Will MRAPs become white elephants?

[babylonsister]

Will MRAPs become white elephants?
Concerns arise that the massive bomb-resistant vehicles may not be practical outside Iraq.
By Gordon Lubold | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the October 19, 2007 edition


Washington - After a slow and controversial start, the military is furiously trying to get enough Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, into Iraq.

In fact, it is Defense Secretary Robert Gates's biggest priority when it comes to protecting troops in Iraq. But as his department scrambles to provide enough bomb-resistant vehicles, with plans to have as many as 1,500 MRAPs there by the end of the year, concern is emerging that the massive vehicles will become tomorrow's white elephant.

There is no question that the vehicles save lives: The up-armored trucks with their V-shaped hull protect troops from all but the largest types of explosive devices, allowing them often to walk away from some attacks that they would not have probably survived in up-armored Humvees, which are far more common in Iraq.

Yet in and outside the Pentagon, the concern is that such heavy investment in the expensive vehicles this late in the game comes with a greater price. The fear is that the average $800,000-per-unit cost and 22-ton weight of some of the vehicles may undermine military missions beyond Iraq.

Even during the current counterinsurgency, insulating US troops from the local population in these vehicles runs counter to the kinds of tactics US troops are typically employing in Iraq.

more...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1019/p03s03-usmi.html

[Jackpine Radical]

1. What the hell are they worried about?

We're gonna be in Iraq 20 or 30 years anyway, or at least until the oil runs out. Plenty of time to use up these monstriosities. Then after we're d0ne with them (and out of oil), we can give them to local VFWs across the country to park outside their bars.

[TahitiNut]

2. If they become white elephants, will they be sent to Congress with the others?

:dunce:

[TwilightGardener]

3. You have to have equipment to match the challenges you face--

if roadside bombs are a big part of the warfare in Iraq, then they make sense. They should have had these MRAP's in place along time ago--could have saved a lot of lives.

[babylonsister]

4. Better idea - spend that money on getting ALL the soldiers home. Then,

they wouldn't be needed. Problem solved. There might be a few disgruntled contractors, but hey, so what.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

6. my dearest sister, your hammer nailed the head of. . . ah .er . . . the nail.

I saw some of those beasties being transported through Illinois highways last week. Shrink-wrapped, no less. Their tires managed to fit 50% on the edges of either side of the tractor's trailer. They even had "extra wide" signs on them.

And being a military transport, while every other truck had to go through the weigh station, these tractor trailers just passed them by.

[Strelnikov_]

5. Yes. The 'enemy' has already adapted

by using EFP's.

There was an article a few months ago where the GI's were saying they were better off being in unarmored Humvee's in the event of an EFP strike (the projectile just passes through versus turning an armored vehicles armor into shrapnel).

[ChairmanAgnostic]

7. unless the path of the thing - - - - >

ahem.