Wednesday, December 18, 2013

I Guess Those MRAPs Won't Be Coming Home

Because Pakistan is still restricting U.S. traffic out of Afghanistan, it has become too expensive to ship MRAPs back to the U.S. or any other countries, according to Defense Industry Daily. On top of that, the vehicles don't have long term prospects in the military:

They were first developed and procured in a hurry to minimize casualties to IEDs, then had to evolve for the rougher Afghan terrain. Some early generation MRAPs shipped from Iraq were probably never used in Afghanistan. But even the lighter M-ATVs weight more than 12 tons, and the added weight coming with protection is also a liability, especially because of their limited mobility, speed and firepower. They also roll over easily, and their dimensions don’t make them well suited for urban combat. The fact alone that these vehicles are customized for counter-insurgency rather than traditional state vs. state warfare would be enough to give planners pause. Prohibitive shipping costs further press the issue of what to do with them, as logisticians execute the retrograde back to the US and the redeployment away from the CENTOM area of responsibility into the much bigger PACOM AOR.

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