Gen. Conway Takes a Test Drive

We haven't had an MRAP update here in a while, but there have been some recent developments in the program that are worth noting. MRAP stands for mine resistant ambush protected, and the Army and Marine Corps are currently working to bring more of the vehicles, which offer significantly better protection against IEDs than the up-armored Humvee, to Iraq and Afghanistan. The program has become a favorite of Senator Joe Biden, who has made the rapid procurement and deployment of these vehicles a central theme of his campaign for the presidency, and with such strong support in Congress the program has ballooned. What started as a relatively small program, is now one of the largest procurement programs in the Pentagon's budget with costs that may exceed $25 billion--the latest solicitation, issued by the Marine Corps on July 4, states that "estimated vehicle requirements are in excess of 20,000 vehicles."

On the other side, there have been numerous bloggers (myself included), and at least one high ranking officer, who have called for cooler heads...MRAP is no miracle solution to the IED threat, as we saw last week when six Canadian soldiers were killed by a roadside blast in Afghanistan while riding in BAE's RG-31 Nyala MRAP--one of the biggest 4x4 MRAPs operating in theater (though smaller than its 6x6 sibling, the BAE RG-33).

MRAP, the defining feature of which is a v-shaped hull that deflects the blast of a roadside bomb rather than absorbing it as the flat-bottomed Humvee does, still has the potential to significantly reduce casualties from IEDs, which remain the number one killer of American troops in Iraq. And as such, concerns about the spiraling costs of the program have largely been shunted aside. Still, there are more serious concerns about the size of the vehicles, which have the effect of intimidating the local population--an effect that is antithetical to counterinsurgency strategy. In my opinion, there's really only one available MRAP vehicle that offers a good balance between blast-protection and size, and that is Force Protection's Cheetah (JLTV, the official Humvee replacement program, will offer all that and more, but isn't even close to entering full-scale production--the Army has yet to determine a winner in the competition). The Cheetah, which I got to see up close alongside a number of its competitors at the AUSA Winter Symposium (I posted a number of photos of the different vehicles at the time here), is, at roughly 12,000 pounds (that's the figure I got, though Defense News puts it at closer to 16,000 pounds), in the same weight-class as the Humvee, but with a whole lot more protection for the guys riding inside.

Which is why I was interested to see that Marine Corps Commandant General James Conway took the Cheetah for a test drive last month, according to Defense News. Conway said of the vehicle,

"I'm excited about the latest addition to Force Protection's family of MRAP Vehicles, the Cheetah...If it proves itself through further testing, the Cheetah will offer the same survivability rates as its predecessors, but it's also designed to be relevant beyond Iraq. The Cheetah will be easier to rapidly deploy, as it will be much more compatible with air and sea transport than larger MRAP vehicles currently in production."