Big Armored Vehicles' Big Surprise

[nhboy (Premo)]

" Wow, imagine this. The Pentagon just might not need all of the big, honkin' armored vehicles that the Army and Marine Corps have demanded. The extraordinarily heavily things, costing up to $2-3 million each, just might present some operational deployment issues. From Defense News (subscription required):

The Pentagon will store thousands of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, DoD’s [Department of Defense's] top procurement official told lawmakers Nov. 8.

“We might not need as many as we are buying. Some will be stored for a period of time,” said John Young, the defense acquisition undersecretary. “The service chiefs have indicated that these are heavy, large vehicles that might not fit well with mobile expeditionary missions.”

Young told the House Armed Services Committee and other congressional panels that he had asked service chiefs to assess their plans for the more than 15,000 MRAPs DoD intends to buy and ship to Iraq and Afghanistan by 2010.

December could see the next wave of MRAP orders — perhaps several thousand vehicles, far more than previous batches, industry and government officials said. Vehicle makers had been asking the Pentagon to keep the orders large to reduce cost. DoD spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin declined to speculate on upcoming orders.

Yes, who could have foreseen that a hasty, emotional call to procure very expensive, hard-to-build defense systems -- driven by Congress to bypass the standard requirements process -- might spiral out of control?

Big Armored Vehicles' Big Surprise | Danger Room from Wired.com

[ImnoMensa]

Its no great surprise,with the media and the Democrats squealing that Bush wasnt providing our military with equipment that was beyond destruction ,it stood to reason that sooner or later we would overbuild.

Now they can cry about that. BDS ,its a terrible debilitating disease.

[ylexot]

Yesterday: YOU'RE NOT BUYING ENOUGH EQUIPMENT TO PROTECT THE TROOPS!
Today: YOU'RE BUYING TOO MUCH EQUIPMENT TO PROTECT THE TROOPS!

[itsbob]

“We might not need as many as we are buying. Some will be stored for a period of time,”

AND??

We have warstocks in warehouses around the world.. THOUSANDS of M1's, Bradley's, HMMWV's... some have NEVER been used, some come out every two or three years and get 'exercised' and put back into their respective warehouses.. Why would this vehicle be any different?

Nothing like opening a door into a warehouse about the size of four football fields and seeing nothing but TANKS.. packed in so tight you can't even walk between them you have to walk on them.

[Larry Gude (Premo)]

...the medias fault we rushed off to Baghdad all fast and light and then got attacked where we are vulnerable. These things have been around long enough for us to have had a nice supply of them built long before we ever started gearing up to invade and we've seen plenty of memo's showing people down the chain said we needed them long before we needed them for the precise reasons we needed them.

[itsbob]

Originally Posted by Larry Gude

...the medias fault we rushed off to Baghdad all fast and light and then got attacked where we are vulnerable. These things have been around long enough for us to have had a nice supply of them built long before we ever started gearing up to invade and we've seen plenty of memo's showing people down the chain said we needed them long before we needed them for the precise reasons we needed them.

They are good at what they are intended to do.. but not every vehicle needs to be or should be armored.

Now you have a vehilce that can't carry anything, can't tow anything and here we've built entire systems out of backpacked shelters and trailers..

Every war the US has been in we've had our share of armored vehicles, but along with the armor was the lowly M151 jeep, the Deuce and a half.. Five tons.. all thin skinned unarmored vehilces that did their jobs very well.

[ylexot]

Originally Posted by Larry Gude

...the medias fault we rushed off to Baghdad all fast and light and then got attacked where we are vulnerable. These things have been around long enough for us to have had a nice supply of them built long before we ever started gearing up to invade and we've seen plenty of memo's showing people down the chain said we needed them long before we needed them for the precise reasons we needed them.

What's your point?

[Larry Gude (Premo)]

Originally Posted by itsbob

They are good at what they are intended to do.. but not every vehicle needs to be or should be armored.

Now you have a vehilce that can't carry anything, can't tow anything and here we've built entire systems out of backpacked shelters and trailers..

Every war the US has been in we've had our share of armored vehicles, but along with the armor was the lowly M151 jeep, the Deuce and a half.. Five tons.. all thin skinned unarmored vehilces that did their jobs very well.

...suggesting evey vehicle should be armored. Point is we needed SOME of them, it was known ahead of time and we didn't have any.

[Larry Gude (Premo)]

Originally Posted by ylexot

What's your point?

...seeings how it was foreseeable and predicted we would need some of them once we got there that it would have been nice to have some.

[ylexot]

Originally Posted by Larry Gude

...seeings how it was foreseeable and predicted we would need some of them once we got there that it would have been nice to have some.

And what does that have to do with producing more than we need?