Posted on 03/07/2007 1:33:28 PM PST by Monitor
OSHKOSH, Wis. - A new combat truck with a V-shaped bottom designed to withstand blasts from roadside bombs is performing with such success in Iraq that the U.S. military is pressing a Wisconsin company and others to churn out hundreds more in the coming months.
About 200 prototypes of the Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles have been deployed in Iraq since 2004, said Capt. Jeff Landis, spokesman for the Marine Corps Systems Command in Quantico, Va. No Marine has died while in one of the trucks, Landis said.
"This is the best vehicle available for safety and survivability," he said. "The MRAP vehicle supplies troops with the greatest protection we've had."
The key is the truck's V-shaped steel body, which flares like the hull of a boat, said Joaquin Salas, spokesman for Oshkosh Truck Corp.
"The shape channels the full force of a blast up the sides of the vehicle rather than through the floor," Salas said. "It's all physics. Vehicles with that shape are extremely effective."
Within the past month, the Pentagon awarded about $210 million in contracts to Oshkosh and four other companies in the U.S. and Canada to manufacture a total of nearly 400 more vehicles. Landis said the military hopes to receive them by the end of the year.
Since the war began, more than 3,160 U.S. service members have died in Iraq. Roadside bombs account for 70 percent of U.S. deaths and injuries in Iraq, according to Defense Department records and testimony.
The Pentagon has been criticized for supplying insufficient armor for Humvees, the standard vehicles used for transport. The military has since fitted thousands of Humvees with additional armor. But most of the surfaces on a Humvee's underside are flat, creating a large area that catches the force of land mine blasts.
The new vehicles also have tires that can be driven on even when flat.
Commanders in Iraq originally said the military would need 4,100 mine-resistant vehicles, but they raised their request to 6,738 in mid-February after seeing how well the trucks protected occupants, Landis said. Those requests are subject to approval by Congress.
In addition to Oshkosh, the other contractors are Protected Vehicles Inc. of North Charleston, S.C.; Force Protections Industries in Ladson, S.C.; BAE Systems in Washington; and General Dynamics Land Systems in Ontario, Canada.
The trucks come in three categories, from the small — a 7-ton truck that holds six passengers — to the colossal — a 22 1/2-ton mammoth that carries 12 passengers. By comparison, General Motors' Hummer H3 weighs about 3 tons and a military tank around 71 tons.
Despite the new trucks' protective strength, military officials said they do not believe they will completely displace lighter, more maneuverable vehicles.
IIRC, the South Africans who pioneered this design used double hulls [on the bottom V-part] with water in between - at least that's what was reported at the time, if memory serves.
This would be a good time for the President to publicly call for a united effort by all manufacturers and sub-contractors and vendors to expedite production, testing and shipment. Let's keep count, sorta like the Liberty ships in WWII.
Its nice to see solutions to problems, instead of crying and whining.
This would be a good time for the President to publicly call for a united effort by all manufacturers and sub-contractors and vendors to expedite production, testing and shipment. Let's keep count, sorta like the Liberty ships in WWII.
GWB should not shut up about the need to produce these trucks ASAP and by any means necessary.
Not by the end of the year, but by the end of June.
I'm sure Iranian engineers are hard a work developing V-Hull defeating projectiles just like they did with the last round of shaped charge explosives that are replacing IEDs. They want our guys dead.
A Chevy Amphibious Suburban would be handy to have in the driveway at breakup when it gets sloppy down here.
That's what I thought of when I first saw the title.
They must have seen the MythBusters episode showing the drop-off in penetration when projectiles enter water.
Necessity is the mother of invention. It's wonderful to see these measures being instituted to help protect our troops.
more at:
http://www.defense-update.com/products/g/golan.htm
Leave it to the US Army to just discover that now.
It is about time,hte South Africans were willing to sell us Hundreds of vehicles and go into full production 3-years ago.
First "The 300" and now these! We are picking on the Jhadists!
NOT FAIR! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Last night they were whining and crying on ABC news (it was on at a restaurant) about why our soldiers aren't already in these vehicles.
Certainly there are issues like fuel consumption, transportability and maintenance capabilities that effect logistics support in theater.
What the Army needs now, and has always needed, is to actually listen, and listen hard, to our brave men and women who are on the front lines. They know what works, and what doesn't work, not the REMFs in their air conditioned offices.
Contrary to John Kerry's opinion, our soldiers are intelligent and imaginative. Their ideas should be incorporated into the design of these systems.
I was an operations officer at the Air Defense Board during the latter stages of testing for the SGT York Air Defense System. It was the pet project of the Commanding General at Fort Bliss, and his fingerprints were all over the evaluation.
Long story short: SGT York was scrapped because it was a POS, the CG was forced to retire (instead of getting his third star) and ended up working at El Paso Electric, instead of the prime contractor for the York.
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