Broken Gear, Piling Up

The Washington Post has a fascinating report from the Anniston Army Depot, where "sprawling lots of tanks and other armored vehicles are just the start of a huge backlog" of gear broken by Iraq and Afghanistan.

"There's stuff, stuff everywhere," Joan Gustafson, a depot official, said as she wheeled her brown Chevrolet van through a landscape of rolling hills lined with armadas of mobile guns.

"There's another field of M1s," she said, motioning toward a swath of M1A1 Abrams tanks next to the winding road. "We're just waiting for someone to tell us what to do with them..."

Equipment shipped back from Iraq is stacking up at all the Army depots: More than 530 M1 tanks, 220 M88 wreckers and 160 M113 armored personnel carriers are sitting at Anniston. The Red River Army Depot in Texas has 700 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and 450 heavy and medium-weight trucks, while more than 1,000 Humvees are awaiting repair at the Letterkenny Army Depot in Pennsylvania.

Despite the work piling up, the Army's depots have been operating at about half their capacity because of a lack of funding for repairs. In the spring, a funding gap caused Anniston and other depots to lose about a month's worth of work...

Responding to urgent requests from the Army and Marine Corps, Congress approved an extra $23.8 billion in October to replace worn-out equipment in fiscal 2007. With the money, the Army plans to double the workload at its depots, which will repair and upgrade 130,000 pieces in 2007, up from 63,000 last year. This will include a quadrupling of the number of tanks, Bradleys and other tracked vehicles overhauled, from 1,000 to 4,000.

At Anniston, which will handle 1,800 combat vehicles in fiscal 2007, a cavernous 250,000-square-foot repair shop is humming as damaged tanks are rolled in one by one and disassembled with the help of giant cranes. Removing an M1 tank's turret alone takes a day and a half, and the entire overhaul requires 54 days and costs about $1 million, said Ted A. Law, the depot's vehicle manager.

Earnest Linn, 58, a heavy-mobile-equipment mechanic who as of January will have worked at Anniston for 30 years, said that "it's never been like this" since the end of the Vietnam War.

Herd of Buffaloes

What started as a humble little Mom and Pop operation hand-building Cougar and Buffalo armored vehicles for the Army's Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams has expanded into a massive production push involving some of the biggest companies in the armor industry, all intended to meet skyrocketing demand for protected trucks. I go into detail over at Military.com:

Just two years ago, Force Protection had a staff of 12 hand-building one Buffalo per month, according to spokesman Wayne Phillips. Now the company employs 400 and churns out more than a vehicle per day. Force Protection is slated to build 300 Buffalos through 2010 and several hundred more Cougars. This year, Force Protection partnered with BAE Systems to build as many as 1,000 Cougar derivatives for the Iraqi Army under the U.S.-managed Iraqi Light Armored Vehicle program. In recent weeks, the company has signed a similar agreement with General Dynamics Land Systems to jointly manufacture the standard Cougar in order to meet rising demand, including 85 for the British Army.

Check out my Flickr stream for pics!

--David Axe

WWI Mine-Mashers to Iraq

The armed services are spending billions and billions to figure out fancy new ways to stop improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. But the latest trick is an oldie -- dating back to World War I -- and couldn't be less high tech.

The contraptions are called mine rollers -- sets of wheels mounted in front of a vehicle, basically. When they roll over a mine or a pressure-activated IED, the wheels trigger the bomb. Because the vehicle is some distance behind the rollers, much of the bomb blast wave does not reach the vehicle, dramatically reducing the damage. And the vehicle lives to see another day. The Marine Corps just bought 150 sets from General Dynamics, according to Defense Industry Daily.

This idea sounds glaringly obvious. So you might wonder why it took the military more than 3 years to put the rollers up. In fact, the idea of a mine roller originated in 1918, to help nascent tanks deal with the anti-tank mines of that era. Many of the earliest IEDs in Iraq were built with anti-tank mines. Why didn't anybody in the Army Engineer School, for instance, make the connection?

Chalk some of it up to military bureaucracy. When it comes to mine-clearance, combat engineers and explosive ordnance disposal techs sometimes have overlapping lines of responsibility. (Which helps fuel an often-bitter rivalry.) At times, who exactly is supposed to develop bomb- and mine-fighting gear has been a blurry question, as well. The Counter-IED Task Force is now supposed to be in charge. But we'll see.

There are several legitimate concerns with the mine rollers that I am not going to mention here. However, my answer to these concerns are: If the insurgents do that, it would make their IEDs more detectable. Moreover, the standoff will interfere with aiming.

A friend and I were working on a similar concept, a Humvee roller attachment. However, we could not find a machinist to build our prototype. Now that I am deployed, we could not continue our commercial venture. One feature of our design was that it was telescoping, meaning that we can vary the distance of the rollers to the vehicle. We can change the distance to respond to changes in IED tactics. Maybe General Dynamics will incorporate the feature into their next run of mine rollers, too.

-- Jimmy Wu

Amtracs Forever

The Marines are fitting their 25-year-old AAV-7 amphibious tractors with thermal sights, replacing old starlight scopes with a range of just half a mile, according to Defense Industry Daily:

The replacement AAV7A1 day/night sight must provide daylight as well as nighttime sighting ability to detect targets to 4.7 km, recognize targets to 2.5 km, and identify targets at 700 m.

The news comes hot on the heels of rumored deep cuts to the Marines' Expeditionary
Fighting Vehicle, a long-delayed attempt to replace more than a thousand AAVs with as many new vehicles featuring stabilized cannons and better armor and comms.

The idea behind the EFV is to field a vehicle that's closer to a Bradley than to a boat, since these days the Marines spend a lot of time far inland, fighting like Army infantry. Despite the clear operational need for EFVs, the expense has proved just too great -- a quarter of the Corps' procurement budget over five years, according to some estimates.

The AAV upgrades reflect the Marines' growing acceptance that they're going to have to hold onto these ancient vehicles indefinitely. The first sign was the initiation of a top-to-bottom rebuild similar to the Army's tank remanufacturing initiative that aims to keep 15-year-old M-1s crawling into the 2030s. National Defense Magazine explains:

[T]he AAV�€™s suspension system is replaced with one derived from the Army�€™s Bradley Fighting Vehicle. In place of the current 400-horsepower engine, the AAV gets a 525-horsepower Cummins V903, also installed in the Bradley. The HS-400 transmission is rebuilt and modified to include a new torque converter, upgrading it to the HS-525 configuration. The remainder of the vehicle is rebuilt according to original specifications.

The problem of ageing weapons is everywhere in today's DoD. The Navy is rebuilding P-3 Orion patrol planes from the 1970s to keep them flying until the new P-8 enters service. The Air Force is studying ways to upgrade F-15s to complement the "silver-bullet" F-22 fleet. Meanwhile, B-52s keep on chugging, 40 years after they rolled off the Boeing assembly line.

But the Marines have it worst. Nearly everything in their arsenal -- from fighter jets to helicopters to trucks -- is old, real old. And it's all decaying ever faster in the heat and sand of Iraq. The bill for repairs so far? $30 billion.

--David Axe

No Trophy for NBC News

Lisa Myers (NBC News) conducted a special investigation into the Army's seemingly unwillingness to adopt an Israeli RPG defense system which has been successfully tested in field conditions. The "Trophy" system, produced by Rafael (and shown here on a Stryker vehicle), was cited by the DOD's Office of Force Transformation as a really good deal. But Army officials would rather wait five years for Raytheon to complete the development and testing of its "Quick Kill" RPG defense solution, which will be part of the Future Combat Systems program.

In part two of her investigation (which aired last night), she documented how the Army bent over backwards to ensure that Raytheon remained in the competition - not that there was a competition. The Army was supposed to have a shoot-off between the two systems, but because the Raytheon system was still on the drawing board, the Army canceled the shoot-off and issued a single-source selection for the Raytheon solution. I'm shocked... shocked to discover that a military acquisition office might be biased towards one of the largest U.S. defense firms. Why, I've never heard of such outlandish behavior. I declare, I do believe I have the vapors...

First of all, this might have been a good news report - in APRIL, when this issue was made public (see this DefenseTech post). Or maybe Lisa might have done an internet search and found Noah's Popular Mechanics article in August. Both articles discuss the Army's concern that, yes, this seems to be a good idea, but there are some outstanding issues:

"It is not just about giving [soldiers] an APS system. How do the soldiers work with it? How does it tie into the network? How do you know when to turn it on? When not to turn it on?" said Future Combat Systems program manager Brig. Gen. Charles Cartwright. "We could put something over there . . . overnight but have I got the logistics to be able to support," the technology.

Some of you may be familiar with David Drake's Hammer's Slammers - he has written a number of scifi novels about this mercenary tank regiment, which has nuclear-powered tanks and armored cars that move around like hovercrafts. The vehicles also feature an anti-projectile defense system which, when activated, shoots out like a shotgun to defeat the incoming projectile (also good for shredding light infantry in the way). Issue is, it can be set for manual rather than automatic. These concept of operation issues need to be worked out (also see Murdoc's take on this issue).

I have to tell you, Colonel Don Kotchman showed that he had clearly taken the "how to deal with the media" class that every acquisition manager has to take. Get a load of this:

Lisa Myers: Was the Raytheon system tested by the Pentagon?

Col. Donald Kotchman: The Army did not specifically test the Raytheon system.

Instead, Raytheon tested its own system this February.

Myers: How well did the Raytheon system do in its own testing?

Kotchman: I don't have that information.

Myers: Were there any Pentagon officials present for the Raytheon testing?

Kotchman: I do not know.
----------------
In May, a technical team was chosen and given the task of evaluating competing RPG defense systems. But here again, Raytheon had a leg up.

Myers: Do you know how many of the 21-person technical team worked for Raytheon?

Kotchman: To the best of my knowledge, none.

Army documents obtained by NBC News, however, reveal that nine of the 21 technical experts �€” as well as all the administrative personnel �€” were from Raytheon. The team ultimately concluded that of the seven RPG defense systems examined, Raytheon�€™s was �€œthe clear winner.�€

Raytheon�€™s �€œQuick Kill�€ solution �€” which the Army concedes will not be fielded before 2011 at the earliest �€” won out over Trophy, the Israeli system championed by the Pentagon�€™s Office of Force Transformation.

Myers: It appears as though Raytheon was allowed to select itself.

Kotchman: I don�€™t know that to be a fact, and so I really can't comment on it.

Priceless. Bravo, colonel, bravo. You survived the interview. Best that you can hope for. I have to say, this isn't news - that is to say, it's a shame that our acquisition process works this way, but it's normal procedure. Eisenhower was right about the military-industrial complex, we know he was right, but there's no way to fix the system short of finding a new set of honest congressmen and women, defense contractors who don't see dollar signs as the bottom line, and military acquisition officials who want to be promoted while in uniform and have a nice job when they retire.

-- Jason Sigger, crossposted at Armchair Generalist

UPDATE 8:58 AM: Noah here. While I appreciate Jason's shout-outs, the real credit should go to Defense News scoopmasters Greg Grant and Barbara Opall-Rome, who did most of the original reporting on this story. I just sorta played clean-up. Oh, and if all this hasn't satisfied your RPG defense fix, check out what Murdoc has to say.

UPDATE 6:48 PM: JH reminds us that there's another, potentially more interesting Israeli grenade-stopper out there. Ladies and gents: the Iron Fist.

Military Hybrids Stall

For a long time, now, the Pentagon has been looking to land diesel-electric hybrid vehicles to improve fuel economy, reduce logistics and allow power export. But after a decade of research and development, military hybrids are still years away from production, as I describe in detail in the current National Defense Magazine:

�€œRight now, we do not have a current hybrid program that targets fielding,�€ says Gus Khalil, team leader of hybrid-electric research at the Army�€™s Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center, or TARDEC.

TARDEC, a division of the Research, Development and Engineering Command, in Warren, Mich., is the military�€™s main research center for vehicle technologies.

Khalil and other TARDEC engineers have been developing hybrid-electric engines and testing vehicle demonstrators since 1992.

Across the Defense Department, there are around 30 hybrid-electric demonstrator vehicles in some form of testing. These demonstrators range from hybrid models of existing vehicles, such as Humvees, M-113 armored personnel carriers and M-2 Bradley infantry fighting systems, to new designs such as the Marine Corps�€™ reconnaissance, surveillance and targeting vehicle, or RST-V.

Some of these demonstrators are more promising than others. Some even offer new niche capabilities. But all have failed to achieve the combination of performance, toughness, price and utility that the military demands of its vehicles.

Motor Trend explains:

Though hybrid technology has been around for several years in passenger vehicles, adapting it for larger vehicles isn't as easy, [Oshkosh VP Gary] Schmiedel said. Military vehicles must often carry thousands of pounds of cargo -- 13 tons for the HEMTT -- and endure hills, little pavement and angles that few standard vehicles can handle. That all means engines and axles must be configured just so.

Even more daunting is the battery problem. National Defense editor Sandra Erwin reported on this as far back as 2001:

The Achilles heel of hybrid systems today, however, is the battery, [engineer William] Haris added. �€œYou need to have a source of energy to propel the electric motors. Traditionally that has been batteries.�€ The most commonly used batteries today are lead-acid, which are the least expensive. But they also are heavier and less efficient than more advanced chemistry batteries.

A more desirable alternative would be nickel-metal-hydride batteries, which have twice the energy density of lead-acid. Energy density is the amount of energy that can be stored per pound of material. In the long-term, experts are looking at lithium-ion batteries, which have four times the energy density of lead-acid.

Where there's a will, there's a way -- technical challenges notwithstanding. �€œThere are challenges, and there are issues, but they don�€™t seem insurmountable,�€ Khalil told me. �€œIf someone from a program office told us they wanted something in production in two years, we would have it into production.�€

But despite the promise of a reduced logistics burdened resulting from great fuel efficiency, the military's enthusiasm for hybrids is cool. If not for their power export capability, the military might not be interested at all.

The bottom line is ... the tech isn't ready, and the military isn't ready to make the tech ready. So be skeptical when some hack reports that military hybrids are just around the corner.

-- David Axe

Trucks, Stat!

The 190,000-strong Army Reserve needs trucks, and bad. So says new Army Reserve Chief Lt. Gen. Jack Stultz when I interviewed him a few weeks back.

�€œWe have provided a lot of equipment to [the Iraqi] theater that has remained. That creates shortages on this [stateside] end.�€

He's talking about up-armored Humvees and FMTV trucks, mostly -- new stuff that's interchangeable with the active Army's equipment. Even before it started giving away equipment in Iraq, the Reserve's vehicle fleet was pretty decrepit overall. Now it's getting worse, even as the need for trucks grows with the increasing importance of military forces in domestic disaster relief.

�€œWe still have deuce-and-a-half trucks ... We�€™ve got to get that equipment replaced,�€ Stultz says.

Hence this breaking news from Inside Defense:

The service also is in line for major truck purchases should the Pentagon's plans [for a new $50-billion supplemental] win the approval of Congress. The documents show the Army wants $614.7 million for Humvees, with more than $422 million of that total slated for the National Guard and Army Reserve; $220 million for Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles trucks, all for the reserves; and $201.5 million for reserve Family of Heavy Tactical Vehicles trucks.

Equipment shortages notwithstanding, Stultz is pushing to make the Reserve more relevant, continuing his predecessor�€™s initiative to boost civil affairs units while cutting back on support formations that are less often deployed. Remaining support units will consolidate into modular sustainment brigades that complement active brigades.

At the same time, the Reserve is eliminating non-deployable forces. Where once the Reserve maintained ten static regional headquarters to raise and train troops, now it is standing up "functional" commands devoted to particular dimensions of warfighting. There will be separate deployable headquarters for engineers, military policemen, aviators and so on.

In today�€™s Army Reserve, even training divisions -- once solely dedicated to stateside missions -- are in Iraq training native security forces.

It's an exciting time to be in the Reserve, but only if you don't mind riding around in a 50-year-old truck.

Want to see sexy pics of trucks in Iraq? Proceed to my Flickr!

--David Axe

Iraqi Troops Ride in Style

While U.S. forces move around Iraq in patrols of up-armored Humvees, M-2 Bradleys and specialized bomb-proof vehicles like Force Protection's Buffalo and Cougar, Iraqi forces are still sporting Nissan pickup trucks and, in rare cases, cast-off U.S. Humvees (see picture). This means Iraqi forces are especially vulnerable to roadside bombs and small arms fire.

In an effort to beef up Iraqi forces and advance their ability to take over from the U.S. Army and Marines, the Army is sponsoring the design and production of a brand-new and super-tough vehicle for the Iraqis. It's called Iraqi Light Armored Vehicle, or I-LAV, and it's a derivative of the 14-ton Cougar (pictured below).

Force Protection manager Wayne Phillips says the I-LAV features more head-room than the standard Cougar and is designed for rapid dismouting, unlike the Cougar which is hard to get into and out of. I-LAV ain't cheap -- $350,000 per copy is the current pricetag -- but it promises a high degree of protection. The question is, can the Iraqis maintain it? In Basra last summer, a British Army officer told me even new SUVs were too sophisticated for Iraqi forces to maintain. He said they should stick to what they know: simple, rugged but lightly protected pickup trucks. The U.S. Army is counting on Iraqi forces rising to the occasion and taking care of their I-LAVs.

There are presently 378 I-LAVS under contract, from a planned total of more than 1,000, and production will commence soon. Force Protection is a small operation based in a former General Electrics turbine engine plant in Ladson, S.C.

Just two years ago, FP had a staff of 12 hand-building one Buffalo per month. Now it employs 400 and churns out more than a vehicle per day. In addition to the I-LAVs, FP is slated to build 300 Buffalos through 2010 and several hundred more Cougars. Taking on I-LAV production is a tall order, so FP has partnered with BAE Systems. FP will build half of the I-LAVs at a new line at the Ladson facility. BAE will build the rest.

FP and its portfolio of South African-licensed vehicles is a major player in the rapidly-expanding bomb-proof vehicle market. Capitalizing on its successes, FP is looking to compete for the new Joint Light Tactical Vehicle program, which aims to replace the Humvee. As many as 100,000 vehicles are up for grabs in that competition.

-- David Axe

The Army still needs tanks

The transformation of the Army continues. It's just that part of the transformation involves keeping the M-1 Abrams main battle tank production lines open for an extra eight years. Operations in Iraq have affirmed heavy armor's worth, according to Army Times. (subscription only)

Fort KNOX, Ky. �€” The armor community is alive and well and the 70-ton Abrams tank has a bright future on the urban battlefield, even in a force moving increasingly toward lighter, more mobile fighting platforms, Army leaders said.

�€œWithout tanks, we don�€™t have combined arms,�€ said Gen. B.B. Bell, commanding general of Eighth U.S. Army Korea, who spoke to a packed auditorium May 18 during this year�€™s Armor Warfighting Symposium about tank successes on the Iraq battlefield.

Bell emphasized the tank�€™s important role in a complicated fight, pointing to its decades-old lethality, ability to adapt to open terrain and urban settings, the survivability factor for crews, and the fact that a heavy-armor task force can be deployed in as little as 96 hours.

Bell points out that urban operations are nothing new for the Army, and that tanks are major part of our ability to be successful in the cities. Tanks led the way during the initial invasion and have been prominent weapons in nearly every major operation as well as important in the day-to-day mission.

Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Richard Cody pointed out that the Army was not really prepared for modern warfare before the 9/11 attacks in 2001. It was under-trained, under-equipped, and in a generally-poor state of maintenance. But war has changed that to a great extent, and the place of the tank in the new and improved US Army has been re-thought.

�€œThe opportunity to invest came to fruition when we went to war,�€ [Col. Larry Hollingsworth, Heavy Brigade Combat Team project manager] said. �€œIt became apparent to people that the risks you could assume with your force during a peacetime environment were very different from the risks you could assume during wartime.�€

�€œIf you�€™re not going to fight with tanks and Bradleys, you may not want to invest in them the same way as if you were going to have to roll them into Baghdad. I think that�€™s what our entire Army has seen,�€ Hollingsworth said.

Note the machine gun shield with ballistic glass in the pictured M1A1 (pic from DoD). This is a recent addition to the old warhorse which increases protection while maintaining vital sight lines for the man on the gun. Other improvements for the M1, collectively known as the TUSK program ("Tank Urban Survival Kit"), are in the pipeline to transform our tanks into even more lethal monsters on today's battlefields, also known quaintly as "cities". Many times "transformation" isn't revolutionary but instead incremental.

It's not been just tanks, either, that have had their worth re-evaluated lately. It's also been the B-52 bomber, the A-10 attack plane, the 7.62x51mm rifle round, the M79 "blooper" grenade launcher, and many other systems, most of which are considered "old school" and had been slated for retirement. Some had already been put out to pasture but rushed back into service when the need arose. Sometimes it is because new gee-whiz gadgets don't work as expected, and we could have worse problems than to learn that the systems we already have are the ones we need.

--cross-posted by Murdoc

Hybrid reality check

Despite 15 years development that has produced more than 30 different demonstrators and despite a lot of hype lately, military diesel-electric hybrids are no closer to mass production than they were five years ago. "Right now we don't have a hybrid-electric vehicle targeting fielding," says Gus Khalil, director of the Army's hybrid research.

The reasons are many. Despite advantages including modest fuel savings, power export capability, design scalability and flexible internal layout, hybrids are simply too expensive, too heavy and too fragile for military service. Batteries -- or, alternately, capacitors -- are particularly problematic: they're unstable, finnicky in extreme weather and present enormous safety and logistical challenges.

In recent weeks, I've talked to hybrid programs managers at all the major U.S. military vehicle manufacturers. They all maintain the same line: hybrids are very promising, they say, but more work is needed.

Khalil says that the first mass-produced military hybrids will most likely be vehicles in the Future Combat Systems family, which should enter production around 2010. In the meantime, expect demonstrators like the HEMTT A3, RST-V (pictured) and hybrid Humvee to remain just that -- demonstrators.

--David Axe

P.S. Publishers Weekly just reviewed my graphic novel War Fix!

UPDATE 8:58 AM: Noah here. I've been told by a high-level Army general who worked the hybrid problem for years that the problems which Axe details above can be overcome. But there's an even bigger barrier to the new vehicles: Detroit. American auto- and truck-makers still aren't committed to mass-producing hybrids on the level that the Army needs, the General said. (Look at their reluctance to make commercial hybrids.) Without their buy-in, the Army won't have hybrids for a long, long time.

Hybrids got the juice

A proper command post needs a lot of juice. You're talking radios, radars, computers, network terminals, a mini fridge for your frappuccinos ... the demand for power is constantly growing. These days at a Forward Operating Base in Iraq or Afghanistan, you can spot a command post among hundreds of identical tents by looking for the tent surrounded by greasy, thrumming generators. All those generators have to be hauled, fueled and maintained. But what if you could just hook your command post equipment up to the same vehicle you transported it in?

That's the idea behind an emerging requirement across the U.S. military's slate of diesel-electric hybrid demonstration programs. One of the major advantages of hybrid vehicles is their ability, with proper modification, to export electricity. With the right interface, you can just plug your gizmos into your truck, keep it idling and voila! You've cut your logistics burden significantly by dumping all those bulky, finnicky generator trailers.

AM General's hybrid Humvee demonstrator powered a command post years ago. (See pic.) Oshkosh has made power export a central capability of its hybrid Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT) A3. And General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) is moving forward with a new model of its Marine Corps Reconaissance, Surveillance and Targeting Vehicle (RST-V) demonstrator that exports juice, too. RST-V is a small hybrid intended for internal carriage in the V-22.

"The Marine Corps requested this," says GDLS' Director for Advanced Programs Bill Riker. "Essentially what you end up having with RST-V is a ... generator set. The Marines have asked us to focus on 30 kilowatt [power]. We've done that at 60 Hertz and 400 Hertz at 3-phase [Alternating Current]. The RST-V provides a huge amount of power with the flip of a switch."

Besides building RST-V, GDLS is also a major partner in the manned ground component of the tracked Future Combat Systems (FCS). Expect to see serious power export capability written into FCS requirements.

The potential applications of this capability are huge. Consider just the FCS Medical Evacuation Vehicle (MEV). With today's M-113- or Humvee-based ambulances, medics can do little more than haul casualties. But the FCS MEV might power a wide range of equipment that could enable medics to treat patients en route to the Forward Surgical Teams. In addition to easing logistics, power export could save lives.

Hybrid Truck's Katrina Duty

Diesel-electric hybrids vehicles are all the rage at the U.S. Army's Tank-automotive and Armaments Command in Warren, Michigan. Rising fuel prices and attacks on fuel convoys in Iraq have inspired a number of programs to develop more fuel-efficient trucks. The idea, according to industry, is to cut the Army truck fleet's fuel consumption by 20 percent by 2010.

But there are other advantages to hybrids, according to Gary Schmiedel at Oshkosh in Wisconsin, which builds the Army's Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck. HEMTTs are tough mothers. During the January elections in Iraq, I talked to HEMTT crews who barreled through AK fire to pick up ballots (see photo for the result). Schmiedel says a new breed of HEMTT, the A3 model, will retain all the ruggedness and combat utility of its predecessor, but with the added capability to export up to 100kW of 3-phase AC power, thanks to its new capacitor-based hybrid engine.

To test the A3, and as a public service, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Oshkosh sent a prototype to New Orleans to serve as a mobile generator. Since it uses the same standard of electricity as our public grid, exporting power is as simple as firing up the HEMTT and plugging in your appliance. The New Orleans-deployed A3 enabled workers to pump out the flooded basement of a hospital.

Hybrids are more expensive than their conventional counterparts. But they promise overall savings over their lifetimes thanks to reduced fuel consumption. And they offer many benefits besides, including those demonstrated by Oshkosh's HEMTT A3 after Katrina. These days I'm on the hybrid beat for National Defense, so expect more on the subject in coming weeks.

-- David Axe

Truck Makers Eye Next-Gen Humvees

There are no definite plans, yet. But the Army and the Marines are slowly getting ready to replace the Humvee. National Defense magazine profiles the "truck manufacturers large and small, foreign and domestic, [which] are gearing up to take on the only maker of the 20-year-old vehicle, AM General."

Archie Massicotte, president of military and government business at International Truck and Engine said, �€œthe Humvee has served a great life for the military for 20 some years. I think what they�€™re finding is that we�€™re fighting battles now in Iraq, and they�€™re using it as a tactical wheeled vehicle. And it was never intended to be a tactical wheeled vehicle,�€ he said...

The question of armor�€”how much is needed, when to use it and the trade-offs in engine power, weight and carrying capacity it entails�€”will be a technological challenge for any proposed follow-on vehicle, experts said...

[Jim] Mills, who worked on the Humvee program while in the Army... said there will also be a need for windshields that can better accommodate night-vision technology. Lead content in the glass can reduce its effectiveness. Soldiers want to be able to drive at night with headlights turned off. And in special operations when stealth is necessary, it�€™s mandatory to go in with night-vision technology. Longer-range infrared headlights, which would allow drivers to go 45 to 60 miles per hour, will be needed for any follow-on vehicle used in such operations, he said.

Other improvements Mills recommended include a spare tire, air conditioning and electronic stability control. The latter is necessary to prevent rollovers, another leading cause of death and injury in Iraq. Soldiers want to push the Humvee faster to avoid insurgent attacks. Such a system could prevent drivers from having accidents, Mills said, noting that the driver is often the youngest and most inexperienced of the three-soldier crews...

A spare tire, sturdier armor and the perpetual demand for increased cargo space all lead to one thing: a larger, heavier vehicle, Mills said. The term �€œlight tactical vehicle�€ is becoming a misnomer, he added.

�€œA soldier in the military will always find more things to carry inside a vehicle,�€ Mills said. �€œThe next question is how much bigger will the new truck be?�€

One vehicle not mentioned explicitly in the story -- but getting a ton of props from marines in the field -- is this Cougar mine-protected vehicle. This Georgia Tech prototype is turning heads, too.

Next week, the National Automotive Test Center will hold its annual "rodeo" for tactical vehicles. It follows a big conference on the subject, featuring the major players from the Army and Marines. I assume those two potential Humvee replacements will be there, ready to ride.

UPDATE 10:10 AM: As Inside Defense notes, the Army and Marines are going to start pursuing next-gen light tactical vehicles together, after years of separate research.

Hummer Limos Enter War Games

The next wave of Army fighting vehicles are still on the drawing board. So, in the meantime, "Boeing is outfitting 34 commercially produced limousine-style Hummers with radios and computer networking equipment to stand in for the... vehicles during tests and exercises," according to Inside Defense.

In early January, seven of the vehicles will drive up California�€™s Interstate 15 to Nellis Air Force Base, NV, located near Las Vegas, to be used in the Air Force-led Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment 2006...

To find the actual vehicles, Boeing conducted two separate competitions -- one among Hummer dealerships near Huntington Beach, CA, and another among companies that make vehicles into limousines by cutting them in half and adding length to the middle as needed. Hummer of West Covina, CA, and LA Custom Coach Inc. won out.

The Hummers were delivered to the Huntington Beach SOSIL [System of Systems Integration Laboratory] facility with an added alternator, dual oil filters and run-flat tires. Then they were handed over to the limousine company, where their length was increased by 65 inches...

After the expansion to a six-door vehicle was complete, the Army added air conditioning because the vehicles will be running with computers and radios in the heat of the desert. They also were painted with the service�€™s signature camouflage print.

Name This Thing

"I have seen just a few of these around the West BIAP [Baghdad International Airport] area recently," writes DW, who's working in Baghdad. "What can you tell us about 'em?"

I've seen the vehicles, too. And I read about the things online. But, right now, I'm completely blanking on what I've seen and read.

Anyone wanna chip in here?

UPDATE 9:57 AM: That didn't take long. In the comments, LauraN makes a positive ID on our mystery vehicle. The APC-1 (or, if you prefer, "The Rock") from Granite Global Services is a Ford F 550 pickup, modified for war zones. Check out its specs and pics.

Canadian LAV-3 rolls in Afghanistan

A Canadian soldier with the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment was killed and four others injured when their light armored vehicle, very similar in many respects to the US Army's Stryker, rolled over after swerving to avoid a local car that was driving without headlights on the highway between Kabul and Kandahar.

After the light armoured vehicle swerved, the driver lost control of the vehicle which went off the highway and rolled over.

"It was purely and simply an accident to avoid a head-on collision," Craig Oliver, CTV's Chief Political Correspondent, reported.

Pte. Braun Scott Woodfield, 24, died in the accident.

Predictably, the article contains this:

Earlier, the safety of the military vehicle, known as a LAV-III, was called into question after a media report claimed the army had been warned that "speed and driver inexperience" were frequent causes of rollovers.

There have been 10 rollover accidents in the six years the vehicle had been in use.

A 24-year-old Quebec soldier, Pte. Patrick Dessureault, died earlier this year when a LAV-III rolled over into a river during a training exercise in Alberta.

And last year, two Canadians were injured when their LAV rolled into a ravine in Bosnia.

In fact, Google News calls the article "Vehicle safety questioned after soldier's death". Once again we hear of the 8-wheeled LAV's problem with roll-overs. I noted similar coverage of the Stryker very recently. While there's little doubt that an LAV has a higher center of gravity than, say, a tank, and is much more likely to roll over than, say, a tank, I'm a bit skeptical about that wild-eyed claims that so many seem to have made over the past few years. And I'm not quite so quick to just accept the higher probability of rolling in a Stryker or LAV based on incidents like when two Strykers rolled into a canal in Iraq off of a collapsing roadway or rolling into a ravine in Bosnia.

A Marine tank flipped over while falling into the Euphrates during the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003. I don't ever see that listed when discussing the probability of M1 tanks to roll over. But we all know that M1's are nearly impossible to flip, don't we? And we all know that LAV/Strykers are very prone to flipping, don't we?

If we do, it might be because so many people act like it's a self-evident truth. Take, for instance, this in another story:

Military sources said the LAV-3 - its inherent tippiness exaggerated by armour plates added recently to protect soldiers from explosions - rolled over after a civilian car with no headlights suddenly appeared out of the dark.

"Inherent tippiness" according to "military sources". That, um, leaves a lot of wiggle room, I think. Also, don't miss the fact that that paragraph is a 'twofer'. You noticed how add-on armor was implicated in the event as well, didn't you? And then there's this in an article entitled Military vehicle in fatal accident has history of rollovers:

Documents obtained through Access to Information laws show the army was warned in May 2004 that "speed and driver inexperience" were frequent causes of rollovers involving the LAV III.

A two-page briefing memo prepared for military leaders said the armoured vehicle is limited in the type of terrain it can handle.

I find this a bit interesting because the article seems to use the report as a cornerstone to build its anti-LAV angle from. Except that both factors are not problems with the vehicle itself, but problems with the drivers or the way it's used. Despite a slightly bizarre claim by POGO that training was a "band-aid" solution to Stryker driver inexperience with add-on slat armor, it's obvious that training is how you overcome inexperience. I'm reminded that the first Stryker brigade shredded a ton of tires when they first acquired their vehicles, but as driver experience and training increased, lost tires decreased dramatically. Training and re-training is where it's at in the military. In this particular case, the driver had four years of experience behind the wheel of an LAV, so I doubt that driver inexperience is at fault this time. And if speed was a factor, or maybe the use of the vehicle in terrain that it can't handle, that again comes down to factors unrelated directly to the vehicle.

If you read the report note (1 page .pdf) that the story refers to, you'll see exactly that training seems to have overcome the driver inexperience problems and that steep embankments or collapsing terrain were responsible for the rest. I'm not exactly sure where "speed" comes into it, though.

And how about this:

Like many armoured vehicles and SUVs, the LAV-3s can roll over under certain conditions.

Wow. Comparing LAVs to the big bad SUVs. Though, to their credit, they go on to note that "several defence sources" claim that vehicle structural issues haven't been a factor in any of the Lav roll-overs and that "accidents still happen".

I know it sounds like I'm getting all up in arms about this, here. As a bit of a Stryker fan, I guess I'm tired of seeing the same old "anti wheels" claims peddled about as gospel. Yes, the Stryker/LAV is probably a lot more prone to rolling than a tank. But, then, so is everything else. It's this last point that usually is ignored or goes unmentioned. I don't claim to know if Strykers/LAVs roll more often than most other vehicles or not. But let's look at some numbers and compare.

Oh. The Canadian military has. And it says that they're actually less-likely, statistically, to roll than other troop carriers. And later they also point out that they are also less-likely to roll than a sport utility vehicle. They give no numbers, though.

If you click the pic near the top of this story, you can access a video of a Canadian LAV firing its gun. The fact that standard Canadian LAVs are armed with stabilized turrets sporting the reliable M242 Bushmaster 25mm chain gun probably, if anything, gives them an even slightly higher center of gravity than US Strykers. And, most definitely, significantly greater firepower. Another pic of a Canadian LAV-III with full load-out, crew, and dismounts, can be seen here. For what it's worth, I still believe that a 25mm-armed Stryker would come in handy.

There's no doubt that the Strykers and LAVs have their downsides, but both the US and Canadian armies seem to be taking lessons learned and working hard to apply them to the real world. And there's also no doubt that, in some cases, tracked vehicles (such as the upgraded M113s that so many anti-Stryker folks seem to advocate) would be a better choice. But nothing is a one-size-fits-all solution, and the Strykers have performed quite well overall since first arriving in Iraq at the end of 2003. By all means, let's discuss their pros and cons. Let's just do so fairly and honestly.

Meanwhile, let's not forget that though the US and Canada have had some differences of opinion on a lot of things lately, the Canadians have been in Afghanistan all along and are continuing to do a great job. Sometimes at great sacrifice.

--cross-posted by Murdoc

Old is the New New

With the V-22 Osprey ready to enter operational service, the Marines are looking at new toys to take advantage of the tilt-rotor craft's range and versatility. One of these is a new 120-mm rifled mortar. But mortars need vehicles to haul them -- and guess what? The V-22's cabin is too small to fit a Humvee. So the Marines are seriously considering buying a new version of the old M-151 Jeep to move the mortar. Imagine that: the old Jeep back in production, 20 years after it got bumped off the battlefield by the Humvee. It's not the only case where the military is looking to old machines -- some decades out of service -- to meet its current and future needs.

The costs of new weapons are spiraling at an alarming rate. That goes double for adventurous new programs like Future Combat Systems, which are proving largely technologically impossible. But with a war going on, the Defense Department needs gear that's going to work -- now. It's no surprise, then, that the Pentagon is turning to equipment that proved its worth back when Rummy was Gerald Ford's SecDef.

Consider the Vietnam-era Light Anti-tank Weapon, or LAW. Finding modern rockets like Javelin too complicated and expensive for urban warfare, the Marines have begun issuing LAWs to units in Iraq. On the aviation side, the Marines have ordered the first UH-1Y Hueys, new-production updates of the 30-year-old UH-1N. The AH-1 Cobra fleet is getting a similar makeover, albeit in a rebuild program for old airframes. Both helos are coming in on time, on budget and with the capabilities the Marines need. Meanwhile, the CH-53 is about to go back into production in a new version to replace choppers worn out in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Across the aisle, the Army is reissuing old M-14 rifles. And soon the UH-60 fleet will be replaced with -- you guessed it -- the UH-60, in an updated model.

In the Navy camp, skeptical old vets are leading a campaign to put two mothballed battleships back into service as alternatives to the Navy's $3-billion-per-copy DD(X) destroyer, which is being touted as a fire-support platform but, according to the Naval Fire Support Association, will provide only a fraction of the firepower of the old BBs at far greater cost, and much later.

My friend Jim Doner, a retired Marine warrant officer who flew forward air control missions over Vietnam, is not at all surprised at this development. He says the best weapons are the old proven ones ... paired with an experienced, courageous operator. In particular, he laments the premature retirement of the OV-10 Bronco, a rugged, slow, cheap little airplane that excelled at getting airborne controllers over the battlefield where they could direct artillery and bombs more accurately than even today's controllers with their whiz-bang targeting pods. Doner says the OV-10 went away (in 1995) in favor of hi-tech multi-role jets that aren't always good at the simple, dirty and dangerous missions that are important in low-intensity wars.

--David Axe

Humvees on Crack

That's the only way I can describe the two armored vehicles that were hogging the right lane of I-26 outside Charleston, S.C. this weekend. They were early examples of the ULTRA AP -- "AP" for "Armored Patrol" -- a Humvee replacement being developed by Georgia Tech for the U.S. Marine Corps. The ones I saw were presumably on their way to the Navy lab in Charleston.

"The ULTRA AP will emphasize high-output diesel power combined with revolutionary armor and a fully modern chassis," according to Georgia Tech Research News. But never mind all that. The key difference between the ULTRA AP and the Humvee, and the reason the ULTRA needs a new engine and chassis at all, is that the new vehicle is wrapped in enough steel and ceramic to withstand all but the biggest IEDs. Experience in Iraq, where IEDs are the major killer, has proved that the battlefield of the future is no place for thin-skinned vehicles. In fact, the two newest additions to the Army's vehicle fleet, the Meerkat and the Buffalo (pictured below), are both designed for maximum protection against IEDs.

The Army's flagship program, Future Combat Systems, once hinged on air-transportable vehicles that were lighter than the current fleet. The Army was counting on advanced networks and long-range fires to make FCS surviveable.

Now FCS has been redesigned to cope with dense urban environments and sophisticated IEDs. ULTRA AP, Meerkat and Buffalo have given us a glimpse of the future, where ground combat vehicles are as heavy as ever, if not heavier.

The big question? How do we get these big, heavy vehicles into the fight quicker?

--David Axe

Humvee 2.0

"The Pentagon is accelerating its search to replace the Humvee after two years of roadside bomb blasts and suicide attacks in Iraq," says USA Today.

"Before the war in Iraq, a successor to the Army's dominant vehicle wasn't due until the middle of the next decade. Now the Army plans to review designs this fall, and working prototypes will be due in June."

The U.S. military needs those prototypes to be better armored than the often thin-skinned Humvees, of course. But they also want "a beefier suspension that can handle the weight of the armor... lower fuel consumption, to reduce the need for supply convoys that have been targets of insurgents... [and] improved onboard power generation to handle the expanding array of electronics that troops take into battle today compared with the simple radios of 30 years ago."

I've got a brief profile of one potential Humvee replacement in next month's Popular Mechanics. Defense Review looks at another, Georgia Tech's Ultra Armored Patrol.

(Big ups: Eric)

We Can Make Them Stronger... Faster... Better

I imagine that some group in BAE Systems had a great party this last weekend. The news is that BAE Systems received several orders from the U.S. Army to remanufacture and upgrade Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles to A3 configurations. The total cost of these orders runs to more than $1 billion. Most of the work will be done at their plant at York, PA. The modified vehicles will be delivered to the Army between June 2006 and January 2008.

The A3 upgrade progam began back in 2001 with 389 M2A3 vehicles and 77 M3A3 vehicles to be upgraded by 2006. The upgrade includes an improved thermal imager for the TOW missile, a combat identification system, and other improvements to "provide commanders with outstanding situational awareness in the harshest urban fights."

The Bradley vehicles have what is called ventilated facepiece collective protection, which provides fresh air through hoses into the crew's M42A1 protective masks. The squad being transported has no collective protection and must rely on their protective masks and suits. Interestingly enough, the original M3 Bradley vehicle and M1 Abrams tank had no collective protection at all, despite knowledge that the Soviet armored tanks and vehicles did offer such protection. I used to get a kick by going to the AUSA annual meeting and asking defense contractors who were pushing armored vehicles what chem-bio survivability features their vehicles have. "Ahhh... let me get my boss... I don't know that one."

Hey, it's been real, it's been fun, but Noah's back tomorrow and I'm outta here. Hope to see you readers at my blog sometime.

-- Armchair Generalist

This CROW says "BAM BAM BAM"

First Rhinos, now CROWs. New breeds of animals keep popping up in Iraq. The Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS) is mounted on top of a HMMWV and controlled from a command center within the vehicle. This system can mount the M2 50-cal machine gun, the M240 medium machine gun, the MK19 automatic grenade launcher, and the M249 squad automatic weapon in addition to a powerful color day camera, an infrared camera, and a range finder. This system allows the gunner to sit within the armored vehicle and, using a computer screen, control the weapon with the use of a joystick. Prior experience with Xbox desired but not required.

The PM for Soldier Weapons demonstrated a prototype in February 2004, with four systems being deployed to Iraq under an urgent needs request. Troops in Iraq began receiving the final system in April 2005. Several hundred more are expected to be fielded within the next 18 months.

�€œThe CROWS system is an excellent tool,�€ said Sgt. 1st Class Craig Bailey, Company C, 1st Battalion, 128th Infantry Regiment. �€œThe advantages are obviously its optics, zoom and thermal capabilities. It�€™s able to see things a lot farther in advance. It�€™s excellent to have a thermal system mounted right on the vehicle to use at night or in daytime.�€

�€œThe CROWs is great for the MSR patrols because with the FLIR it sees things that are out of place,�€ Hargis said. �€œEven spotting IEDs in the road prior to coming up to them, but I think the most rewarding thing I can do is catch some of these guys laying the IEDs.�€

My foxhole buddy Murdoc caught this story in April, when the system deployed. Additional photos can be found at the PEO Soldier site.

-- Armchair Generalist

HYDROGEN CAR IN ARMY TEST

If you believe the hype out of Detroit, we'll all be driving ultra-clean cars running on hydrogen fuel cells one day, instead of today's gas-chuggers. The latest comes from General Motors, who "reported Monday it has made a breakthrough that brings hydrogen-powered vehicles a bit closer to reality," according to the Red Herring.

The Army's National Automotive Center is taking a peek into that future now, testing out its first hydrogen-powered car.

The 66-inch wide, 13.5 horsepower Aggressor Alternative Mobility Vehicle goes from 0 to 40 mph in four seconds, and tops out at 80 mph, according to its makers, Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide.

But speed isn't really the selling point of the Aggressor. Stealth is. The vehicle has a "virtually silent operating mode with reduced thermal signature," making it harder for evil-doers to spot the car.

The Quantum Aggressor runs on compressed hydrogen utilizing... carbon fiber storage tanks. A 10 kW fuel cell is coupled with an energy storage module in a parallel hybrid configuration, which provides power on demand to a high-torque electric motor driving the rear-wheels...The Quantum Aggressor can be driven to the intended destination and then be used as a silent power generator to produce high quality electricity for telecommunications, surveillance, targeting, and other battlefield equipment.

But not to worry, greenies. Quantum says that the Aggressor is eco-friendly, too -- no matter what the operating mode, "the vehicle does not produce any emissions."

ARMOR BOAST HAS SOFT UNDERBELLY

When Army Secretary Francis Harvey bragged last week that every American vehicle in Iraq was about to be armored up, Defense Tech readers smelled a rat.

Maybe what Harvey was saying was technically true, readers figured. But a whole lot of those supposedly toughed-up vehicles would be protected with jury-rigged, "hillbilly armor" -- the kind that's cobbled together from scrap heaps and landfills.

Now, the L.A. Times has confirmed what the folks here had already guessed. "About a quarter of the 25,300 military vehicles venturing outside bases will have only the makeshift steel plates known to soldiers as 'Mad Max' or 'hillbilly' armor."

There are three levels of vehicle armor in Iraq. About 6,000 Humvees have "level 1" armor, meaning they were manufactured as armored vehicles, with beefed-up engines, air conditioners and equipment to handle the added weight. They weigh 2,000 pounds more than the standard Humvee, with steel-plated doors, steel plating under the cab and several layers of ballistic-resistant glass in the windows. They were designed to protect against rocket-propelled grenades, small-arms fire, shrapnel and some land mines.

Next are 12,000 vehicles that have factory-made, "level 2" armor bolted on in the war zone.

Then there are the 7,300 vehicles with Mad Max armor, slated to be phased out this summer.

The remaining unarmed vehicles won't travel outside protected bases, except on cargo trucks, military officials said.

When Chief Warrant Officer Randall Menough's crew began fashioning armor at Camp Buehring last year in Kuwait, there was no Army directive to Mad Max vehicles. But they did it anyway.

ARMY CHIEF: ALL IRAQ VEHICLES ARMORED

It took long enough. But "in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday [here's the prepared version], the Army�€™s civilian chief pledged that by next week, no soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan would drive outside the base perimeter in an unprotected vehicle," Defense Daily reports.

Francis Harvey, the new secretary of the Army, told committee members: �€œAfter Feb. 15, no vehicle carrying an American soldier will leave a protected base without armor.�€

For months, the Army�€™s top officials have been under fire over a failure to send enough armored vehicles into the theater of operations... Harvey, in his first appearance before the committee, said the Army had tackled the problem, increasing the number of armored vehicles in theater by a factor of more than 100 since August 2003.

�€œIn the fall of 2003, when the insurgency in Iraq began to intensify, there were approximately 250 armored tactical wheeled vehicles in theater,�€ Harvey said... By month�€™s end, Harvey continued, �€œat least 32,500 tactical wheeled vehicles will be in the Iraq and Afghan theaters, and they will be protected.�€

Those figures include more than just up-armored Humvees, which come in a number of variants, including factory-modified vehicles and those equipped with �€œbolt-on�€ armor kits.

Gen. Peter Schoomaker, who also testified, noted that the full range of Army vehicles--including the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck, Heavy Equipment Tactical Transporter, Palletized Load System truck and fuel tankers--are now being equipped with some form of up-armoring.

�€œThe public focus has generally been on the Humvee -- we�€™ve made real progress on the Humvee,�€ he said. �€œThe real boost has been in the fact that we are now armoring every wheeled vehicle -- trucks, HEMMTs, HETTs, PLS trucks, tankers, all of this.�€

I'll take Harvey and Schoomaker at their word. But their accounts seem to run head-first into a December report by the AP that "of more than 9,100 heavy military haulers in Iraq, Afghanistan and nearby countries, just over 1,100 have received upgraded protection." Harvey and Schoomaker's testimony would also appear to contradict what the New York Times had to say about Army National Guard's trucks, back in November.

There are plans to produce armor kits for at least 2,806 medium-weight trucks, but as of Sept. 17, only 385 of the kits had been produced and sent to Iraq. Armor kits were also planned for at least 1,600 heavyweight trucks, but as of mid-September just 446 of these kits were in Iraq.

Anyone wanna guess who's telling the truth and who's spinning here?

D.I.Y. GUN TRUCK

U.S. convoys have become juicy targets for insurgents. The vehicles roll around the desert with about as much armor as a Chevy pick-up. And the gun trucks meant to protect the supply trains aren't muscular enough to shove guerillas aside.

So one Army Staff Sergeant, James King, decided to take matters into his own hands, The State (via Jeff Quinton) reports. SSG King has designed a new gun truck for convoy protection.

The truck currently is undergoing a seven-day road test in Iraq and initial reports are good, Maj. Ricky Smith, the 175th [Maintenance Company's] commander, reported Wednesday.

�€œSo far, no one has shot at it and that is the effect we wanted �€” to scare the h--- out of the bad guys,�€ Smith wrote in an e-mail to The State...

King�€™s design adds an armored box, bristling with guns, that can be bolted onto the back of a heavy transport truck in a convoy. It is much different than the gun trucks the Army has used for decades. Those are quick, agile gun trucks designed to race up and down the length of a convoy to meet attackers.

King�€™s gun truck �€” recently unveiled at Camp Arifjan, where the 175th is stationed in Kuwait �€” weighs more than 20 tons. The vehicle originally was designed to haul a battle tank...

The walls of the box are protected on the side by several layers of Kevlar. There are a few inches between the Kevlar and the sides of the truck to absorb most of the impact and shrapnel if it is hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, King said.

That part of the design has not been tested, King said. �€œWe won�€™t know until an RPG hits it.�€

The box is made of three-eighths-inch-thick steel plating, which can stop most small-arms fire. The floor is reinforced with two layers of the steel plating to protect against bombs.

The box is armed with one 40-mm and one .50-caliber machine gun. It has room for two other gunners.

If the truck makes it past its first real-world road test in Iraq this week, King and the others who worked on the project will construct seven more boxes for the 7th Transportation Group.

HUMVEE PRODUCTION BOOSTED

"The Army moved Friday to boost production of armored Humvees for American troops in Iraq by 100 a month," the L.A. Times reports, "despite recent assertions by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that soldiers could not be supplied with safer vehicles because Pentagon officials could not procure them any faster."

TRUCKS STILL THIN-SKINNED

The Hummers are protected, mostly. It's the trucks that are in trouble.

The AP is reporting that "of more than 9,100 heavy military haulers in Iraq, Afghanistan and nearby countries, just over 1,100 have received upgr