Whether via tank, sub, ship or jet, taking the fight to the enemy has long been preferred. Yet transporting soldiers and equipment into battle zones safely and efficiently remains challenging for military forces all around the world. Here we look at developments and shipments in warfare vehicles on the ground, at sea and in the air.

Grounded
The U.S. Army is requesting 27 percent of the Defense Department’s FY2008 $81 billion budget, according to Military Vehicles Magazine. In addition to a 3 percent pay raise, some of the money would be used to purchase the following ground vehicle equipment:

• 127 Stryker vehicles ($1 billion);
• 2,862 Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV) trucks ($828 million);
• 3,268 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMWVVs) ($596 million); and
• 1,037 M1 Abrams tank engines ($185.9 million).

As for design improvements, military engineers are interfacing closely with soldiers who have recently returned from combat to help “get it right the first time and get it right now.”

For instance, The Associated Press recently reported:

A group of soldiers has been busy testing a series of high-tech military concept vehicles outfitted with remote weapons systems, night-vision capabilities and enough strength to sustain the concussion of a roadside bomb.

Both the Army and the Marines want better vehicles than the Humvees.

One interesting vehicle development takes place on the buying side. National Defense, in this month’s “Surge in Vehicle Orders Calls for Unconventional Buying Methods” feature, reports that the Marine Corps, which oversees the procurement of the mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles on behalf of all the services, was seeking to buy 4,060 MRAPs in late 2006. Yet “the mounting U.S. war casualties in Iraq caused by roadside bombs led the Corps to triple its orders. Last month the services agreed to buy approximately 6,800 vehicles.”

The final anticipated delivery will be in March 2008. Based on receipt of vehicle contracts, one of the contractors, Force Protection Inc., is on target to reach per-month vehicle production levels of more than 400 vehicles by the end of 2007, compared with 50 vehicles per month at the end of 2006, according to the contractor’s COO, Ray Pollard, in an announcement last month.

The Pentagon just ordered 75 of these BAE Systems RG-33L 6×6 MRAP vehicles.
Credit: BAE Systems

While workers prepare these special trucks aggressively, others are assembling kits to make Humvees more protective for gunners. The Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) has shown quick and creative development while creating a gunner protection kit to protect gunners who ride atop Humvees in combat areas such as in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Early in the development cycle, four prototype systems fabricated at Picatinny were evaluated by soldiers performing live missions in Iraq,” according to another announcement. “The feedback from soldiers […] was critical in finalizing the design and kicking off production,” said Maj. Antonio Ralph, who led the user evaluation effort for the Objective Gunner Protection Kit (O-GPK).

The full kit includes a turret shield, gun shield and everything needed to mount the shields to a Humvee. These are shipped and assembled with no special tools. The O-GPK includes transparent armor windows and rear-view mirrors that allow soldiers to maintain a protected posture while performing mission objectives with full visibility.

In six months, the O-GPK evolved from concept models to full-scale production — “an effort that would historically take more than a year to complete for a program of this magnitude.” Rock Island Arsenal, which leads the production effort, will produce 7,500 kits by this July and 20,000 by 2008.

Ruling the Waves
In 2006, China’s shipbuilding firms ranked third in the world — for the 12th straight year. In fact, China’s shipbuilding manufacturers last year yielded output of 14.52 billion deadweight tons, captured 42.51 billion deadweight tons of new orders and had a total of 68.72 billion deadweight tons on their order books, accounting respectively for 19 percent, 30 percent and 24 percent of the global market, according to Jin Zhuanglong, vice minister of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, as reported by People’s Daily Online.

Interestingly, commission statistics show that of the nearly 3,000 Chinese shipbuilding enterprises in the country, only 431 are large ones. Booming market demand has boosted the growth of small and medium-sized firms.

The American shipbuilding companies, on the other hand, have repeatedly delayed projects and come in way over budget. In contrast, like the Chinese, the European shipbuilders have improved markedly, as IMT reported in the fall.

Launching new ships requires shipbuilders who can deliver a quality product on time and within budget. This has proved a particularly tough task for American shipyards. The Navy’s Secretary Donald Winter recently slammed industry for not investing in U.S. shipyards, and he called for his department to re-assert control over acquisition programs. As Wired notes, Winter said the current shipbuilding program is “simply not meeting our expectations.” But there’s plenty of blame to go around, it seems. Wired added Winter’s belief that the Navy has eroded its expertise in shipbuilding and system engineering and has developed a bad habit of relying too much on contractors; moreover, that the Pentagon has a limited understanding of how business operates, how it responds to competition, and how it is affected by Wall Street’s expectations.

The U.S. Navy had 568 ships in the late 1980s, according to National Review Online; today it has 276. The U.S. Navy will work through US$12 billion to upgrade its fleet.

The Littoral Combat Ship, for close-to-shore threats and providing access and dominance in coastal water battle-space, is an example of a key item recently introduced. The Navy has also contracted for the building of a larger ship — LPD-17 San Antonio Class — for littoral service.

The transformation of the Navy’s surface combatant fleet starts with highly capable, multi-mission Destroyers, advanced Cruisers and a new breed of focused mission ships, the Littoral Combat Ship.
Credit: Lockheed Martin, via Program Executive Office Ships

Also of note, and with tax dollars in mind, a new submarine — SSN-774 Virginia Class — is performing better than estimated. “The primary design driver for the NSSN is acoustic quietness equal to that of the Seawolf, even at the cost of reducing maximum top speed,” according to Global Security. “With a focus on the littoral battlespace, the New Attack Submarine has improved magnetic stealth, sophisticated surveillance capabilities, and special warfare enhancements.”

Tread In the Clouds
The Air Force’s number of tactical air wings has shrunk from 37 to 20, and the average age of its aircraft is 24 years, compared with nine years in 1973, according to National Review Online.

Nonetheless, aircraft costs are changing because the U.S. is buying more of them or adding more accessories.

This is the case for ARH-70 helicopters, AH-64D Longbow helicopters, C-17A strategic airlifter, C-5 AMP super-giant Galaxy transport aircraft upgrade kits for $23.4 million, and multiple-mission striker fighter F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets. In other cases, the program is simply seeing rising costs for key items or adding improvements. Airborne early warning aircraft (E-2D Hawkeye AWACS, vertical take-off and landing combat troop transport aircraft (V-22 Osprey), joint strike fighter (F-35 JSF), and airlift support aircraft (C-130 AMP) are among the aircraft that will be modernized to provide greater effectiveness.

The U.S. Air Force is spending about US$16 billion to upgrade its aircraft fleet, according to Aviation Week’s Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.

Some of the billions of dollars will go toward developing a blended-wing plane, which is expected by 2022, for the military. “Originally conceived by McDonnell Douglas and NASA, the blended-wing merges fuselage and wings and eliminates the tail, reducing drag, Boeing engineer Norm Princen explained at Business 2.0 last month. “That makes it vastly more fuel-efficient than regular ‘tube-and-wing’ jets.”

(By the way, the Defense Department is the largest single consumer of fuel in the U.S. even though it accounts for only 1.2 percent of the nation’s energy use. Nearly 60 percent of the Pentagon’s energy consumption is in the form of jet fuel, which powers not only aircraft, but also tanks and some Navy ships.)

While any moves to cut fuel use deserve admiration, other countries are making real progress toward developing much more sophisticated, and threatening, military aircraft. For example, China, which had been working on a jet fighter for some 20 years, has introduced its J-10, according to the International Herald Tribune article China Builds a Superpower Fighter. “They say that Chinese engineers, with help from Israel and Russia, had refined a design aimed at matching advanced aircraft such as the Lockheed Martin F-16,” according to the report, which added, that “only the American F-22 Raptor, jointly produced by Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney … would clearly outmatch the J-10.”

China’s new jet, the J-10, which is said to match most of the world’s best fighters.
Credit: The Associated Press

As if the J-10 introduction weren’t enough of a boost for the Chinese, “the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency forecasts up to 1,200 of these aircraft could eventually be built.”

One has to wonder if the recent Defense Industry Daily report India Intends to Spend $35 billion for Military Aircraft over the Next 25 Years was at all influenced by China’s leap forward in air power.

Resources

ARMY 2008 Budget Requests
Military Vehicles

Army Tests High-Tech Concept Vehicles
by Melanthia Mitchell
The Associated Press, March 29, 2007

Surge in vehicle orders calls for unconventional buying methods
by Sandra I. Erwin
National Defense, April 2007

Picatinny Designs Latest Advancement in Gunner Protection
press release, April 4, 2007

Navy Chief to Shipbuilders: You Suck
by Noah Shachtman
Wired, April 10, 2007

Size Matters
by National Review editors
National Review Online, April 16, 2007

B-52, Where Are You?
by Gregg Easterbrook
Slate, April 2, 2007

Aircraft Expenses Dominate DOD Spending
by Michael Fabey
Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, April 10, 2007

Radical new Boeing aircraft takes flight
by Benjamin Tice Smith
Business 2.0, March 15, 2007

China builds a superpower fighter
by David Lague
International Herald Tribune, Feb. 8, 2007

India Intends to Spend $35B for Military Aircraft Over the Next 25 Years
Defense Industry Daily, Feb. 26, 2007