall as guerrillas attacked the thin-skinned Humvees. The Pentagon has not said how many of the 776 U.S. deaths or 3,864 wounded through Tuesday occurred in regular Humvees and other work trucks, but unofficial estimates by Newsweek magazine and some soldiers' parents place the number at a quarter to a third.
Thursday's appropriation measure would open the way for production of 450 armored models a month by fall. The current production rate, which has been gradually ratcheted up since November, is 250 a month, with a goal this summer of 300 a month.
About 2,200 armored models are in Iraq now, most of them rounded up from U.S. Army bases worldwide as the insurgency escalated. The Army, which began the war with 235 of the fortified trucks in Iraq, now figures it needs at least 4,454 there.
Only after politicians in Washington prodded the Army did the procurement orders rise last fall above the 80-a-month level.
AM General is the lone producer of Humvees, a medium-duty truck that replaced the jeep in 1984. The company's 700-employee Mishawaka plant can assemble 18,000 Humvees a year. Last year the plant had orders for fewer than 6,000. Nearly a third were for foreign countries.
Basic models intended for armoring are shipped to suburban Cincinnati, where O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt puts steel plates and Kevlar in the roof, floor and sides and adds ballistic windows.
An armored model costs $200,000 to $250,000, compared with $125,000 for a regular Humvee.
Robert Mecredy, a president of Armor Holdings, which owns O'Gara-Hess, said he "started going ballistic" last fall when he realized O'Gara-Hess was considered the bottleneck. "I put on a full-court press to address the notion that Armor Holdings was incapable of meeting the requirements."
Urged by Bayh and others on the Armed Services Committee, the Army raised procurement orders to 220 a month in November, Mecredy said.
Troops in Iraq pleaded for more.
"My son called me the week before he was killed," said Brian Hart, of Bedford, Mass. "He said they were getting shot at all the time. They were in unarmored Humvees and were out there exposed to the fire. He was concerned they were going to get hit. He was literally whispering this into the phone to me. He was right. That's how he died."
John Hart, a private first class in the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade, was killed in a Humvee on Oct. 18 near Kirkuk.
Brian Hart said he met Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., at his son's funeral Nov. 4 at Arlington National Cemetery. Hart passed on his son's message.
Two weeks later, Kennedy grilled Les Brownlee, the secretary of the Army, in a routine Armed Services Committee hearing. Asked whether the Pentagon was obtaining enough armored Humvees, Brownlee responded, "I've been assured we're buying everything they can produce," according to a Nov. 19 transcript.
Hart said he phoned O'Gara-Hess officials and learned the armorer could expand production. In December, Hart alerted several politicians' staff members. The information reached Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., an Armed Services Committee member.
Reed toured the Ohio plant and confirmed Hart's information. "For the longest time they were willing to produce many more vehicles than the Army was ordering," Reed said.
Pressed by Bayh, Kennedy, Reed and others, Brownlee toured AM General and O'Gara-Hess in February. Orders for the armored vehicles soon escalated to 300 a month. The Ohio plant is ramping up for that now.
Bayh said he thinks the Army stuck to its order for 220 Humvees a month to try to keep the cost of the war down.
"People in the Pentagon were aware these vehicles could be produced in larger numbers."
Maj. Gary Tallman of the Army procurement and technology office said Wednesday: "You had to take into consideration how much we had. We have competing priorities for resources."
------------------------------------
Humvee production
The rise in insurgent attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq during recent months has highlighted the need for additional armored Humvee troop transports. Here are some statistics about the increased pace of their production:
Armored Humvees produced
Long regarded as a vehicle for military police, armored Humvees, which can withstand rifle fire and land mines, are being built in greater numbers as front-line fighting vehicles to face the insurgency in Iraq.
2000: 500 Humvees
2001: 540 Humvees
2002: 650 Humvees
2003: 847 Humvees
2004: (estimated) 2,000
2005: (estimated) 5,400
Details on the modified vehicles
A soldier's safety is dramatically increased if the vehicle has been fortified.
Heavily modified Humvees
Of the nearly 12,000 Humvees in Iraq, about 1,500 to 2,000 are armored.
They are capable of stopping AK-47 bullets, rocket-propelled grenades, most roadside bombs and mines.
Armored vehicles cost $200,000 to $250,000 apiece, compared with about half that for a "soft-skin."
M1114 armored Humvee specifications
Length: 196.5 inches Width: 74 inches Curb weight: 9,800 pounds Accelerates: 0-50 in 17.84 seconds Tires: 30-mile run-flat range Range: 275 miles
Sources: Armor Holdings, Senate Armed Services Committee, AM General Corp., The Associated Press and Globalsecurity.org
U.S. commanders welcome new Humvees
Request dates to 2003
Sgt. Eric Grill, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said the request for boosted production first came in 2003, after homemade roadside bombs — known as improvised explosive devices — emerged as the insurgent weapon of choice in Iraq.
“We recognized this and changed our tactics to deal with the enemy,” Grill said.
The most coveted Humvee among troops in Iraq is the M1114, which has protected glass windows and armament on its sides, front, rear, top and bottom.
“It’s known as an uparmored Humvee,” Grill said.
Almost 6,000 such Humvees already are in Iraq, he added. They cost about $150,000 each.
Lt. Gen. John Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, says the M1114 is the “best uparmored vehicle in the world.” It can stop AK-47 bullets, anti-personnel RPGs and most roadside bombs and mines.
“We’ve had those hit with unbelievable improvised explosive devices, where they have blown the tires and the engine off, crushed up the back and the four Marines or soldiers have gotten out, shaken off, and were (back) into the fight,” Sattler told The Associated Press.
“But sometimes it just takes time to get the assembly line to produce and I guess you can only go so fast in that area.”
hmmm, lessee if I can follow the Army-Pentagon-Congress-Contractor line of thought and negotiations.
Army - What we need is something that can navigate the tight streets and alleys of urban warfare -we need small Sherman tanks, light but tough, fast, manuverable, and plenty of firepower.
Pentagon - No way, Jose. That's old outdated stuff - we need new high tech gear. We need up-armored, bullet-proofed glassed, Range Rovers with night vision, laser cannons and rocket launchers inter-changeable with flame throwers and mine/IED sweepers - fast, high visibility, highly maneuverable, & lethal.
Congress - Hang on a minute, we're not gonna have any budget busters here. You guys can make do with up-armored VW's. Our contractor, Buddy, can do the armor upgrade at a very reasonable price, and he'll even through in tinted windows. Besides, VW's are water tight and won't sink. We've had too many soldiers drown in those Iraqi rivers in overturned vehicles.
Buddy, the contractor - Sure, I can upgrade as many of those as you want and I'll make you a real good deal, too. --- uhh, you did want the thin aluminum sheet armor, right? (Whispering to his assitant - hmmm, how much can I make in cost overruns, delays, and downgraded materials? oh, yeah, don't forget about specification changes and retooling.)
Yep - that about sums it up.
;^D
oops
through=throw
got in a hurry, heheh
I'm not sure.
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