Afghan MRAP Ready Rates High

BOOMER March 10th, 2010 at 3:27 pm

This is honestly nothing more than upward career motivated brown nosing. The brass always touts how great new gear is but in reality the people who use it every day hate it for good reason. The MARINES are making numerous in field modifications just to keep the suspensions from breaking and to control the cab roll of them. Things that could have been addressed with proper testing conducted in places other than those with hard packed dirt roads. If the BRASS had listened to the troops rather than the contractors, the 1,000’s of M135’s that were hauled off to bombing ranges (even though they were in good condition) and sent to DRMO would have been better platforms to start with. The old style leaf spring solid axle suspensions could have been beefed up just by adding more leafs, the axle tubes could have been strengthened with gussets, the frame boxed, and a body added. The lower center of gravity would have greatly reduced the chance of roll over but still have given enogh clearance for the V hull. This also would have greatly reduced the cost because most of the work could have been performed in house by the military,

General March 11th, 2010 at 11:49 am

It’s obvious to me that BOOMER knows nothing of vechile dynamics or the effects of blast on a vehicle

BOOMER March 11th, 2010 at 1:03 pm

So general — do you build MRAPS for a living or something. I described the use of V hull to be used, and the same basic body style. My statement was that the M135 solid axle leaf spring suspension which has heavy duty gears built to take abuse and a lower stance should have been the starting point. As a matter of fact I know quite a bit about blast dynamics, like why we dont train to put limpet mines on round submarine hulls because they have no impact area, that was the ideal behind doing away with flat spots under vehicles and its being carried over to other platforms as well. But even with V hulls you will still loose wheels and hubs, especialy on independent front suspension systems because they are just weak to start with.

BOOMER March 11th, 2010 at 1:45 pm

Continued: look at mortar rounds you have 1 team for tail fins, one team for igniters, one team for bodies, one team for noses, one team for explosives and another for booster charges, then they are divided into more teams for smokes, training rounds, WP, HE and so on. and none know what the other does or how its made. The same is true with small arms ammo, it’s divided into caliber teams and most dont know anything about the weapons it’s fired from, the weapons teams handle those issues and they ralrely speak to each other. Neither side realizes how a simple change to save cost on the ammo can cause major wear and jamming issues to the rifles. Then it goes on to artillery and so forth. Cots and inexperiance is what is causing our issues today. Talk to anyone driving an MRAP or uparmored HUMVEE (and other vehicles as well) and all will agree the drive trains and supensions are too weak and constantly breaking).

BOOMER March 11th, 2010 at 2:03 pm

CONTINUED: This is especialy true on uparmoured and heavy vehicles, the gears and axle splines are too thin — shallow — and sharp for multi terrain use, especialy in heavy vehicles. because these are commercial items adapted to military platforms there was no forethought into them. Many of the issue occur when transversing from soft sand or gravel to hard pavement or packed earth, the wheels are spinning faster and the engine is reved higher in the soft stuff then you suddenly hit hard ground and you break of the teeth in the gears, break u-joints, or blow the engine. If they had tore everything apart they could have seen that if the gear teeth were larger and rounded of rather than machined square they would provide more stregnth and ruggedness (as was the case in the old m135 gears and as used by offroaders and monster truck builders today). But because the contracts were made without doing this investigation now we are stuck, the contractors know they can make just as much money providing spare parts over the years than if they accepted a contract mod to fix the problem, if we want these new rquirements they want a contract for a new vehicle.

Guest 2 March 11th, 2010 at 5:34 pm

How many do you think could fit in a Chinook ready to ride? Sling load a few to the bottom of a black hawk with the troops in the chopper. You can transvers bad terrain and narrow roads.

Sorry, bad idea. The Generals that head the military industrial complex will not reap their just rewards from the companies that gave them their corporate position for selling bad hardware to the armed services. Another reason is the PC beauracrcy that runs the armed forces would not let it happen. You know the ones that are afraid that it is to risky and you might get hurt and they would get the blame for allowing troops to ride on two wheeled vehicles. To them C.Y.A. seems more important than U.S.A. Hey Sir do you think you might be able to make a deceision to-day???

God help our troops.

Fed Up March 12th, 2010 at 2:41 am

Were you the one who left the cupcakes in the coffee room today? You certainly are drinking the MRAP Kool-Aid.

An Engineer March 12th, 2010 at 6:34 pm

If all you know-it-alls think you can do a better job designing this equipment, get your frigging engineering degree and do something about it instead of running your mouth like you know you could do better. DoD requires COTS items, designing from scratch is not an option for certain components and systems. If you want to field equipment to fit the schedule requirements, it is just not an option. Also, I work for a defense contractor and I can tell you that we DO NOT hire environ engineers to do our Mechanical Engineering design work. Plus, given the cutback in defense spending we have been forced to lay off some very talented young engineers as well as some who are long in the tooth.

Joe May 1st, 2010 at 12:34 am

Boomer, you do have some valid points and then again you go off on a tangent putting-down young engineers. I belevie all of us have been there and had to learn and adapt to new ideas and come-up with solutions. Nobody is born an expert, but you become one if you work hard. There are a lot of problems with our ground vehicles, some are related to the harsh environment we are in and others are related to design requirements that we had to follow. Starting from scratch is not the answer to the problems, there is high costs envolved when you take that route. Reverse engineering is one solution but we are at the mercy of COTS or MCOTS items and there specs. So, easy on the new generation and maybe we should encourage them so they can do better.

Guest