Talk:Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle/Archive 1

Archive 1

MRAP style vehicles in other armys

It might be noteworthy, that other armys field MRAP style vehicles (mine blast resistance, V-shaped hull) for a long time. For example the german Bundeswehr field testet the Dingo since 2000 within it's KFOR peacekeeping mission on the Balkans. Full scale shipping started in 2001. For references see the Dinge article (the german one is more detailed).

German: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_Dingo English: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_Dingo

Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, the maker of the ATF Dingo and Dingo 2, teamed up with Textron in the MRAP competition. Textron decided to enter it's M1117 armored vehicle in the competition instead of the Dingo and the M1117 didn't fare well enough in the competition to receive a contract. That's the reason we didn't see the Dingo in the U.S., Textron may have had concerns over it's design which is a rather light 10-ton weight and features a bolted on blast pan and crew capsule instead of a monocoque hull. The crew capsule approach is more vulnerable to a "mobility kill" where the drivetrain is damaged leaving the crew stranded and open to ambush. Still, the MaxxPro uses the same approach and received the biggest contract. I like the Dingo's approach to the gunner- the gunner is safely enclosed inside the vehicle and used periscopes to shoot. IraqVet225 (talk) 15:57, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

The M1117 is better armored too, takes shots from .50 cal armor piercing rounds. But they cost some $700,000. IraqVet225 (talk) 17:58, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The WMF Wer'Wolf is another one. One of the most successful South African designs, the 10 ton blast resistant vehicle that debuted in 2000 has been prevented from being purchased by the U.S. Military because the U.S Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) Trade Agreements Act stipulates how the U.S. may purchase foreign-made technologies and end items. Apparently the Army Corps of Engineers requested 53 Wer’Wolfs in early 2004 to protect its people in Iraq, but got permission to buy only four. WMF has been looking for a U.S. partner so it can adhere to DFARS. Pictures can be seen here IraqVet225 (talk) 06:08, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

South Africa created this technology, and leads the world with it. All of the major MRAP are South African vehicles or derived from SA vehicles. The sentence that the Cougar "departed from much of the older design philosophy; by applying first-world standards and practises, and providing good growth potential from the outset", is inaccurate and offensive. American "first world" technology copies and is derived from SA technology.124.197.15.138 (talk) 06:44, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Removed Sisu Raisu

I removed the see also link to Sisu Raisu, as it appears that it has little to do with MRAP style vehicles, and has never been in contention for the contract. It is a mine clearing vehicle, not really a mine protected IFV. If anyone feels strongly about it, post your reasons please. Tmaull 03:55, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Added Orders Section

I added a section to track timeline of the orders of vehicles under the MRAP program as well as orders through other programs of vehicles that have been considered for or linked to the MRAP program. I will be building this section up as I have the time, and any assistance is appreciated. I think each entry should have a date, numbers and types of vehicles ordered, and USD worth of the contract if available.Tmaull 15:51, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Millions/Billions, the 2008 budget

OK, point taken, clearly the $830B of the referenced article is incorrect but that's no reason to assume that the correct amount is $830M. That's less than the '07 budget and is probably not right either. It is more likely that the typo intended an amount c$8B but until we can find a source to verify I think that the reference to the '08 budget sum should be removed. Dino246 13:18, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Sorry for upping crappy data.Tmaull 15:13, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Article should be moved

This article really should be swapped with Mine Resistant Ambush Protected. In general, articles should not be at their initialisms; instead, the article should be at the full name and the initialism should redirect to the article. However, I cannot make the move because Mine Resistant Ambush Protected is a redirect with history, so this will have to be handled by an admin. Chromaticity 13:15, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:RM is your friend. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 14:52, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Call me silly, but I thought it best to discuss on the talk page before going to a centralized request forum. Chromaticity 17:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Either way you look at it, you'll have to go to WP:RM and file a request. If the move is not uncontroversial you'll need to submit a request in the "Other Proposals" section regardless of there being a pre-existing discussion on this talk page so that the "community at large" can get involved in the discussion. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 17:57, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Tmaull 19:22, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Oct 18 contract awards by USMC

[1] The Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico, Va., is the contracting activity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.76.0.207 (talk) 14:10, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

First Combat Death?

Althought the NY Times reported that there was a death of a soldier in a new version MRAP, this miliblog quite assertively states that this is not true and that the soldier in question had been in a RG-31. I haven't been able to find any corroborating sources for this. Anyone else?BWH76 (talk) 15:56, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I read that too. The commenter "Tom" is me. Yes people have died in the RG-31. Which is NOT an MRAP according to MNF-I. The US Army had RG31s before the MRAP program existed. He also mentions Buffalo deaths, but I can't find any other evidence to back that up. Tmaull (talk) 22:14, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The RG-31 is part of MRAP. The program isn't just for new vehicles, but also for the uparmoring of existing vehicles in the field. Jrssr5 11:13, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a source for that info? - Tmaull (talk) 13:42, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, missed your question ... about halfway down the page is a paragraph on some of the vehicles included in MRAP. Jrssr5 18:28, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Force Protection VP Mike Aldrich himself has conceded that soldiers have died in their MRAPs according to these articles: [2] [3]. I gather that the incident last week was the first death in a MaxxPro, although to be fair, the 3 soldiers who were actually inside the vehicle seem to have got off lightly considering the size of the blast. Dino246 (talk) 19:47, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I've been kind of turned off the Maxxpro since seeing a video of one getting blown to bits in Iraq and pictures of the aftermath where obviously no one survived. The non-monocoque hull and other design elements don't seem to be able to take a blast like some of the other versions I've seen blasted up pictures of. However, the DoD needs as many MRAPs as the can get and they need them now, and Navistar has a larger and faster production capacity than some of the other slow arriving designs. IraqVet225 (talk) 13:32, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

According to the military, everyone survived that EFP attack. The video has been creatively edited to cut out the frames in which the occupants escape the vehicle. Dino246 (talk) 21:29, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I haven't seen the military acknowledge that attack existed, but either way I'd be careful with the figures the military provides. For instance, Lieutenant Colonel Peter E. Winston was just reported dead five months after the fact (which isn't an isolated instance either). They also have a nasty habit of reporting casualties due to causes other than what actually happened, Pat Tillman is one of the most famous instances. There might be some creative editing in that video, but I also clearly saw the fiery inferno coming out of the hydraulic back door as it opened. So either there was no one in the back, the back occupants exited through the front driver's door for some reason, or they were severely burned or dead (and who opened the back door with all that fire going on in the vehicle?). And they can take weeks to die of their burns. I'm also not so sure it was an EFP attack either, as there was no large hole going through the side of the vehicle in the photos. IraqVet225 (talk) 13:58, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Criticisms - why the rear seats face inward

It seems pretty self evident to me that the v-hull of the MRAP dictates a back-to-the-wall seating arrangement to afford the occupants any sort of legroom. Is there an MRAP that has face-out seating? Dino246 (talk) 10:44, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah that's a good point. If the V-hull of the MRAP design shapes the cabin into a V shape as well (and if not it adds to the height), then having the troops legs in the bottom of the V shape would be most efficient. However, for tactical reasons the troops the Army Times talked to would have instead preferred a forward facing seating arrangement such as the one found on the RG-33 (see a picture of it's interior here) so they can shoot out of the port holes better even if leg space gets a little cramped on the sides of the cabin. The RG-33's seats are also suspended from the ceiling instead of attached to the floor for better shock absorption, and are rearrangeable. IraqVet225 (talk) 13:19, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

How does the steepness of the steps make exiting "dangerous"? Awkward, slow, maybe, but dangerous seems like a stretch.

Weight is missing

The weight of this "monster" is not mentioned in the article. This article, added as Reference no. 7 and 14, says: weight between 19 and 40 tons (marine version) I don't know if this applies to all vehicle types.--Zaccarias (talk) 16:23, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Infobox

I'm not sure that the infobox is appropriate. MRAP is a program, a family of totally unrelated vehicles. Each individual MRAP has an infobox on its page, I think that this page should remain more generic, describing the program, the history of MRAPs and their implementation, limitations, and improvement during the course of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. An infobox as such isn't really relevant to this page. Dino246 (talk) 17:25, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Use of classified pictures

I would like to point out that the pictures of blown up MRAPs are considered classifed, and that contractors have lost clearances and jobs over posting them. They allow enemy forces to determine methods to attack the MRAPs. Perhaps those pictures should be removed. 174.154.211.234 (talk) 15:34, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your concern. However, please note that one image is in the public domain, having been released by the Marine Center for Lessons Learned. The other has been declassified and released to the public. So, this isn't an issue. // Chris ^{(complaints)•(contribs)} 16:55, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

They are public domain photos. That people have lost their jobs for putting them into the public domain does not make them any less so. And at the risk of starting an argument.. Wikipedia is international so when you say "enemy forces" who exactly are you referring to? Don't answer that, my point is that partisan censorship of information is not the Wikipedia way. Someone took the photo, put it out on the internet and relinquished copyright? It's fair game for adding to an article whether a particular government's military is happy or not.Dino246 (talk) 19:51, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Rollovers

The article states: "The V-shaped hulls of the MRAP give it a higher center of gravity". This is false -- the ratio of height-of-CG to wheelbase is pretty much the same for an MRAP as for a Humvee. The V-hull actually lowers the CG, relative to a normal flat bottom. The real issue is "...and the weight of the MRAP can cause the poorly built or maintained roads in rural Iraq or Afghanistan to collapse." Except that it's not just poorly-built 3rd-world roads that can't take MRAPs, it's pretty much any secondary (or worse) road on uneven terrain, anywhere in the world. "Of the 66 MRAP accidents between Nov. 7, 2007 and June 8, 2008, almost 40 were due to rollovers caused by bad roads, weak bridges, or driver error." This is more unnecessary (and annoying) editorial; the rollovers were caused by the vehicle being too heavy for the roadbed or bridge it was being driven on; there's no need to apportion blame between the vehicle and the road. Also, lumping in "driver error" makes this statistic irrelevant to the claim being made. DMTate (talk) 15:18, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

While you're right that the main reason they are tipping over in Iraq is due to their sheer weight overcoming the limits of the roads and bridges they're trying to pass, it is not correct to deny that they have significantly higher CGs to Humvees and the like. The ratio of CG to wheelbase is entirely irrelevant to vehicle stability. The ratio of CG to width is the question and the MRAPs are only about a foot wider than the Humvee despite having much higher CGs. Due to the disproportionate weight contained down in the v-hull I suspect that MRAPs have lower CGs than most people would imagine but they don't approach that of the Humvee. Dino246 (talk) 17:36, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

While I'm not familiar with current US military practice, back in the 1980s when the South African military used V-hulled vehicles in combat they as a rule tried to have the water tank in the bottom of the V as full as possible when going into combat. Several hunderd kg placed there lowered the CofG significantly and the water itself provided additional shock attennuation in the event of a mine blast. Roger (talk) 09:32, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

transformers

from an article on WSJ.com on these, it says (and i quote) "The enormous trucks sit high off the ground and are designed to come apart in an explosion, dissipating the force of the blast. An MRAP had a cameo in the 2007 "Transformers" movie as an evil robot named Bonecrusher. Military officials first began receiving reports of problems with the MRAPs in late 2007, shortly after sending some of the trucks to Afghanistan. " should we add this info? 21:21, 9 June 2009 (UTC)68.3.191.130 (talk)

here's the link [4] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.3.191.130 (talk) 21:25, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

New article M-ATV

I just created a new article for the M-ATV as I think it is distinct enough from the MRAP to warrant its own entry. It is very much a stub at this stage, please go to town turning it into a proper article.Dino246 (talk) 16:11, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Electric Shock

The section titled "Rollover and Electric Shock" currently has no mention of electric shock. We should either add (or restore) the discussion of electric shock or remove the term from the section title. GCL (talk) 19:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Copyright problem

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