Michael Goldfarb covers the defense industry...
I found an interesting gem on his blog from several months ago and I have highlighted the juicy part in bold (... once again, I would like to thank Nobel Prize Winner Al Gore for inventing the internet which allows us to find stuff like this very quickly....)
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Blogging AUSA
Today was day one of the AUSA Winter Symposium in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The convention is a technology enthusiast's dream, featuring exhibits from nearly every major defense company as well as speeches from the top brass and other Pentagon officials. There is a whole lot going on here that I hope to cover over the next couple days, but I'll start off with some thoughts on what is clearly the top concern of everyone attending this conference: defeating the IED.
The first thing that strikes me from the technology on display here is that the Humvee is pretty much a disaster. The primary weakness of the Humvee is its lack of armor. The only viable solution to that problem was to add armor, in the form of up-armor kits, to nearly every Humvee operating in Iraq. But that solution had a major downside--the vehicle's weight limit is pretty much maxed out once the up-armor kit is added.
Weight isn't the only constraint on the Humvee. Technologies that aim to counter the IED are extremely power-hungry--from jammers to communications to surveillance, all demand a great deal of electricity. But the Humvee has barely enough power to run the systems that were on board when it was first deployed. Combine the lack of electricity with the excess weight, and you have a vehicle with almost no capacity to adapt to the modern battlefield. (As an aside, I was surprised to learn that upgrades to the Stryker, the Army's premier tactical wheeled vehicle, have also been constrained by a shortage of electrical power.)
So nearly every major company here is trying to hawk some kind of technology either to improve the Humvee's survivability or to replace it outright, but the emphasis is clearly on replacing it. There are mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles on display, and "technology demonstrators" for the next generation Humvee, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV).
But let's start with MRAP. BAE had two trucks on display, one in a 4X4 configuration and the other in a 6X6. The Pentagon recently (in the last month) ordered 90 MRAPs from BAE for the Marine Corps which will be deployed to Iraq shortly--75 of the 6X6 variant and the other 15 in the 4X4. Both are impressive and appear highly survivable, but they are simply enormous--check out this pic of the 4X4.
The 6X6 is, of course, larger. But even the 4X4 weighs in at more than 35,000 pounds (compare that to an up-armored Humvee which weighs roughly 13,000 pounds). The vehicles were both designed last year with input from BAE's South African unit, which has been making MRAP vehicles longer than anybody else in the industry (the reason for that is an interesting story by itself), and they might be the most survivable of the models now being considered by the military--but I don't believe either would serve as an effective replacement for the Humvee. They're just too big.
More promising as a Humvee replacement (not service-wide but in theater) is Force Protection's Cheetah. The Cheetah is the smallest of a family of MRAP vehicles that we've covered here before. The Cougar and Buffalo, Force Protection's larger MRAPs, have already seen extensive service in Iraq, but the Cheetah is new. Light, fast, and well armored, the Cheetah really could replace the Humvee throughout Iraq. I think its main advantage is that it's not so intimidating as some of the other models on display. That is, its presence on Iraqi roads might not scare the heck out of the average, friendly Iraqi civilian. And at roughly 12,000 pounds, it's in the same weight class as the Humvee.
The military hasn't yet ordered the Cheetah, but it's only a matter of time. And Force Protection is turning out Cougars and Buffalos as fast as they can to meet existing contracts.
Rafael, an Israeli firm, also had an MRAP on display--the Golan. The Marine Corps ordered 60 of these vehicles at the end of February, and will likely order more in the months ahead as the Marine Corps struggles to deploy more than 4,100 MRAPs to Iraq by the end of the year. Essentially, no one firm can meet the demands of the Marine Corps and the Army, which means multiple suppliers will be needed to fill the order. That ought to be a nightmare for the guys doing logistics, let alone the mechanics. But these vehicles will save a lot of American lives as they are put into service.
What is really needed, however, is a replacement for the Humvee. The magnitude of that contract was evident inside, and outside, the convention hall. General Dynamics Land Systems had their technology demonstrator on display, a sleek looking vehicle that resembled an armored dune buggy. The fact sheet has the vehicle's top speed at 70 mph with a weight somewhere between 14,000 - 16,000 pounds. It's a neat looking vehicle, but I got the sense from the GDLS folks that the vehicle they would ultimately submit for testing would bear little resemblance to the one on display. Still, the vehicle features a hybrid diesel-electric engine, which will provide a substantial increase in the amount of electricity available for on board systems.
Oshkosh had even less to show--no technology demonstrator, no plywood mock-up, just a one page brochure with a picture of a mudflap. Oshkosh is an industry leader in this field, but they appear to be a bit behind the curve. And everybody seems to be a bit behind Lockheed Martin. I spoke with Lockheed's JLTV program manager a couple of weeks ago, and when I posted on the program they wouldn't give me so much as an artist's rendering of the vehicle--the competition to win this contract is intense. But Lockheed has a prototype at the convention, hidden in a tent about 200 meters from the main exhibit. The vehicle will be unveiled tomorrow morning and I hope to get pictures of it up as soon as possible. Right now, my sense is that Lockheed is in a pretty commanding position relative to the competition.
There was a lot of interesting technology on display besides armored vehicles, but even the other gadgets were mostly geared toward the IED defeat mission. One technology generating tremendous buzz was Rafael's Trophy Active Protection System. I can't tell you that much about it, but the video of the system in action is impressive. The system targets incoming RPGs and fires some kind of munition to tear the thing apart before it can reach the vehicle. The munition itself is classified, but highly effective by all accounts. Still, there is a concern that an active defense system will put friendlies at risk--any soldier walking alongside an armored vehicle protected by Trophy will be in danger of getting hit if an RPG is fired, either by the RPG or Trophy. Rafael claims a one percent risk of a friendly fire incident, but that is hardly insignificant. Also, there's the cost, which wasn't disclosed, but surely exceeds the cost of a Humvee.
What may have been the most elegant piece of technology on display today is also geared toward defeating the RPG, and it stands in stark contrast to the hi-tech and hi-cost Trophy system. It is the L-Rod RPG Defense Kit from BAE. The L-Rod is little more than an aviation-grade, aluminum cage that can be mounted onto an armored vehicle. RPGs rely on a shaped charge to magnify the effect of what is, in fact, a relatively small amount of high-explosives. The L-Rod does not protect a vehicle from that small warhead, but by shredding the RPG before it can strike the vehicle, it effectively destroys the shape of the warhead. The result: any lightly armored vehicle can survive a direct hit from what would otherwise be a highly lethal munition. Here's a picture of the L-Rod.
The L-Rod is already in use on a number of MRAP vehicles in Iraq, including Force Protection's Buffalo. What makes L-Rod so impressive though, is that it is a $100 solution to a $100 problem. Still, this simple defensive measure weighs too much to be extensively deployed on up-armored Humvees. While some Humvees do use the L-Rod to protect windows and side-doors, the vehicle cannot sustain the extra weight of wrap-around L-Rod protection, leaving much of the vehicle vulnerable to the RPG's shaped charge.
One last thing I should mention is Boeing's UAV helicopter, the A160 Hummingbird. The Hummingbird has a payload of 1,500 pounds, which far exceeds that of the Predator, and it can also hover--which no fixed wing UAV can claim. All of which is irrelevant in making the Hummingbird the hands-down coolest looking weapons platform on display at the AUSA convention. Still, Special Operations Command was likely less impressed by the look of the thing than its capabilities when they ordered 10 copies to be delivered this spring.
