Ok, so she doesnt look the same.

Shes big­ger and heav­ier than she is in the old photos.

But Jeep-maker Chrysler will tell you theres just more to love about the vehi­cle and it is hop­ing once again to find a place in the Armys heart and motor-vehicle fleet.

Under a ban­ner announc­ing The Icon Returns, Jeep Government and Military Sales set a pro­to­type of the new Jeep onto the car­peted floor of the Walter Washington Convention Center in Washington as part of the Association of the U.S. Armys annual con­fer­ence.

To be sure the Jeep J8 on dis­play at AUSA bears almost no resem­blance to the one dri­ven around Bien Hoa Army Base by long-ago bud­dies Lynn Pfeiffer and Ken Bones Roberson, but back then light util­ity vehi­cles were sup­posed to be just that light. The J8, like pretty much every vehi­cle on sale to the Army today, is big enough to tote a slew of equip­ment, includ­ing weapons and armor.

The Jeep J8 is a mil­i­tary ver­sion of Chryslers Jeep Wrangler. It comes with both diesel and gaso­line engines, said Ken Bergquist, a vice pres­i­dent with JGMS. The com­pany is pitch­ing the J8 as a light patrol or bor­der patrol vehi­cle, per­son­nel or cargo car­rier, com­mu­ni­ca­tions vehi­cle or ambu­lance, he said.

Its not a vehi­cle youd use in a high-IED threat envi­ron­ment, he said, but it would serve a lot of mis­sions that you dont need a Humvee for. Also, he said, the Army could own three J8s for the cost of one Humvee.

The clas­sic World War II-era jeep was about 10-feet, 9-inches long and 6-feet high with the top on. The J8 adds a good four feet to the length and one to the width, but its only three inches shorter.

The Jeep was a main­stay of the Armys vehi­cle fleet from 1941 and for sev­eral years after the Korean War. After that the “Jeep” was actu­ally a MUTT — an M151 Military Utility Tactical Truck, to be exact. But it looked enough like the old Jeep — and gen­er­a­tions of Soldiers called it a Jeep — and so that’s what my bud­dies were tool­ing around in in Vietnam.

Turns out that Bergquist was at Bien Hoa at the same time (even knew my CO, he said) and he straight­ened me out on the Jeep/MUTT error.

I stand corrected.

– Bryant Jordan

This just came across the wires from the UK’s Western Mail:

A British-built steam super­car broke a 103-year-old world land speed record for steam-powered vehi­cles in the United States yesterday. 

The 25ft-long British Steam Car — nick­named the “fastest ket­tle in the world” — reached an aver­age speed of 139.843mph on two runs over a mea­sured mile at the Edwards Air Force Base in California. 

The tim­ing beat the pre­vi­ous record of 127mph set by American
Fred Marriott in a Stanley steam car at the Daytona Beach Road
Course in 1906. 

Record offi­cials rec­og­nize a land speed record as the aver­age
speed of two passes made across the same mea­sured dis­tance in oppos­ing direc­tions within 60 min­utes of each other.

Wow … that’s mov­ing out. Can Steam NASCAR be far behind?

– Ward

The $87 bil­lion Manned Ground Vehicle Program will prob­a­bly be killed this week, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey told the Senate Appropriations defense sub­com­mit­tee Tuesday morning.

Army Secretary Pete Geren also clar­i­fied one point that is sure to raise the hack­les of Sen. James Inhofe the Non Line of Sight Cannon was killed as well. Inhofe had the NLOC made a sep­a­rate pro­gram in large part to pro­tect it from any cuts made to FCS. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the deci­sion that killing MGV also meant killing the NLOS-C, Geren said today.

An Acquisition Decision Memorandum should be out this week, split­ting the Manned ground Vehicle from the rest of the FCS pro­gram and killing MGV, Casey told the sub­com­mit­tee. He said they have already instructed Training and Doctrine Command to being draw­ing up new require­ments. A new pro­gram out­line for a new ground vehi­cle should be ready after Labor Day, Casey said. The mil­i­tary will con­sider for­eign vehi­cles, though Casey seemed reluc­tant to com­mit to the idea of buy­ing one should it look tempt­ing. (While the Army has bought excel­lent equip­ment from over­seas in the past, it has been badly burned before over buy­ing from for­eign sup­pli­ers remem­ber those black berets made in China. ) The first vehi­cles should roll out of the plant within five to seven years.

Sec. Gates and his bud­get experts have made very clear they expect MRAP will be a major part of the new approach to FCS. Casey and Geren were very cau­tious in respond­ing to reporters ques­tions about this after the hear­ing. We are work­ing to incor­po­rate the MRAP into what­ever approach the Army comes up with, Geren said. And Casey said the Army is already putting net­worked MRAPs with other FCS spin­outs into test­ing at Fort Bliss.

One thing may stay the same with the new ground com­bat vehi­cle a sin­gle chas­sis, which Casey said had clear logis­tics payoffs.

Finally, one of my col­leagues asked Casey whether he would pro­vide an unfunded require­ments list to Congress. Gates has made clear he does not want to be blind­sided by the lists a peren­nial favorite of both Congress and the ser­vices since it allows the ser­vices to cir­cum­vent the bud­get process and OSD in ask­ing for money and Casey expressed admirable frus­tra­tion with the process. Im almost at the point where Im ready to kill that whole idea, Casey said. Almost? I asked. Almost, Casey said to appre­cia­tive laugh­ter from the gag­gle. Look for an unfunded require­ments list from the Army, com­ing soon.

– Colin Clark

One thing I’m curi­ous about is what Gates said this week on the Army’s vehi­cle mod­ern­iza­tion pro­gram and, specif­i­cally, his line:

“The cur­rent vehi­cle pro­gram, devel­oped nine years ago, does not include a role for our recent $25 bil­lion invest­ment in the MRAP vehi­cles being used to good effect in todays con­flicts.”

In can­cel­ing the FCS ground vehi­cle pro­gram, Gates seemed to be say­ing there would be a role for the MRAP as a replace­ment for some FCS ground vehi­cle vari­ants. That wor­ries me a bit because as has been well doc­u­mented here, the MRAP is of very lim­ited use in most tac­ti­cal sit­u­a­tions and can be more of a detri­ment to a coun­terin­sur­gency than a help.

There’s been some more scut­tle butt on this over at a well known loop that I’m not able to reveal to pro­tect sources, but the back and forth has been whether the MRAP could be replaced by more Strykers. Michael Yon is argu­ing that the Stryker fits the bill in most of the sit­u­a­tions that MRAPs were used for in Iraq and now in Afghanistan with more fire­power and bet­ter all-terrain capability.

As some­one who’s spent some time in Iraq in Strykers (and Bradleys) in Iraq I’d have to agree with Yon that the vehi­cle is pretty damned awe­some and adapt­able as heck. I agree with Yon that the MRAP could have a role in secur­ing and con­voy escort along MSRS and other LOCs. But I also see an endur­ing role for up-armored Humvees and the com­ing era of the JLTV. Of all the tac­ti­cal vehi­cle mod­ern­iza­tion pro­grams in the works, it’s the JLTV that I believe has the most promise and endur­ing effect.

Buy more Strykers with the lat­est bad-ass weapons sys­tems, armor and C2 gear; kick up the JLTV pro­gram and keep the MRAPs for route clear­ance and escort and we should be good until it’s time to replace the Bradleys and M1s…and those should be fun ones to watch.

PS– I have con­tacted the Army on when it will release its ser­vice bud­get with spe­cific pro­grams and dol­lar fig­ures. Apparently, Gates’ announce­ment was just that — an announce­ment of “pri­or­i­ties” and not the for­mal bud­get roll-out which offi­cials say will come in early-to-mid May. Then we’ll get the R1s, P1s and other doc­u­ments with specifics on who gets what.

And a source tells me he thinks the ser­vices might be going back to the draw­ing board:

Looks like SECDEF is going to force their hand. Frankly, I think both ser­vices are prob­a­bly review­ing their plans in light of SECDEFs bud­get announce­ment this week, the upcom­ing QDR, and fis­cal pres­sures that will call into ques­tion any major acqui­si­tion program.

– Christian

The Pentagons acqui­si­tion com­mu­nity breathed a huge sigh of relief when the Government Accountability denied protests to the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle Program award by Northrop Grumman and Textron.

If this major pro­gram protest had been upheld it might well have brought Pentagon acqui­si­tion efforts to a slow and painful grind, even slower and more painful than they already suf­fer from, accord­ing to sev­eral senior acqui­si­tion offi­cials with whom Ive spo­ken over the last sev­eral weeks.

The prose from the Joint Light Tactical vehi­cle pro­gram offices Wednesday after­noon press release was bland. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), today, denied the protests of Northrop Grumman and Textron Marine & Land Systems against the awards of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) Technology Development (TD) contracts.

But the prose from some Army sources was vibrant. You could hear lit­er­ally some in the Army whoop­ing it up that the GAO had found in their favor. However, the Army still faces a very fun­da­men­tal prob­lem, one it shares with the Marines. It does not have a clear and viable vehi­cle strat­egy. The J-8 is work­ing on the issue but the bud­get is being rebuilt as we speak and the two ser­vices are buy­ing an insup­port­able range of vehi­cles up-armored Humvees, MRAPs, FCS and JLTVs. And the move to Afghanistan will force pur­chase of a fairly large quan­tity of vehi­cles, leav­ing the ser­vices with less flex­i­bil­ity to make a ratio­nal, long-term decision.

– Colin Clark

I saw an inter­est­ing report on the Marine Corps’ Growler pro­gram (oth­er­wise known as the Internally Transportable Vehicle, or ITV)… 

Walter Pincus of the Washington Post dug through some doc­u­ments and wrote a story that pretty much sums up the rut­ted path Marine Corps has dri­ven down in this vehi­cle.

The Marine Corps is start­ing to deploy a jeep­like vehi­cle called the Growler, 10 years after con­cep­tion and at twice the con­tract price, after delays that were caused by chang­ing con­cepts and prob­lems in con­tract­ing, devel­op­ment and test­ing, accord­ing to two reports…

The inspec­tor gen­eral report said that the aver­age cost of a sin­gle Growler has risen 120 per­cent, from about $94,000 when the con­tract was awarded in 2004 to $209,000 in 2008. The unit cost for the vehi­cle with mor­tar and ammu­ni­tion trailer has grown 86 per­cent, from $579,000 to $1,078,000…

The first six mor­tar and ammu­ni­tion sys­tems have been sent to Marine units, as have about 20 ITVs.

The Army has 81 ITVs under con­tract and is await­ing bids on 70 more; there are 12 mor­tar and ammu­ni­tion trailer sys­tems under con­tract and 20 more out for bids…

I cov­ered the ITV pretty closely back in the day (before I was largely shut out of Systems Command) and I’m con­flicted by the trou­bled pro­gram. On the one hand, I’m still skep­ti­cal about the selec­tion of the actual “Growler” vehi­cle — essen­tially a tricked out WWII-era Jeep. It looks vul­ner­a­ble and doesn’t seem to meet a wider need within the Marine Corps. Did the Corps really need a vehi­cle that could be trans­ported by the Osprey and tow a 120mm mor­tar? Or did the Osprey need it to con­vince skep­tics that the bird could be used for aer­ial raids so the Corps con­cocted this program?

(more…)

This arti­cle first appeared in AviationWeek.com.

Modern war­fare — where the bat­tle­field is a mix of actors, moti­va­tions and weapons — is in part defined by its rapidly chang­ing threat sce­nar­ios and mul­ti­ple lay­ers of high– and low-tech on-the-fly inno­va­tions, all of which demand real-time responses.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, this has been espe­cially true of armor pro­tec­tion for ground vehi­cles, which have been bat­tered by all man­ner of increas­ingly pow­er­ful pres­sure plate and remotely con­trolled impro­vised explo­sive devices and explo­sively formed pen­e­tra­tors; weapons which morph as U.S. armor tech­nol­ogy learns how to counter each suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tion of explo­sive.

This catch-as-catch can approach has pro­duced fleets of hulk­ing Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAPs), intrigu­ing designs for Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTVs) — cur­rently hung up in indus­try protests — and calls for the Multipurpose All-Terrain Vehicle (MATV), or “MRAP Lite” as some are call­ing it. But what’s next for the armor field? Militaries want lighter vehi­cles, and despite the hulk­ing size of the orig­i­nal MRAPs, suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions of the vehi­cle will by neces­sity be lighter, and more maneu­ver­able.

Damon Walsh, exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent of cus­tomer oper­a­tion at armor and vehi­cle maker Force Protection, says his com­pany, while always work­ing on new armor solu­tions, is also focus­ing on ways to defeat and detect the threat before the vehi­cles encounter it. “One of the things that we’re keen on,” he says, “is not just pas­sive armor sys­tems to stop threats, but also more sophis­ti­cated active pro­tec­tion sys­tems. The idea is “don’t just rely on armor, try and defeat the threat ear­lier before you get hit.”

In reflect­ing on the last sev­eral years, it’s not sur­pris­ing that Walsh says that “we’ve had one of the largest demands that I’ve ever seen in the industry…for increased pro­tec­tion lev­els in real time. The threat changed in the past three years so many times that we were in the labs over the week­ends try­ing to cre­ate solu­tions based on intel given by the cus­tomer for real-time changes.”

Tony Russell, vice pres­i­dent of vehi­cle armor BAE, which has sup­plied over 5,000 MRAPs to the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in recent years, sees one of the chal­lenges of the future being the sus­tain­ment of the rel­a­tively expen­sive MRAP fleet, now that new orders have waned. But he’s also got his eye on the prize that other armor mak­ers like Force Protection are gun­ning for — you’ve got to find “ways to defeat and detect the threat before you even get to it,” he says.

Read the rest of this story, take a look at war­rior med­i­cine, see who’s got a DAGR in his pocket and find out if Tiger got its quals from our Aviation Week friends exclu­sively on Military.com.

– Christian

The Army announced yes­ter­day that it had awarded con­tracts worth $166 mil­lion to three indus­try teams to develop the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, also var­i­ously known as the Humvee replace­ment, although this vehi­cle will be much more than the ubiq­ui­tous Humvee. The win­ners are Lockheed Martin; General Tactical Vehicles (a joint ven­ture between General Dynamics Land Systems and AM General, man­u­fac­turer of the Humvee); and BAE Systems. 

The con­tracts are for the tech­nol­ogy devel­op­ment phase of the pro­tracted DOD pro­duc­tion process, expected to take 27 months, when each team will pro­duce at least seven pro­to­types. The idea is to build a fam­ily of JLTVs shar­ing com­mon parts but avail­able in dif­fer­ent con­fig­u­ra­tions such as a six seat infantry car­rier, a four seat recon, com­mand and con­trol, heavy weapons car­rier and ambu­lance. Once the pro­to­types are tested, the Army will hold yet another com­pe­ti­tion to down select one or more win­ners for the System Development and Demonstration phase. Full scale pro­duc­tion is expected in 2013. 

The Army and Marines have not final­ized the total num­ber of JLTVs they ulti­mately want to buy, but an Army press release said the request for pro­pos­als included a pro­jected pro­duc­tion quan­tity of 60,000 over eight years. The ulti­mate pro­duc­tion num­ber will almost cer­tainly be much higher. Former Army Vice Chief Gen. Richard Cody, in an appear­ance before a House appro­pri­a­tions sub­com­mit­tee last year, said the Army intends for the JLTV to replace 130,000 of the ser­vices Humvees. Australia decided this week to join the JLTV pro­gram and might buy up to 4,200 vehicles. 

The joint Army-Marine Corps JLTV will strike a bal­ance between per­for­mance, pay­load and pro­tec­tion, said Col. John Myers, Project Manager with the Armys Joint Combat Support Services, in the Army press release. Unlike the Humvee, which was orig­i­nally designed as a rear area and gar­ri­son vehi­cle and was con­verted into a pass­able fight­ing vehi­cle by slap­ping armor and weapons onto it, the JLTV will be designed from the ground up as a fight­ing vehi­cle incor­po­rat­ing lessons learned from the fight­ing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

(more…)

You might remem­ber a few months back — as many law­mak­ers got them­selves into a lather, treat­ing the MRAP as the solu­tion to every prob­lem with the Iraq War — we raised some ques­tions about the pace at which they were being fielded and how they were going to be employed effec­tively dur­ing a counter-insurgency campaign.

Well, the dust is start­ing to clear from the stam­pede of those who were out to prove they love the troops more than the next con­gress­man, and lo and behold, their zeal caused a few unin­tended consequences.

Here’s an excerpt from the story run­ning at Military.com:

The accel­er­ated pace the mil­i­tary has used to buy and deploy thou­sands of heav­ily armored mine resis­tant vehi­cles for Iraq and Afghanistan could lead to prob­lems with main­te­nance and cost over­runs on the top pri­or­ity project, accord­ing to con­gres­sional investigators.

Congress has appro­pri­ated $22 bil­lion to acquire more than 15,000 mine resis­tant ambush pro­tected vehi­cles, also known as MRAPs, to pro­tect troops from road­side bombs and other insur­gent ambushes, accord­ing to the Government Accountability Office report. Defense Secretary Robert Gates des­ig­nated the pro­gram as the department’s high­est pri­or­ity acqui­si­tion last year.

That meant test­ing of safety and per­for­mance occurred while the vehi­cles were being bought, rais­ing the pos­si­bil­ity costly errors would be uncov­ered after the fact. More than 100 vehi­cles the mil­i­tary paid for were not fielded because of prob­lems dis­cov­ered after their pur­chase, accord­ing to the GAO report made pub­lic Wednesday.

“While the department’s con­cur­rent approach to pro­duc­ing, test­ing, and field­ing the vehi­cles has pro­vided an urgently needed oper­a­tional capa­bil­ity, it has also increased per­for­mance, sus­tain­abil­ity and cost risks,” the GAO concluded.

Read the entire story here.

– Ward

Gizmodo has an item about a new mir­a­cle paint that makes what­ever it coats invis­i­ble to radar:

A German inven­tor has devel­oped a paint called AR 1 that can hide a vehi­cle from radar, and most impor­tantly, “all mil­i­tar­ily rel­e­vant fre­quen­cies.” How it works is unclear, though one test researcher pro­poses it’s either by reflect­ing radar waves in a pat­tern so they can­cel one another out, or by uti­liz­ing micro­scopic mag­nets to absorb radar radi­a­tion. And no, it won’t get you out of speed­ing tickets.

The inventor’s story is an inter­est­ing one, involv­ing thou­sands of hours of lab trial and error, as well as inter­na­tional mil­i­tary inter­est in his prod­uct … that far out­shined the response from his own country’s military.

But appar­ently the most promis­ing and equi­table use for such a paint could be civil­ian. Airport tow­ers and build­ings have a long his­tory of inter­fer­ing with flight con­trol radars. And to sim­ply make them dis­ap­pear would be quite use­fu­las opposed to call­ing hangar 12 in for a land­ing or something.

(Gouge: CM)

– Ward