Manufacturers Can't Fill Bomb-Proof Vehicle Demand (Updated)

The military-industrial complex isn't built for speed.

Big orders – especially for orders for heavy, million-dollar vehicles – take time. Bureaucracies get tangled up; raw materials and suppliers can be hard to find. Even when there's billions to be made in delivering the things in a hurry. Even when the Defense Secretary has declared buying the bomb-resistant vehicles to be his "highest priority."

Just yesterday, according to Bloomberg News, the Marine Corps said it "received fewer blast-resistant vehicles than promised last month, as manufacturers struggled to meet production goals aimed at speeding shipments to Iraq and Afghanistan... The shortfall shows the difficulty manufacturers face boosting capacity and securing materials such as armor and impact-resistant glass to deliver trucks in as little as four months."

Three companies won orders in
February that were expected to be completed in June, Carey said. The combined orders were valued at $160.2 million for 275 trucks, the
Defense Department said at the time. Awardees included Force
Protection, BAE Systems and Protected Vehicles.

The Marine Corps said July 2 that it would buy as many as 20,000 more of the vehicles, for about $20
billion through a competition to be decided in January.

Force Protection of Ladson, S.C., the largest maker of blast-resistant vehicles for the Marines, delivered more than 100 of its Cougar and Buffalo trucks last month, said Michael M. Aldrich, vice president for government relations.

Force Protection won a $67.4
million award in February for 125 Cougar trucks to be shipped by June.
The company made up the deliveries this month, Aldrich said in an e-mail yesterday.

General Dynamics is building a blast-resistant truck, the RG-31, under an $11 million award in
February for 20 trucks. Ken Yamashita, a company spokesman, said yesterday that the Falls Church company would deliver all its vehicles by the end of September.

Protected Vehicles in North
Charleston, S.C., was to deliver 60 trucks by June under its $37.4
million award. Testing of its prototypes resulted in an "adjusted standard" to which all 60 trucks will now be built, spokesman Drew
Felty said July 6. The trucks will be shipped by the end of August, he said.

Doug Coffey, a spokesman for
London-based BAE, said he didn't have information available on vehicle deliveries. BAE's $55.4 million award in February covered 90 vehicles.

UPDATE: " Production rates for the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle are on pace to yield by this December less than half of what Marine Corps officials had expected," reports Inside Defense.

Six armored vehicle makers, three of which have the bulk of the 3,765 MRAP orders issued to date, will be producing approximately 500 vehicles a month by the end of the year, according to sources familiar with current MRAP production deliveries based on contracts awarded to date.

That number is 700 per month fewer than what Marine Corps leaders initially believed would be rolling off the assembly line by the end of the year, and points up challenges the Defense Department is facing in
quickly ramping up industrial operations to counter roadside bombs in Iraq.

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* Army Junking Future for New Rides?
* Iraq's Tricked-Out Armored Cars
* Shortages for New Armored Vehicles?
* Armored Vehicle Demand Blows Up
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