Army Considers Trading Armor for Speed

Military.com ^ | Feb 12, 2014 | Matthew Cox

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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."

[Rockpile]

I thought that the SAS used more GMC trucks than they did Jeeps.

But that sure is a good photo.

[xzins]

We had a unit lunch once upon a time with LTG Gary Luck, who I think had just finished a tour at USASOC commander. We were at Ft Campbell in one of the restaurants on the strip. I got a chance to talk to him, and we were just killing bulls. I asked him, “If you could have any weapons system, which would you choose?”

His reply: “Chaplain, I want some of everything.”

There’s a time and a place for super-armored hummers, as IEDs proved in Afghanistan. And there’s a time and place for stand off capabilities for light infantry troops.

There isn’t anything we have that can’t be killed, and the same for our enemy. And there’s always a way to kill what they have that’s currently killing us.

Some of everything.