GAO states the obvious again

July 17, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Congress, Federal Budget Process, GAO, production program 

The GAO released a report stating that in their rush to purchase Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles the services may have set themselves up for some long term costs that were avoidable. See the story here. No kidding. The USMC and Army were thrown money and direction by Congress to purchase as many MRAP as possible and rush them into service. Do you think that there were some thought and steps in the contracting process that could have been more thorough? In the long term neither service wants the MRAP, which was a knee jerk reaction to the IED threat anyway. They are not very mobile or tactical and there will be issues in the future trying to transport them to whatever the next battlefield is.

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DoD buys bulk of MRAPs from other sources then Force Protection

March 16, 2008 by Dagpotter · 2 Comments
Filed under: Contract Awards, Force Protection, U.S. Army, production program 

Force Protection won just 1 percent of a contract for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles awarded on Friday. This is a big blow to the company, and they state they have enough current orders to keep going for 8 months. See Bloomberg.com here. This means that Force Protection, which basically arose out of the whole MRAP concept, must seek non-DoD customers to keep going. The MRAP had been used by South African forces for years in Rhodesia and other areas where mines were the biggest threat. Now that Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) are it really in Iraq the US Army and Marines have been buying them like crazy at Congress’s urging.

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