Buffalo and Nyala Vshaped anti IED vehicles.

[MikoyanPT]

Originally posted by panzermartin:

Sexy?? We have enough ugly vehicles with the stryker and the rest of the american bulky box like vehicles. I dont want these things included!

Stryker is Sexy too !

[Dirtweasle]

Some additional news on MRAP -

Ex-SEAL vies to fortify U.S. combat trucks

WINSTON SALEM, N.C. -- Former Navy SEAL Chris Berman is building two versions of an armored combat vehicle competing for a piece of the MRAP pie.

MRAP is a U.S. Defense Department acronym for the Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle design that soldiers want and contractors are bidding on to build in great numbers. Mr. Berman, who operates Granite Tactical and Granite Global Vehicles, is one such contractor. But he'll argue, it's not about money. It's about saving lives on Iraq's deadly highways.

On the morning of March 31, 2004, Mr. Berman -- then a SEAL Reservist and Blackwater security officer -- was driving in the south of Iraq near Umm Qasr when he received a satellite phone call that literally changed his life...

[...]

..."MRAP is a response to one dimension of a very complex threat -- mine blast -- that's being presented by a very intelligent and agile foe," says Clay Moise, Textron MLS' vice president of business development and strategic planning. "Protection is only one of the critical dimensions in the formula -- protection, mobility, transportability and lethality -- that ultimately makes up a relevant vehicle for our soldiers."

During a Pentagon briefing on Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said, "There are several different companies that have produced different kinds of MRAP vehicles," and that they were undergoing testing at Maryland's Aberdeen Proving Grounds.

The systems at Aberdeen, he says, are "heavily instrumented so that they can ... make sure they test every vehicle on the same soil so that that variable is removed in terms of the impact. And they're looking even at, in some cases, perhaps the seat for the troops in one kind of vehicle are better in a different kind of vehicle."

Mr. Gates added, "The only requirement that's important to me now is to produce as many of these vehicles and to get them into the field as fast as possible, and to ramp up, to make selections and get the production under way and get these things into the field. In terms of what the long-term plan will be, I want to deal with what we can get done in the next six to 12 months first."

Mr. Berman's vehicles have yet to be tested at Aberdeen, but they have been thoroughly tested in combat: Hit multiple times by improvised explosive devices and small-arms fire, no passenger has ever been killed or wounded by either in a Granite vehicle.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Maybe a stupid question but wasn't that V shape designed against mines? And isn't the main threat in Iraq and Afghanistan roadside bombs? A different threat all together. You'd think that the angled hull might be struck more violently by a a roadside bomb because of the direction the blast is coming from.

[tiny_tanker]

Most IED's are either in the road ie buried under the asphalt, in trenches, under manholes, or directly on the edge of the road. You wouldn't get much effect out of them otherwise. So the design will still give the desired results.

[John Kettler]

Sergei,

Don't have the connections to get this JSTOR article, but I read it in the 1980s at Hughes and nearly died laughing. American military procurement practices reframed to Roman times. The search for a replacement military horse goes disastrously awry.

Google "grachii horse" to find the article. Couldn't post link because of dreaded embedded parentheses.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Capt. Toleran]

Anything with that much engineering for a specific purpose is sexy. Too bad we keep building bigger and tougher targets for them to use their IEDs on -- cleary we are trying to "tech" our way out of the war, rather than working with the neighborhoods or leaving if we are not wanted. It's the military-industrial complex at work -- the military buys more toys that will supposedly fix the problem, our soldiers and govt. pay the price while the contractors get rich.

Oops, maybe that's a tiny bit too political for this morning or this forum. Carry on!

(BTW, I was an original supporter of the war, but not this morass. We should leave, Al Queda is in Pakistan, not Iraq, and Hussein is dead).

[ChrisND]

Originally posted by Capt. Toleran:

Anything with that much engineering for a specific purpose is sexy. Too bad we keep building bigger and tougher targets for them to use their IEDs on -- cleary we are trying to "tech" our way out of the war, rather than working with the neighborhoods or leaving if we are not wanted.

Actually I agree with you, but thi is not a fault or problem unique to this area. You see that human fault everywhere - thinking problems can be solved with a new toy or by throwing money at it.

[gunnergoz]

I did admire the Asinine Personnel Carrier!