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32–997 2008

[H.A.S.C. No. 109–80]

REVIEW OF MARINE CORPS FORCE

PROTECTION

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

HEARING HELD

JUNE 21, 2005
(II)

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

DUNCAN HUNTER, California, Chairman

CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania

JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

TERRY EVERETT, Alabama

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas

JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina

JIM RYUN, Kansas

JIM GIBBONS, Nevada

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

KEN CALVERT, California

ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia

JEFF MILLER, Florida

JOE WILSON, South Carolina

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey

JEB BRADLEY, New Hampshire

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania

THELMA DRAKE, Virginia

JOE SCHWARZ, Michigan

CATHY MCMORRIS, Washington

MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky

IKE SKELTON, Missouri

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas

LANE EVANS, Illinois

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii

MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas

ADAM SMITH, Washington

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island

STEVE ISRAEL, New York

RICK LARSEN, Washington

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia

KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam

TIM RYAN, Ohio

MARK E. UDALL, Colorado

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina

CYNTHIA MCKINNEY, Georgia

DAN BOREN, Oklahoma

ROBERT L. SIMMONS, Staff Director

JESSE TOLLESON, Program Analyst

ANDREW HUNTER, Professional Staff Member

CURTIS FLOOD, Staff Assistant
(III)

C O N T E N T S

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS

2005

Page

HEARING:

Tuesday, June 21, 2005, Review of Marine Corps Force Protection ................... 1

APPENDIX:

Tuesday, June 21, 2005 ........................................................................................... 39

TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 2005

REVIEW OF MARINE CORPS FORCE PROTECTION

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Hunter, Hon. Duncan, a Representative from California, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services ......................................................................................... 1

Skelton, Hon. Ike, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services .................................................................................... 4

WITNESSES

Catto, Maj. Gen. (Select) William D., Commanding General, Marine Corps

Systems Command, U.S. Marine Corps ............................................................. 7

Nyland, Gen. William L., Assistant Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps .............. 5

APPENDIX

PREPARED STATEMENTS:

Hunter, Hon. Duncan ....................................................................................... 43

Nyland, Gen. William L. joint with Maj. Gen. (Select) William D. Catto .... 49

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

Add on Under Armor for Light Skin HMMWV’s ........................................... 69

Timeline for Tactical Vehicle Underbody Armor Kit Solution ...................... 94

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

Mr. Hunter ........................................................................................................ 103

(1)

REVIEW OF MARINE CORPS FORCE PROTECTION

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Tuesday, June 21, 2005.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9 a.m., in room 2118,

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Duncan Hunter (chairman of

the committee) presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DUNCAN HUNTER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE

ON ARMED SERVICES

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

This morning the committee continues its review of the status of

Marine Corps tactical vehicle armoring, and specifically we are

going to discuss the requirements in the theater, what is happening in the theater in that dangerous area in Iraq where Marines

are taking and have taken fairly substantial casualties, what we

are doing and what the Marine Corps Systems Command here is

doing to meet those challenges.

And with us this morning are General William L. Nyland, Assistant Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, and Major

General (Select) William D. Catto, who is the Commander of the

Marine Corps Systems Command.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being with us this morning. We appreciate your attendance and your service to the country.

Gentlemen, the reason we called this hearing is because of what

I consider to be a focused, but very important issue; and that issue

is that while we are working with big companies back here, with

big schedules to move modern armor into the theater, the Marines

who are over there right now, as well as Army personnel, who are

meeting on a daily basis very creative threats that are being

worked up and devised by the enemy, are meeting lots of danger;

and they are doing that with vehicles that weren’t designed initially to undertake this type of hit, literally.

And last year we had a gunnery sergeant—and if you will turn

to your, to the handout that I have got, we had a gunnery sergeant.

The Marines in theater, being the adaptive and creative people

that we teach them to be, came up with some methods of saving

the limbs and the lives of our people who were in theater. And specifically one gunny sergeant who headed up a motor transport operation over there, came up with a system of placing plates of steel

underneath high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles

(HMMWVs) as the advent of mines, these triple-stacked mines, became prevalent in the western area of operations.
2

And this is pretty simple stuff. Once that explosion goes off and

the shrapnel is headed up into the body of the vehicle, it is a matter of physics. You either have the protection to stop the projectiles

going at a certain velocity with a certain mass or you don’t.

This gunnery sergeant came up with a method of stopping the

most deadly injuries and protecting people, and he gave us some

fairly interesting illustrations of how his kit that he was bolting on

in the theater to save his Marines was working. And if you see the

side by side up here, you will see what I am talking about.

He gave us these two slides. And the first slide, the side by side,

is a slide that shows heavy passenger injuries with loss of limbs.

That was—these are mine strikes, or strikes that are underneath

the vehicles. If you look at the slide on the left side, where it says

side by side, on the left side, that is a mine strike in which the

gunny sergeant had placed plates of steel and those steel plates

stopped the shrapnel and the projectiles from getting into the compartment and killing or badly wounding Marines.

Now, on the other side, you can see the unprotected, the same

fender well that is unprotected, and you can see where it blew

through; and in fact, according to the gunny sergeant who put this

plan together, this program together, without the fabricating

armor, the fender well is completely missing and presumably the

legs of the person who was sitting behind that fender well were

also completely missing. So this was pretty simple stuff.

If you will move that slide, now, we have also some pictures of

the armor that the gunny came up with. If you will turn to the—

I believe it is your fourth chart down, and if the Members would

turn to their fourth chart down, they will see a piece of steel.

Now, this is not rocket science. We are going to put this piece

of steel up on the board. Go ahead and put that up there.

The gunny sergeant came up with pieces of steel, many of which

he took off vehicles that were being scrapped because they were—

we were moving new kits into the theater, and some of that is the

3/16 armor that we had before and we have moved off. So he had

some leftover steel available. He took it, presumably used a plasma

cutter, and he and his people in that motor pool cut these pieces

of steel and they bolted them onto the underbody of their

HMMWVs to save the lives of his men.

Keep those going. Let us see if we have got a few other pieces.

Again, this is pretty simple stuff.

Now, he sent this, and there you can see the passenger side of

the steel. You can see how it is up there in front of what I would

call, or I would call the ‘‘leg saver area.’’ that is where fragments

can come in from the side and from the underbody; and if you saw

the other side, you would see a second piece of steel up under the

fender well.

But he simply bolted those on. And according to him—and again,

he had the side by sides where they had none of this and there was

no fender well and presumably no leg, and he had pictures of the

vehicles in which people were KIA, killed in action, because they

didn’t have that protection. And then he showed the ones where he

had bolted these leg savers and body savers up underneath, and

people lived. In one instance, a person lost a couple of teeth, had

a broken leg, but he lived, did not lose any limbs.
3

And the gunny recommended to the Marine Corps that they get

a lot of this steel to the motor transport units out in the area of

operations (AO), that is, out in Iraq and let them put it on; and

while they are waiting for the fancy stuff to arrive—that is, for the

new kits that are coming in, that you have advised us will be there

in full supply by December of this year—while we are waiting for

that, they could be putting this on. They could be saving lives.

Now, the reason I walked through this is because I think that

this is a pretty good plan. It is the simplest and most practical

plan. It amounts to putting steel in front of projectiles so that when

the improvised explosive device (IED) goes off, they don’t hit the

soft bodies of the people who are inside those vehicles.

Now let us go to the timeline for response from the Marine Corps

for this. The gunny sergeant made this presentation to help his

Marine Corps, sent it back here, and this is where it hit Washington.

On February 15, we had a senior Office of the Secretary of De- fense (OSD) staff member from Secretary Rumsfeld’s staff, who met

with the Marine Corps and with Mr. Bob Simmons to discuss getting this underbody action, this little program, undertaken simply

by moving some steel out of the theater and allowing the Marines,

while they are waiting for the other stuff to arrive, to protect themselves. That was February 15.

In March, nothing happened. We kept waiting for an activity to

occur in Marine Corps Systems Command. That is the command

that you command, General Catto. No action.

Let us go to April. In April, April 21, General Nyland, having

seen no action for roughly two months on what we thought was a

critical need to keep our troops intact and prevent casualties in the

theater, I set up an appointment with you and came in and met

with you; and you advised me at that time that the Marines decided not to do this.

I asked you why not, and you told me that you had had a report

that this might worsen injuries. And I asked you to provide me an

engineering report on that. There was no engineering report. That

was just a comment, a typical comment, put out by bureaucracy to

keep from doing anything. You don’t do anything until you can do

everything, so you do nothing.

At that meeting you advised me that you were interested in moving ahead on this program, but you couldn’t do it with high hard

steel because high hard steel is too brittle and will act itself as

fragmentation underneath the force of a three-stacked mine blast.

It took us one day, General Nyland, to find rolled homogenuous

armor (RHA) steel, which you said you needed to perform this job.

The RHA steel was in Kuwait, a couple hundred miles away from

the Marines that needed it in quantity. And you agreed at that

point, April 21 or the 22—no, it was on the 21, because we found

the steel on the 22—you agreed on the 21 to get this thing done.

And we all left that meeting with the understanding that this thing

would be done.

May passed. No action.

Now I am told—do we have a June slide? I am told that yesterday, the day before the hearing, you made the contract to fabricate

this underbody armor.
4

So we had a gunnery sergeant heading up a motor pool in theater who was saving the legs and lives of his Marines, and had some

pretty good documentation, including after-action photos to validate

that. That happened last year. It is now halfway through this year

and you have made a contract to have this stuff cut by a private

firm.

Now, obviously, the motor pool of personnel up there have the

ability to cut it themselves because the gunny sergeant’s cutting

this stuff in theater. They have obviously done that on the

HMMWVs that they have already up-armored.

So this is a sad day for us. It is a sad day because we have got

Marines out there in the theater who are fighting with a great

sense of urgency for our country. And they take advantage of every

opportunity to try to be creative, to try to be aggressive, to try to

be courageous, to serve this country.

The bureaucracy, gentlemen, that you head up back here, while

it has done some good things, it has made some good contracts, you

have got some HMMWVs moving, you have got some armor moving, is resistive to moving this thing with a sense of urgency. And

you end up being an adversary to the people in the field who are

trying to get things done quickly.

Now, if you had a problem, an engineering problem, with what

this gunny sergeant came up with, you could have sent one of your

engineers, or a team of engineers, out to say, Well, let’s do it, but

let’s do it a little bit differently. We have a engineer who has got

a concern about something. Let’s move them out there.

If you were concerned about whether or not you had the right

kind of steel, you could have done the same thing that Mr. Simmons of our staff did. It took him one day to find the kind of steel

you said you had to have, and the steel happened to be just a couple of hundred miles from the Marines that needed it.

But you didn’t do that. And I think that represents the disconnect that we have got between the warfighters who are doing

a magnificent job and the bureaucracy that is serving them. And

we are all part of that bureaucracy, and that is why we are here

this morning.

And I have got your statements. We are going to take those

statements into the record. But, gentlemen, I want to hear from

you how we are going to move out and how we are going to get this

stuff underneath these vehicles as quickly as possible.

Let me turn to my friend from Missouri, Mr. Skelton, for any remarks he would like to make, and then we will recognize General

Nyland.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hunter can be found in the Appendix on page 43.]

STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE

FROM MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON

ARMED SERVICES

Mr. SKELTON. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I will be brief. I welcome the witnesses on this very important topic, and I share the

frustration of our Chairman when hearing the facts out.

Today, we will hear testimony on the important issue of vehicle

armor. This is an issue which our committee has explored on many
5

occasions. It is an old subject with us. And I think a full and complete airing of the facts is so important, so we in the Congress can

ensure that our service members get all they need to be protected.

Providing adequate vehicle armor is a problem that continues to

bedevil the Department of Defense. We heard testimony as late as

May 5 that the armor issue was being resolved. And here we are

again plowing the same old ground again.

For nearly two years we have watched services struggle to provide adequate armor to the fleet of ground vehicles in Iraq, and

this committee and I have offered assistance and provided funds to

try to alleviate this problem. But, unfortunately, here we are again,

hearing testimony on shortfalls protecting our Marines; and needless to say, I am sorely disappointed.

The Department of Defense should take more of an active role

managing this issue and further assist the services in meeting the

needs of our service members. They are yours. They are your

troops.

This ongoing problem only amplifies the need for this committee

to fully exercise its oversight responsibilities to ensure that this

and other important defense matters are not mismanaged. Our

military, particularly the United States Army, is stretched as it

fights the war in Iraq and the war on terror. And add to that the

stress the ongoing transformation of the Armed Forces, the base

closures, because it is clear we have entered a period of significant

risk with regard to our Nation’s defense.

It is imperative that this committee exercise comprehensive oversight over the full spectrum of defense issues to include the declining readiness of equipment, service policies in recruiting, retention

and our policy in handling detainees. I urge my colleagues not to

focus on one issue alone, and let’s explore it as fully as we can

today.

Mr. Chairman, I join you. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.

General Nyland, thank you for being with us. The floor is yours,

sir.

STATEMENT OF GEN. WILLIAM L. NYLAND, ASSISTANT

COMMANDANT, U.S. MARINE CORPS

General NYLAND. Chairman Hunter, Congressman Skelton, distinguished Members of the committee, I am pleased to appear

today to update you all on our force protection efforts, in particular

our evolving vehicle armoring initiatives.

Let me——

The CHAIRMAN. Can you pull that mike a little closer, General?

General NYLAND. I will start back at the beginning.

Chairman Hunter, Congressman Skelton, distinguished Members

of the committee, I am pleased to appear here today to update you

on our force protection efforts, in particular our evolving vehicle armoring initiatives.

Let me begin by thanking you, Mr. Chairman, and the distinguished Members of the committee for your unwavering support of

your Corps. Your support of these magnificent young men and

women is greatly appreciated not only by the individual Marine,

but by the leadership of the Corps.
6

As Lieutenant General Mattis testified on 5 May, he went 51⁄2

months at the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom-One (OIF–1) without losing a single Marine or sailor. Yet during that period, in the

intervening months, the insurgency was growing. When the Marines returned to Iraq in March of 2004, the threat had been evolving and the IED had started to become prevalent.

The IED threat then was generally 60-millimeter or 81-millimeter rounds, but today because we face a smart, adaptive and thinking enemy; we face munitions like 122-to-155-millimeter shells, triple-stacked mines, and even recently, shape charge-like weapons.

As this threat has evolved, so has the armor protection for our tactical vehicles, the details of which can be found in my prepared

statement.

Most recently, because of the growing threat of mines and IEDs,

the Marines have increased delivery of the underbody from the Marine Armor Kit for installation on 400 HMMWVs at the unit level.

Production of all 400 underbodies is complete; 372 are on the

ground in Iraq and the balance should arrive by the last part of

this week.

We are also making good progress on the production of underbodies to upgrade the armor on our 5-ton medium trucks and on logistic support vehicles (LVS). Production of 124 5-ton truck underbodies will be completed by the end of July; 243 LVS kits will be completed by the end of August. It has taken a little longer on the LVS

kits because, at the request of the warfighter, we were also adding

the MAK-style doors and air conditioning to the LVSs. Both of

those kits will be shipped via military air.

Despite our successes to date, vehicle armor and other acquisitions have not been without impediments, and clearly there has

been some incoherence between our desired timelines for fielding

delivery and application of armor enhancements and other equipment and the timelines realized throughout the process. That is

frustrating to me, as I know it is to you. While some progress is

being made, we should look for enhancements to any process associated with time of war support to our forces with one common

theme in mind: getting support and allowing responsible acquisition professionals to exercise the flexibility to expedite this support

to the Marines.

That said, the flexibility to hold below threshold program funds

in time of war and for combat emergencies in excess of the current

financial levels and percentages is an area I believe should be reviewed. We will continue to identify other processes as well.

We are grateful to the committee for their rapid acquisition authority to respond to combat emergencies legislation in last year’s

bill. We used that to procure 27 Cougar vehicles, which is a heavily

armored vehicle, to enhance the survivability of our Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Marines against IEDs. Clearly, the legislation is a success story, as I believe also is our urgent Urgent, Universal Needs Statement (U-UNS) process inside the Marine Corps,

where we pride ourselves on meeting the needs of the warfighter.

Together, the Congress and the Corps are collectively realizing

great successes in support of the warfighter by reducing the span

of time between the identification of requirements and fielding to

the force.
7

In closing, I would like to thank you again, Mr. Chairman, and

the distinguished Members of the committee for all that you have

done in support of our Marines and service members deployed in

harm’s way.

With respect to the timeline, sir, I am unaware of the 15 February meeting, but certainly I am well aware of our meeting on the

21st. At that time, we undertook to determine that steel. We gave that to the Army Materiel Command (AMC) in theater to determine how best to cut, what their capability was, and to ultimately

let the contract.

In parallel with that, because we knew we didn’t control all of

that process, we accelerated and have now completed the assembly

of additional 400 underbodies that are part of our Marine Armor

Kit. They are in theater today, less 28 which are still to be en

route. So we have not stood still.

And while we have one alternative, we pursued a second to make

sure, as you said, that the absolute best—and that MAK underbody

is the absolute best, short of an M1114 that we can put out there

for our young Marines on the ground.

And I would at this time ask General Catto if he has any additional comments to add, sir.

[The joint prepared statement of General Nyland and General

Catto can be found in the Appendix on page 49.]

STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. (SELECT) WILLIAM D. CATTO, COMMANDING GENERAL, MARINE CORPS SYSTEMS COMMAND,

U.S. MARINE CORPS

General CATTO. Sir, I understand your angst on the lack of performance on the AMC contract. Mr. Chairman, I understand your

angst on the slowness with the completion of the rocker panels on

the AMC contract in Kuwait. That is my responsibility, because I

did not push them fast enough.

As the Assistant Commandant said, we did pay attention to your

concern for underbodies, and because I did not have direct control

of what happened in that contracting office, we did have a parallel

path. I assure you that we were paying attention.

Again, this is a lack of leadership on my part for not paying more

attention to that specific contract.

[The joint prepared statement of General Catto and General Nyland can be found in the Appendix on page 49.]

The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, thank you. Let’s go to the—when the

gunny requested that we start putting this underarmor on, came

up with this program, all he needed at that point, all we needed

in those units in the field was the steel. The steel was only a couple

of hundred miles away in Kuwait.

Now, obviously, because you can see that he cut panels and his

own motor operation installed those panels, they were able to do

that without having a cutting contract. So you had eight weeks

that transpired, General Nyland, between our conversation and

this letting of this contract today.

But one thing that you have pointed out in your statement is—

I think the lesson for us, and it must be the lesson for you; and

that is this: How long have the triple-stacked mines been a problem in the western AO?
8

General NYLAND. I think the triple-stacked mines, to the best of

my knowledge, it is within about the last four to six months that

we have started to see that.

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. When will you have a full complement of

underbodies, whether it is manifested in the 1114 or the new

underbodies for all of the Marine HMMWVs in theater?

General NYLAND. Right now, we have 372 on the ground plus 330

full MAK kits on the ground. We have already made 700 maximum

on the ground.

We have 500 up-armored HMMWVs and another 400 that will be

delivered by September. As quickly as we can hang the armor on

the underside, and we have completed over 300 last month, that

will be the determiner of whether it ties up exactly with the last

delivery of 1114 in September or at what point that will be.

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. So at what point would you say, would you

estimate that you will have a full-up underbody for the operational

vehicles in Iraq?

General NYLAND. No later than December.

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. That is my point. The triple-stacked mines

started occurring early this year, as you said, a move by a creative

and adaptive enemy, although a mine is not necessarily a profound

change in warfare. But they started to show up on the battlefield.

Our reaction to those, to have our Marines protected, will be roughly one year later.

Now, if we had gotten together and come up with a creative way

to get some steel, some RHA steel, good, solid, high-quality steel

underneath those vehicles by rolling out that steel to the AO, getting it out to the motor pool, getting a design out—and if you didn’t

like what the gunny designed, you could have designed something

else—had a team of engineers get on that thing immediately, we

could have moved RHA steel out and had—if I could ask the staff

to go back to the picture of the side on—bolt-ons there on the vehicles.

Put that one. But then put up the picture of the HMMWV that

has got the side panels on it.

Okay, we could have had those, General Nyland and General

Catto, we could have had those on by having them done in the field

by simply supplying about four major elements. In fact, the gunny

listed them when he sent his recommendation.

Steel, we had the steel just a couple hundred miles away. You

put them on a flatbed, you run them up on a convoy. RHA steel.

Steel.

Bolts, you need to have good strong bolts.

Plasma cutters and tips on the plasma cutters.

And we could have moved those things up into theater and had

an emergency order to get those things underneath the vehicles

back at the beginning of this year.

Now, as soon as you bring the kits on, obviously you can put a

socket wrench on those, take them right off, they don’t prejudice

you at all. They don’t hurt you in terms of the kits. They don’t slow

down the kits coming, but we can’t meet this rapid evolution of

threats.

And, again, putting mines on roads isn’t necessarily the height

of creativity. It is something that the enemy will do. But you can’t
9

meet a change of threat that can happen in a week or a couple of

days or simply show up on the battlefield with a one-year plan to

protect and react against because what that means is the people

who get in, who are operating on the first part of that year and

the middle part of that year and the last of the year, before you

get everything full up, are going to take more hits than they would

otherwise. That is the point.

And I think that is the connection that we are going to have to

make between the warfighter, which I think is represented by that,

and the bureaucracy, which is represented by you and us. And I

would hope that we embark on this program right now.

What do you think?

General NYLAND. Sir, I agree. We owe those young Marines and

all the other members of our service over there the best. I would

simply say that we have actually been manufacturing underbodies

for over a year. The 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), 24th

MEU, 31st MEU all went ashore with underbody vehicles. We had

a plan in place for an underbody that was part of a whole kit.

While the gunny’s solution is a solution, it does not meet the rigor

of the whole—of the MAK armor kit. And in some cases, the way

it was installed, it would not allow that vehicle later to be modified, to put the kit on, to provide the all-around.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the majority of the

IED blasts still are a side blasts. So we have to get after the belly

blast as well, but we can’t ignore the side blast either.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that is, if you look at what the gunny had

there, General, that is a side view. That is a piece of side armor

that he put on that melds with the steel door that takes on side

blasts.

But my point is—and I think it is well illustrated by the picture;

he had the picture of the wheel well where you had nothing. That

wheel well is gone, and presumably the legs of the driver who were

sitting behind it are gone also.

Then he had a picture of the wheel well where he put up his

steel protect, and although a lot of that HMMWV is blown away,

the steel is still there and the driver escaped with a couple of broken teeth and a broken leg.

My point is, once that IED goes off, this is all physics. You have

projectiles of certain mass traveling at a certain velocity. You either have something between them and your Marines or you don’t.

And plans don’t suffice. And there is no bureaucracy in the world

that can move everything, going through the contracting process,

and then going through the long—sometimes the appeals process

for the competitors that lose the competition—and then going

through all of the hoops and the hurdles that we have back here

that ultimately gets things out to theater five, six, seven, eight,

nine months, a year after the threat has evolved that they are having to meet. They can move much faster than that.

What you have to do is move to the field as quickly as possible.

And I think we all agree you have got to do everything that is possible.

Certainly that piece of steel that the gunny put on, these pieces

of steel he put on these HMMWVs aren’t pretty. They are going to

leave bolt holes that you are probably going to have to solder over.
10

But what they did do is, they filled in the gap between the time

when the kit vehicles would arrive or when new M1114s would arrive, and they saved Marines and they saved legs. And we should

encourage that. We should pursue it. We should aggressively be on

it.

I hope you agree with that, General.

General NYLAND. Yes, sir. And we are on it.

As you know, the 372 underbodies that we have over there, that

are on the ground now, are designed to be put on at the unit level

so they don’t have to wait to come to the facility.

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Skelton.

Mr. SKELTON. General Nyland, I have seen reports that indicate

an increased underbody threat from mines and IEDs in Iraq. The

HMMWV is a vehicle which was not designed to withstand that

type of threat; am I correct?

General NYLAND. Yes, sir.

Mr. SKELTON. What do you believe is the future for the HMMWV

as a vehicle for our military?

General NYLAND. Sir, I believe at the present time our spiral development of the MAK kit is another interim step on the way to

what we understand clearly the Cadillac is, which is the M1114 or

the M1116. And we have an effort ongoing right now with our commanders on the ground to identify what their requirement would

be to go to a 100 percent M1114/M1116 fleet.

Where do we go in the future, is another interesting question.

We rapidly fielded 27 of the Cougar vehicles, which is a V-bottomtype vehicle; and I think we are going to have to look more for two

things: One, from our science and technology community, we need

an armor that is lightweight and easily applied. And the second

will be is something along the lines of these heavily armored vehicles that will ultimately take the place, not just for EOD, but potentially as tactical vehicles.

We have a number of efforts trying to determine what is the

right vehicle for the future. I think it is pretty clear that a flat bottom vehicle is not even at the Cadillac level of the M1114. We have

a prototype that hopefully will be available next month called the

Ultra Armored Patrol Vehicle that we will be able to take a look

at partnering with both industry and NASCAR. But I think that

the utility, if this is the threat of the future, the long-term utility

of the HMMWV has to be questioned. We have to take continued

steps to find what will defeat this kind of a threat.

Mr. SKELTON. It seems to me that it is imperative that this be

put on the fast track. And normally, something like this is going

to end up taking 10 or 15 years. I don’t think the troops can wait

10 or 15 years.

How do we get it on a faster track?

General NYLAND. Sir, I think we will take that for action.

We are also working very closely with the joint IED/Integrated

Product Team (IPT), which has also capitalized on this development with the Cougar. We have purchased 122 more of those. We

are looking, as I mentioned, at the Ultra. We are looking internal

to the Marine Corps at what is the next tactical vehicle, and we

will continue to work that.
11

And I might ask General Catto to comment on that because

much of that work is done at Systems Command.

Mr. SKELTON. Well, what we would like to know, and I know the

Chairman would like to know as well, could you get back to us

within a reasonable length of time as to proposals, so this doesn’t

stretch on some 10 or 15 years.

General NYLAND. Yes, sir, absolutely.

Mr. SKELTON. A lot of wonderful young people are getting injured, and if the HMMWV, even with all the kits on it, doesn’t cut

the mustard, what does? And we need to know; it is our job to provide and maintain.

General Catto, do you have a comment?

General CATTO. Congressman Skelton, for a Commercial-Off-the- Shelf (COTS) vehicle, something that we take basically off the marketplace like the Ultra vehicle that General Nyland talked about,

we anticipate about a two-year effort for that, somewhere in the

neighborhood of $7 to $10 million Research and Development

(R&D), and then the procurement cost after that.

You are correct. If we develop a new vehicle from scratch, it is

probably a five-year effort.

Mr. SKELTON. We can’t wait that long.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from

Pennsylvania, the chairman of Air/Land, Mr. Weldon.

Mr. WELDON. Mr. Chairman, first I want to thank you for having

this hearing.

I want to thank you both for testifying and for your leadership.

I just led a delegation into the theater over Memorial Day, and

six of us, along with Senator Biden, visited with the troops in

Baghdad and Fallujah; and our specific purpose was to observe the

activities you just described to us in theater. And I would be candid

with you in telling you, I am impressed. We were impressed. We

were impressed with the attitude of the Marines doing the work

and the capability that had been achieved. We saw some examples

of some of our vehicles that had been hit.

But I also want to tell you that there was more than one who

mentioned the name of Duncan Hunter. And I told you this when

I came back. It shouldn’t take a Duncan Hunter to solve a problem

with the up-armoring of our HMMWVs and our artillery in the

field. And this is no offense to anyone in the service. But thank

goodness we have a chairman who has made it a personal crusade,

I think possibly because he served in this capacity and because he

has two sons, one of whom has served in this theater, to make sure

that we are taking the steps that are necessary.

General, we have been talking about this issue for well over a

year. We recognize there was additional money needed. It was this

committee who went out in front of the White House and put $25

billion up on the table as the first supplemental when the Pentagon

was balking at doing anything because it was an election year; and

we persevered as Republicans and Democrats because we wanted

you to have the flexibility and the resources to do whatever it

would take.

You will never meet with resistance from this committee to put

the equipment immediately into the field. We will cut through the
12

red tape. If there are problems in the procurement process or the

process of buying or the technology of—as Duncan pointed out,

these plasma torches, we will give that capability to you.

But the point that Duncan is making is that we had an interim

solution identified months ago. And it is going to take a year before

we have all of that capability in theater. And to this committee I

would say, Democrats and Republicans, that is just unacceptable.

I have attended several Marine funerals over the past six

months, brave Marines who were a part of a unit from my district,

one of whom had just been married three days before he was deployed. And I know you have attended funerals of friends of yours

and the sons and daughters of your friends.

What this hearing is designed to say is that we need immediate

response. We are in a changing threat environment today. This is

a threat environment that changes, I guess, by the day.

When I was there, we were seeing additional projectile capability

that had the ability to pierce even our best armor. And so there is

no protection against that right now because the enemy has come

up with a new capability that we still can’t meet. And that is why

we have got to have this combination of technology and application

directly applied, along with the ingenuity of the troops in the field

to provide whatever short-term solutions are needed.

I am not totally comfortable that we have that right now, and I

say that acknowledging that I was very impressed with what is

taking place in the theater. I was impressed with the up-armoring,

the attitude of the contractors working side by side with our military personnel, the rate of production that was really impressive,

the facilities that were being used to do this work and the attitude

of the Marines that they would get the job done.

But I think if there is one statement that has to come out of this

hearing to you, it is, there is no impediment to you getting what

you need to get to our soldiers immediately—not six months from

now. If there is a problem with some piece of legislation or some

requirement or some dollar amount, what the Chairman is saying—and I know Ranking Member Skelton feels the same way—we

will solve that problem for you. Let’s be the people that take that

and deal with the bureaucracy.

But as the leader of our warfighters, we need you to make sure

that we are doing everything humanly possible to protect these

young Marines, which I know is the same objective that you have.

We do not want the bureaucracy to get in the way.

I read a statement today where a reporter is alleging that some

piece of legislation is hampering our effort in the area of body

armor. Well, if that is the case, we want the military to come and

tell us if it is a problem, not wait until after the fact and say, Oh,

Congress passed this bill or that bill or this restriction or that restriction.

The lives of our troops, as it is with you, is our number one priority; and we will do whatever it takes to give you the resources, but

we do expect action to take place immediately.

And so, again I want to thank you. I don’t have any questions.

I think you get the tone of the purpose of this hearing. And I can

tell you no one is more sincere on these issues than this guy sitting

right here.
13

And there are people who criticize the Congress and say, Well,

the Congress doesn’t really have any feel for what is going on in

theater. His son was in theater. Were both of your sons in theater?

One of them was in theater. He understands. As to my other colleagues, Congressman Wilson’s son has been in theater. My nephews have been in theater.

We want to give the capability immediately, whatever it takes.

There are no limitations. And so I would just ask you to consider

that as we move forward, especially where the changes you are

going to need to deal with these enhanced artillery capabilities that

are piercing even our best armored capability.

Thank you.

General NYLAND. Sir, thank you. And you are correct. Our goals

are exactly the same, and I thank you for your continued support,

sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.

Incidentally, we passed this law last year, that this committee wrote, that gives to the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) the ability

to waive every law on the books of the United States of America

and simply buy things if you are taking casualties in combat, which

we are, and the procurement item is needed to address those casualties. So I haven’t seen the newspaper article the gentleman’s

talking about, but we have a law that allows you to waive everything.

SECDEF’s got to sign that. He has got to certify it, but certainly

there is nothing—if the Marines made a request for the Secretary

of Defense to sign a certification for a vital warfighting component,

he is going to do it.

I thank the gentleman.

Gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Meehan.

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, General, for appearing. It seems to me, after all we

have been through on the issue of armor, it is just really a disappointment to see that we still can’t seem to manage a supply

chain.

I remember last December we were told by Secretary Rumsfeld

that a lack of armor on HMMWVs was a question of physics and

that there was an insurmountable supply. We discovered a few

days later, Armor Holdings had actually—who is a supplier—actually told the Defense Department months earlier that they could,

in fact, increase their supply and increase production.

So the Chairman has laid out here—in April, Pentagon officials

were aware of 1,000 of the three-eighth-inch armor for use on the

underbody for the Marine Corps. And now we are being told that

we will have this done by the end of August. It seems to me that

a four-month turnaround on what the Pentagon itself characterized

as an urgent requirement is just too long. I mean, to take four

months for a requirement that is described as ‘‘battlefield urgent’’

seems to me to be an embarrassment.

Add that to the fact that these three-eighth-inch sheets are over

in Kuwait. It just seems inexcusable and indefensible to me.

General, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a

report and faulted the Pentagon for the shortfall in up-armored

HMMWVs because it said that it didn’t ramp up-armor protection
14

production to the maximum level. And this GAO report pointed to

the Pentagon’s failure to release funds in a timely and predictable

manner, even though this committee and the Congress made the

money available.

They recommended two things to the Army. One is to update its

war reserve requirements at least every year to account for the

change in operational tempo; and second, to develop computer models that can estimate supply requirements for deploying units as

part of prewar planning.

I am curious as to the degree to which the Marine Corps has

adopted these practices, or might adopt them, in order to better

deal with planning and programming inventories.

General NYLAND. Yes, sir. Let me start and then I will ask General Catto to comment as well.

We recently sent the Inspector General of the Marine Corps over

to Iraq to understand what is the use of the equipment on the

ground and how that plays against what we call our equipment

density list. And what he came back and told us, in essence, was,

in many ways items that we have over there now, the Marines are

using and require almost double what we use in our old equipment

density list.

This is a new conflict. There are wide areas. There are more mobility requirements. There are more weapons requirements. So as

a result of that, we have come back and we are taking that to look

and adapt, is this what the whole Marine Corps needs to do to understand the right levels of tables of equipment given this as the

prospective new threat in the world. So we are working that very

hard right now and, in fact, have already put out a series of directives and taskers on that.

To speak more appropriately to using modeling to help with us

that in the future, I would ask General Catto from the Systems

Command to comment.

General CATTO. I have not seen this GAO report. I can tell you

that we do use modeling to determine our ammunition levels and

our use on the vehicles in terms of how much life that we take out

of them.

If I may comment on your statement about four months being too

long for acquisition, you know, it really depends on what we are

buying. If it is an article that exists, whether it is Wiley X glasses

or earplugs or even armor for vehicles—you know, we armored our

entire vehicle fleet of over 3,000 vehicles in less than four months

before we went into OIF the second time.

If it is a new vehicle or something that doesn’t exist, it is going

to take time to develop it and do the testing, et cetera. So you

know, the four-month time frame can be good or bad, depending

upon what particular item we are looking at.

Mr. MEEHAN. So you think what the Chairman laid out here,

starting with a meeting in February, going to April, August, that

that is a reasonable period of time to get the underbelly?

General CATTO. No, we are not happy with the underbody piece.

I understand that.

But as I said, sometimes you know when you say, four months

is too long, well, if it is an item that does not exist and you have
15

to develop it, you know, a new weapon or a new vehicle, you know,

as we talked about earlier, sometimes that just takes time.

Mr. MEEHAN. But the instance that I am citing is, they were over

in Kuwait. It just seems to me that the Members of this committee

that have visited Iraq, that visit Walter Reed Hospital, that see the

nature of the injuries and then see a presentation, as the Chairman has made, we just have to do better.

And Members of this committee work hard to try to get the services the money that they need. This inspector general’s report for

the Marines, they estimate that 30,000 Marines in Iraq need twice

as many heavy machine guns, more fully protected armored vehicles, more communications equipment. This committee wants to

provide whatever our men and women need, and we are doing it

very much in a bipartisan way with no regard to politics, just trying to get people what they need.

But it seems continually, at different points in time during this

conflict in Iraq, representations are made that we are fully up-armored, and then we go into theater and see improvements that

could be made to underbellies, or the kits aren’t getting there

quickly enough. And it is really frustrating, particularly when you

look at the nature of the injuries of people that come home without

arms and without legs, who are—who, it seems to many of the people of this committee, would be in a much better position if we

could quickly make decisions and get these up-armored or get, in

this case, the underbellies.

It just seems that it is taking the bureaucracy too long and we

need to do better. We absolutely need to do better.

General NYLAND. Sir, we certainly agree with that. And we are

very disappointed in the way that went with that one sheet of

steel.

We are absolutely pleased that we were able to accelerate our

own making and delivery of those underbodies, which can be installed at the unit level. And now we have over almost 400 on the

ground, as we speak today.

Mr. MEEHAN. And, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for that presentation. It was an excellent presentation.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Akin.

Mr. AKIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I very much appreciate the hearing as well. I am sorry I had to step out. We had a

couple of things I had, so I missed a little bit about what was going

on.

I guess a concern that I had, having been in theater about, I

guess, a little more than a month, maybe six weeks ago or so, was

the fact that the top leadership in Iraq was saying to us there is

nothing going out in the field that is either an up-armored

HMMWV or a Level two. So I go out and the same day see a

HMMWV where the driver just got killed. And it was sort of what

I called ‘‘good old boy armor’’ in a way. I don’t think we have a

name for that exactly.

So I started asking questions, and what I found out was that we

have got up-armored HMMWVs, and then we have got about five

different levels of Level two, so anything that has got anything

bolted on it is some kind of a Level two. And this particular vehicle
16

did not have the protection in the rocker—not the rocker panel, but

the post between the doors—and he had shrapnel coming through

there that killed the driver.

It did have some other pieces of armor protection on it, so the

guys in the back were not hurt. And you could see where the

shrapnel had gone through the first layer and had been stopped by

the second layer of armor there. But there were an awful lot of

variations, at least five different types of Level two armor.

And then I further got concerned when I heard that the Marines

were taking something like 43 percent of the casualties and had

five percent of the up-armored HMMWVs.

Somehow or other—I understand the nature, if I were an Army

guy and I were in the southern part and there wasn’t a lot going

on and you send me some up-armored HMMWVs, I am going to

keep them because I want to take care of my own guys. That is just

natural for us to do that.

But somehow that distribution has to be adjusted for where the

action is. And I haven’t heard the plan as to how that is going to

take place yet.

So I guess, from both a concern, but also I would like to know

how are we going to make sure. The two things that—and I typically ask this even when I am going to Iraq or other places: What

are the one or two things that would be the most helpful for you?

And it kind of surprised me after all this talk for years, I want

more up-armored HMMWVs is what the leadership was saying to

me. This is mostly in the Fallujah.

I said, What is your second-most thing? He said, The secondmost thing actually kind of comes up with up-armored HMMWVs,

which is better longer-range radios because if we have better radios, we can get further out into the field and communicate, and

we can push our missions further. But he said the up-armored

HMMWVs—I think, if I remember this right—had some of the better radios in them and some of the other things. The other radios

weren’t much good; you couldn’t trust them very far.

So that is our sense of frustration. Did you present a plan as to

how we are going to get more up-armored HMMWVs to the places

where the action is.

General NYLAND. Yes, sir. And if I might, I would answer that

in two parts.

The first one is one that we can maybe help influence, but is

really the purview of the operational commander; and that would

be the distribution to put more where the higher threat is. And we

are pursuing that with the operational commander to look at a review. What is the threat theater-wide, and does it make sense then

perhaps to reorient some of the assets out there?

In fact, I will be going to Iraq this afternoon and I will be talking

to General Vines and to General Johnson.

On the second piece——

Mr. AKIN. On that point, would it help you any if this committee

were to—I mean, can we provide some extra incentive to try and

get something like that going?

General NYLAND. Sir, I believe that the Chairman has spoken

with the Secretary of Defense on this issue already, and I intend
17

to bring it up to the extent that I can as a Title 10 guy with the

operational commanders.

The CHAIRMAN. If the gentleman will yield, we have been talking

to the Secretary and to the combatant commanders, and we probably need to have a discussion off the—in a classified way; and we

will do that after we get finished with this open hearing, the gentleman and I and anybody else who is interested in how this is progressing.

But there is a work on distribution right now of up-armored

HMMWVs.

General NYLAND. And sir, to the second part, we now have

roughly 500 of the up-armored HMMWVs. We have another roughly 400 that will be delivered by September, and our ground combat

commander and MEF commander has undertaken the review to

tell us how many vehicles would he need to go to, in essence, a 100

percent M1114/M1116 up-armored fleet. And we think that is going

to be in the vicinity of about 2,600 vehicles.

Whether that is mitigated by any distribution or not remains to

be seen. But we are trying to finalize that, pin that down, so that

we can put that in the 2006 request and move toward that all-Cadillac 1114/1116 fleet.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Arkansas, Dr. Snyder.

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for

not just this hearing, but for the work that has gone on by not just

you, but I know the staff has been very much involved. I think it

is the kind of activity that we can contribute as a legislative body

in a time of war.

As you know, General, there is a tremendous rumor mill in the

military, and we are all part of that. And we all have our friends

and constituents, and some Members have family members. And

we hear from people. And the sad thing is that, a lot of times, we

hear things, we ask about it—and I won’t give you an overstatement and say a lot of times—there have been times when we hear

these rumors, or hear reports from our constituents, ask about

them, are assured nothing is wrong, and then months later it turns

out, no, it was right to begin with. And I think the frustration at

this end of things is that we ask these questions trying to be helpful, and it seems like things get delayed for several months.

I had a specific situation where I heard there was a problem in

getting replacement parts, all kinds of replacement parts. I was assured at that table that, no, that was not a problem, that the anecdote I heard was spotty. Finally there was a study done, and it said

for the entire Baghdad area there was a terrible problem with supplying parts. So I think that is part of the frustration that you are

hearing about today.

I wanted to ask you, if I could, about this report, the inspector

general’s report. The Boston Globe has a story about it today, U.S.

Marine Corps Ground Equipment in Iraq, Readiness Assessment.

What is your comment about that report?

General NYLAND. Sir, actually we dispatched the inspector general over to get that, and quite honestly, I think it is a good news

story because it validates exactly what we have been saying and
18

supports the great support that this committee has given us to understand what we really need in the way of equipment.

I would say that the Globe story misinterprets that, at least in

my view. The story seems to indicate they need twice as much. The

reality is they have twice as much in Iraq. The question is do we

need twice as much for the remainder of the Marine Corps, if this

is the kind of theater and the kind of threat that we will see in

the future.

So my assessment of that report is it was very well done. It is

very timely. It is helping us assess what exactly are the types of

equipment, be it rolling stock or weapons, or communications gear,

that what we think the Marine Corps will need to be able to provide a relevant ready combat force for the Nation in the future.

Dr. SNYDER. Was there a specific reason why the Marine Corps

did not comment to the Boston Globe? The last paragraph says, Officials in the Marine Corps Headquarters in Systems Command declined to comment on the Inspector General (IG) report, saying

they were not yet familiar enough with its findings to respond to

questions.

When you have the press asking questions at a time of war about

what you are painting as a good news story, I want to ask you

more about that. Is there a simple reason why there was no response to a reporter’s questions about what clearly is an important

report?

General NYLAND. Sir, I do not know, and I asked that question.

I typed out that e-mail as I came to the hearing to find out why

in the world nobody either had the knowledge or the comment. The

Commandant was briefed on this report. And we made the decision

then—in fact I believe it was on the 8th of June, copies were provided to the armed services committees, to the readiness members,

because this does, in fact, substantiate what the Commandant and

the rest of the leadership have indicated our needs are. Why we

didn’t have a knowledgeable person—I don’t know where that call

went, I don’t know who provided that answer, but I will find out.

Dr. SNYDER. Because when you say it is a good news story, I am

not entirely convinced it is a good news story that the Boston Globe

story is not right. Well, what do we expect them to do if the Marine

Corps doesn’t comment on the report? It doesn’t make any sense.

General NYLAND. Yes, sir.

Dr. SNYDER. I want to ask you again, we have very limited time,

one of the conclusions I will read from the report, most inventory

logistics and security battalions require approximately twice the

number of 50-caliber machine guns and more M240G and MK–19

machine guns than they would normally possess. Now, tell me how

that is a good news story for this report to conclude that—this is

not like we are talking about some, you know, refrigerator for storing water supplies. They are talking about 50-caliber machine

guns.

General NYLAND. Yes, sir. What that report is saying is the Marines on the ground over there have double what their table of

equipment is today. So the way I see that is good news is that tells

me if the nature of war and the threat has changed, and this is

where I am going in the future, then I better change the table of

equipment for all the Marine Corps.
19

So that is not written to say there is a shortage. It is to say we

have taken from the other of the Marine Corps to ensure that they

on the ground have double what we used to think they would need

in their table of equipment. So it is a validation of what it takes

to fight this new threat in a sustained land campaign.

Dr. SNYDER. The sentence in here, the draft EDL, or equipment

density left at 16 February is understated in meeting current and

future equipment requirements.

General NYLAND. I believe it goes on to say that it is updated by

tomb F which we now have, and that the tomb F is accurate.

Dr. SNYDER. So the way you all have been looking at equipment

needs over the last year or two or months ahead, if you were following those requirements, your Marines would not have what they

need. But this report is coming back and saying we have gone and

looked; the Marines are using more 50-caliber machines guns, they

are using more equipment. We have got a—I guess the drum major

has to get ahead of the parade because the troops are responding

appropriately to their equipment needs. Is that a fair way of saying

that?

General NYLAND. In essence, yes, sir. What I am saying is that

we, initially, went to war with our table of equipment. We found

the Marines needed more. We gave that to them. That ends up

being about double what the old table of equipment was. We now

have seen that that is what is required, and that now gives us the

ability, then, if that is going to be the fight of the future, the

threat, and the ability to control it, then we better be looking at

our equipment density list across the Marine Corps to change those

tables of equipments.

Dr. SNYDER. Just one final comment. There is a series of charts

in there, if I am reading it right, say the readiness levels of a lot

of that equipment is not going to be what you all wanted it to be

as time goes by. And if the Congress needs to—you may have a

comment on that, and it may be in line with what Chairman

Hunter said. If there is things we need to hear from you about how

we can help with that, because we don’t want, you know, four out

of ten vehicles not to be operating properly in an unsafe manner.

If you have any comment on that, I would be glad to hear that.

General NYLAND. I do. Yes, sir, and I appreciate your comments.

In fact, I believe we are scheduled to brief the staff on that report

in detail on the 23rd, which is a Thursday. We will use that to substantiate what we need and any 20O6 supplemental to ensure that

the readiness does not deteriorate. We are already looking at vehicles for contracting, and different support that we can put in, as

well as changing the rotation policy on some of the equipment to

ensure that the readiness, those in the fight, have the best that is

available for them. But I thank you very much for your support,

sir, and we will, I believe it is this Thursday, brief the committee

staff on that.

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.

Gentleman from Colorado Mr. Hefley.

Mr. HEFLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think you see the level of frustration on the part of the committee, and maybe you feel some of it, too, but I just don’t understand.
20

If you watch the History Channel just a little bit, you see hundreds

of B–17s rolling off the assembly line at a pace that no one ever

imagined you could build airplanes. Same way with ships during

that time, because we were in war, and there was a sense of urgency because we were in war.

I guess it raises the question in my mind, we are talking about

putting a little steel on a car. I guess it raises a question in my

mind, are we really operating this like we are at war with that

kind of a sense of urgency?

I would like to go back to Chairman Hunter’s original premise,

which there has been some attempt to answer, but I still don’t understand it. You have got a gunny sergeant who comes up with a

pretty good plan, not a perfect plan, doesn’t do everything you

would like it to do, but it does help, and it does save some lives

and some injuries. And it takes an inordinate amount of time for

anybody to deal with that plan.

Why didn’t the first person that saw that plan in the command

structure say, you bet it is going to help, do it; and what do you

need to do it with; and let’s get that steel out of Kuwait, and let’s

get you the plasma torches, and let’s get this thing done? It is not

going to be perfect. It is not going look like the kind of armor we

were going to bolt on later, but it still is going to help. How in the

world could we have waited this long, and let them get along with

inferior equipment, and endanger those lives when there was a

way to help?

I was out at Ramstein the other day, and I was visiting with

some of our wounded troops, and I got one young man just coming

out of the operating room all bandaged up. And I said to him, soldier, are you going to stay in, or are you going to get out? He said,

I am staying in if they will let me. He said, we have got work to

do.

That is the attitude they have. Why don’t we in this committee

and in your structure over there at the Pentagon, why don’t we

have that attitude? We have work to do, and whatever you need

to do it, we are going to provide it to you. Why didn’t we follow

up on this gunny sergeant? That would be my first question.

General NYLAND. Yes, sir. I certainly agree. These are magnificent young men and women. I go to Bethesda and Walter Reed regularly to visit them as well. And we owe them this.

I think the issue with this particular case is we can’t lose sight

that we had parallel efforts. Now, granted we took our eye off the

ball on this rolled hard steel and the contract that we did not control, but at the same time we accelerated these underbodies so that

they could be put over there, and they will provide even better protection, and they are installable at the unit level, and it doesn’t

take a really skilled artisan to do that. I think that is a huge step

to be able to go toward this, and we have been building these

underbodies since last fall.

So while that one piece—and I acknowledge we took our eye off

the ball on that contract taking two months to get let, but we had

a parallel course at the same time because we knew we didn’t control that process. And we have, in fact, now almost 400 underbodies

on the ground, for the purpose of installation at the unit level, to
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put the protection on there that is superior to everything except for

the 1114, the armored HMMWV vehicle.

Mr. HEFLEY. It took a long time to do that, and does the Marine

Corps—I know you are very structured, and you expect your young

Marines to follow your rules without question, but does the Marine

Corps encourage thinking out of the box and innovation? And we

ought to be very proud of this gunny sergeant who saw a problem

and set about to solve it. Again, he didn’t have the equipment of

a manufacturing company to do it, and he didn’t have any contract

to be let. He just went about doing it. Do you encourage that, or

is that something that is discouraged?

General NYLAND. Absolutely encouraged. As a matter of fact, the

Marine Armor Kit was developed not by us back here, but in concert with the warfighter. This is what we see that we need, this

is where the threat is. That was a vehicle that is the third in three

generations of armored vehicle all of which had been devised in

concert with the warfighter. The warfighters came up with Lshaped doors that we put on the Level two vehicle. They have had

input into this. What does it need to make it the best that we can

make?

So we absolutely encourage innovativeness. We have tremendous

young men and women out there who provide us with great solutions to many things. I will tell you that some of their—some of the

tactics, techniques and procedures that these young men and

women come up with are tremendous. And we do, in fact, encourage that. And I would again say that every one of these vehicle armoring systems in the three generations that we have built have

all been built with the warfighters’ vote and input.

Mr. HEFLEY. Thank very much, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Gentlelady from Guam Mrs. Bordallo.

Ms. BORDALLO. I have no questions.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Minnesota Mr. Kline.

Mr. KLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, for

being here.

The Chairman has said that we have warfighters and a bureaucracy, and we in this room are part of the bureaucracy. I suppose

that is true to a certain extent. It is not my day to argue with the

Chairman, so—but it seldom is.

But I know that both of you are also warfighters. And, Spider,

General Nyland, you are one of the last handful of Marines that

are still wearing ribbons from Vietnam. And I know that both of

you care about the Marines, as they were part of your family. They

were part of my family, and I would argue by extension still are.

And I know you care deeply, but as has been pointed out here

again and again, we are kind of trapped in a system that has been

developed over decades and was well suited, perhaps one might

argue, for the Cold War period; a very lengthy system of planning,

programming, budgeting, executing and defining requirements and

verifying them in 2 or 3 or 5 or 12 different places. And I think

that what you are sensing from us, and certainly from me, is that

we kind of haven’t gotten out of that box.

We are still trying to validate those requirements. We are still

working through a contracting system that is mired in pages and
22

pages and pages of Federal Acquisition Regulations and all sorts of

conditions. And thanks to Chairman Hunter and the other Members of this committee, but I think fair to say principally the Chairman, we put into law a provision to allow you, us, to bypass all of

that.

I mean, it is fairly incredible if you think about it. And so we

need to find a way, you at the table, we here, for whatever part

we need to play, to make sure that we are taking advantage of

that. And I know that because you have a bureaucracy that has

been in place for decades, it is hard to get that through sometimes

to the people who work for you and work for other services and

work for OSD and work for all manner of agencies and bureaucracies in the Department of Defense. But somehow we have got to

do it.

So I would just beg you to, like the gunny, think out of the box,

and when there is any hint that comes from the theater that there

is a delay because of some acquisition problem, that we not let that

slow us down for one minute.

General NYLAND. Yes, sir.

Mr. KLINE. And I know every gunny’s idea isn’t always a good

one, too. I think I understand that, and most of the Members of

the committee do, although most gunnies’ ideas are pretty good,

kind of got us to where we are today for the most part. But I don’t

know how to sort of beg you anymore and to say, do not let the

system that we grew up in hold us back.

General NYLAND. Yes, sir.

Mr. KLINE. Don’t let that happen.

And so then I would ask you, is there anything, anything that

you think is in the way now, because I know that Chairman

Hunter and Ranking Member Skelton, all of us on this committee,

we will do everything we can to get it out of the way so that we

can get what we need. So if there is something that you need down

in Quantico that is bubbling down there, or, General Catto, please

tell us now, tell us tomorrow, but let’s get out of the way, because

you are warfighters. You have been there. I know you care. You

have been frustrated in the field. I have been frustrated in the

field. Let’s don’t let the habits of the last 50 years or 30 some years

of service, don’t let that get in the way of getting what we need because we used to do it that way. And to a large extent, we still—

we still have to, but not if it is costing the lives of Marines or soldiers.

General NYLAND. Yes, sir.

Mr. KLINE. Please.

General NYLAND. Absolutely. And I could not begin to say anything better than thank you for your support, and we will provide

you anything that we see as an obstacle. I would say thank you

again for the rapid acquisition legislation. That was the only way

we got that Cougar vehicle as fast as we did and got it over there

and put it in the hands of our EOD Marines.

I have to also say that there are some things that have been success stories inside the acquisition process. And I have seen Bill

Catto turn around overnight the things that we have looked at, urgent needs from the warfighter with the Marine Requirements

Oversight Council (MROC) that we have made a decision, put it on
23

contract, and had it delivered in less than three weeks later, the

advanced optical gun sight, the personnel radios. So we are looking

for ways to do that.

But you are right. There are probably still—and maybe General

Catto can elucidate on them right now, and I can’t, and I would

like to take that part for the record—if there are any hurdles out

there, we will come back to you with those hurdles so that we can

remove them and get what we need to put in the hand of these

great young Marines.

Mr. KLINE. Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Florida Mr. Meek.

Mr. MEEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Generals, I am glad you are here, both of you are here. It is kind

of difficult because I can see if this committee or the Congress

wasn’t willing to give DOD what they need to be able to make

things happen on behalf of the men and women in harm’s way, and

like my colleague just mentioned, all of you feel what we feel, and

it is kind of difficult especially—and I have gone to Iraq and Walter

Reed and Bethesda and had an opportunity to see these patriots,

even in Germany, say that there are ready to go back if they could.

But many of them can’t because in many ways somewhere along

the line they have been failed as relates to equipment. And we

know, and I know, that we are every day working to resolve that

issue. And it is almost at the point that everything has been said,

just everybody everyone hasn’t said it.

But I don’t know if you are familiar with the article that came

out in New York Times about Marines from Iraq sounding off about

wanting armor and men, but it goes on somewhere in the second

paragraph, and something that is very disturbing to me as Member

of the committee, we are sitting out here—we are sitting out here

in the open, and as easy targets for everyone, one Corporal Wynn

said of Centerville, Texas. Said of the shortages, we complain about

it every day to everybody we could. They tell us they are listening,

but we don’t see it. It goes on to say—talks about the leaders and

what is coming, and then it says, the Pentagon officials say that

they don’t know how many more—I mean, how many of more than

1,500 U.S. troops that have died in war had insufficient protective

gear.

First of all, that statement is probably not just dealing with the

whole up-armor or undergurney issue of the HMMWV, but it is disturbing for so many Congressional Delegations (CODELs) that go

over, so many Members of Congress, you are going over there after

this hearing; so much of an effort, legislation that has been passed

as it relates to rapid acquisitioning, giving those that are in a uniform and wearing stars to be able to make those decisions right

here, right now on behalf of those troops, and it is still not happening in a way that we would like for it to happen.

I am not saying it is not happening. We are making progress

talking to the folks on the ground. We don’t send a vehicle out unless it is armored totally. But we are still hearing now, you know,

years—in the early years of combat, and I firmly believe as a Member of this committee, even though there is great discussion on the
24

Hill about exit strategy, what is going to happen and how we are

going to do it, that this is Iraq, the early years. And you made a

statement earlier, and I want to give you an opportunity to explain

it. And this is not about you, it is about our thinking as relates to

how we are going to transition our equipment to be able to continue the effort in Iraq and areas like it.

As you know, we are dealing with the military closing bases in

Europe, moving into Middle East, Horn of Africa, being able to deal

with some of these very small, dirty conflicts that we are going to

have. We are going to need this kind of equipment. And you said

it is about the future. Maybe I didn’t quite understand you, but I

am hoping that we are not holding back or saying that, well, we

are going to make all these vehicles ready for the terrain we are

on now, but we have future terrain, and maybe you want to save

some for that. But it is important as it relates to arms and the legs

and the forward days in Iraq.

General NYLAND. Yes, sir. Let me take those in reverse order.

But the first one, absolutely, we are moving—our goal now is to

work—move for the ground forces in Iraq to an all up-armored

HMMWV, M1114/M1116 fleet. While we look at what we need for

the future that will be better than that, we are not going to stop

providing them with the armor they need.

I am not familiar with that particular article. In fact, I would

certainly like to review it because every single Marine is issued

and has available all of their individual protective equipment, and

I would be very much surprised to find that that was not the case.

But certainly I would like to get that article and then provide any

response to you for the record that could clarify that.

Mr. MEEK. Mr. Chairman, very briefly, it is an April 25th New

York Times article.

General, there is a number of articles there. If they are right or

wrong—just because it is a New York Times doesn’t necessarily

mean it is true, but I would say that there is too many articles that

are coming out like this. And we are doing everything we can.

When I hear Members of this committee begging, literally, and if

they could get on their knees, they would, Because we all see these

young men and women, because we don’t want the question what

were we doing when all this was going on.

General NYLAND. I understand, sir, absolutely. But I can tell you

that every Marine and every sailor serving with the Marines is

issued and has all of his individual protective equipment.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

The gentlelady from Virginia Mrs. Drake.

Mrs. DRAKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Generals, thank you for being with us here today and for listening to our frustrations. But what I am really concerned about is the

process, and we all know, and you said it today, that this is an

adaptive enemy, and that as soon as they know they can’t get us

one way, there is going to be something new that they come up

with. So how do we make sure, what has happened in the past,

that this process works so that you can do things more quickly?

I appreciate that General Catto has accepted responsibility and

said he didn’t follow up, but why should he have had to—once

something was put in process, why didn’t it just do what it was
25

supposed to do? And so I am concerned because in the Second District of Virginia I see these very bright young men and women who

are so proud of their jobs and doing things to come up with new

ideas and new ways to do things, and I want to make sure when

that happens that we have a way to make sure it becomes reality.

So that is my concern is the process for the future and that there

is something we can fix. And I think other Members have said

that—tell us how we can help you, but to make sure that we have

a process that works and does what you think it is going to do and

we don’t have these delays, because there is going to be something

new, and we don’t want to have this same discussion in a year or

six months or on another war. We want you to be able to deal with

it.

General NYLAND. Yes, ma’am. And thank you. And we will. We

will come back with anything that we think will hinder the process

and ensure that it moves speedily.

The other thing I think that we will take on ourselves and continue to do, which I think we have done in the past, but obviously

in some places we haven’t done it, is impart the same sense of urgency to the people that are in—not in harm’s way, that we are

trying to serve, for those who are in harm’s way, and we will take

that on.

Mrs. DRAKE. Just like you said, it took two months to let the contract. Is there something that needs to be changed, or was that just

human error on someone’s part who is not in harm’s way?

General NYLAND. That one was a—it was just a lack of—taking

an eye off the ball and not continually prodding someone so that

they had that sense of urgency.

Mrs. DRAKE. I would think you shouldn’t have to prod them, but

thank you.

General NYLAND. Yes, ma’am. I didn’t think I would have to either.

Ms. DRAKE. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady.

The gentleman from Mississippi Mr. Taylor.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, General, for being here, for your service

to our country.

I am beginning to wonder if we are not throwing a lot of money

at the wrong solution. It was a while back Colonel Jim Riddick, formerly with the Army Liaison Office, came by and showed me a variety of South African vehicles that have a V bottom; explained the

difference with a blast going off with a flat bottom versus a V bottom. And I understand that Russians in Bosnia have V-bottom vehicles. When they would run over a mine, you lose the tires. The

crew walks away.

Are you wedded to the HMMWV? Are you, for political reasons

or logistic reasons or any other reason that doesn’t make military

sense, being told to fix something that doesn’t work in Iraq?

General NYLAND. No, sir, I don’t think so, I think we look at the

HMMWV and certainly the M1114, M1116 as the best that we

know right now.

That said, with the 27 Cougars that we have, there is another

122 coming to all services of which 38 are ours, we internally in

the Marine Corps are looking at those other South African vehicles.
26

The Cougar, of course, is made in South Carolina. There are other

ways potentially to defeat this problem.

So we are not standing still. We just recognize that right now it

looks like the 1114 is the way to go while we determine—this Cougar is a huge vehicle. Can it be made in into a tactical size is the

question. This is a 30,000-pound vehicle. Can we have a variant

that can take a fire team or have a variant that can take a squad.

And I might ask General Catto to comment on this because some

of his people are doing the work. But we are looking across the

spectrum. As you say, it is something that is going to be better

against this threat.

Mr. TAYLOR. General, again going to the sense of urgency. And

again, there may be something that I don’t see, but I don’t see a

sense of urgency in looking at a more appropriate vehicle for the

fight we are in right now and what I presume will be similar fights

in the future. I am noticing just from what I read in the paper a

heck of a lot more IEDs going off in Afghanistan. I don’t think that

is a coincidence. Seeing how it worked in Iraq, we are going to be

seeing that in Colombia, Afghanistan; wherever we have American

troops, we will see a lot of roadside IEDs because, unfortunately,

it works. So why do we sit back and make the same mistake that

was made dragging the feet on the body armor, dragging the feet

on the jammer, dragging the feet on the HMMWVs? I am glad Mr.

Hefley has left. Why is there not a World War II crash program

to respond to this?

I read daily where people in the automotive industry are laid off.

I believe in Michigan alone, there is 24,000 people laid off this

month. That means there is an assembly line waiting to do something. And if there is an effect to this, believe me, I would much

rather see that money spent fixing this problem than a lot of other

things I see this Congress spending money on.

And I what I would like to know at the appropriate time is who

within the Marine Corps is in charge of that program, because I

would like to meet that person.

Second thing I would like to ask, I had a great privilege of traveling a couple months ago with Lieutenant General Blum, head of

the Guard Bureau. We rode in the convoy between two fire bases

with the Mississippians. Along the way we discovered that one of

our—just in the previous few days that vehicle had been blown up,

an IED. This time it was a vehicle-borne IED. They had actually

come up from behind, pulled alongside the vehicle, detonated it.

What I just found mind-boggling is that as our convoy went

along, they were running vehicles off at the beginning, but allowing

vehicles to come up from behind, and which seemed to me it would

make sense that someone at the tail end of that convoy has a sign

saying, stay back 200 feet, stay back, whatever.

Are there political restraints that prevent something like that?

Are we so busy trying to get—put a normal face on life in Iraq that

we are endangering our troops? Are there anything—things like

that where you are prohibited from telling me, you can’t come up

that close; you can’t tell people get off the road ahead of you?

General NYLAND. Sir, to my knowledge there are none. My information may be dated. My last trip was last August, but I am leaving this afternoon. I will ask the ground commander if that is an
27

issue, and I will come back and I will get word back to you if we

have any, but to my knowledge, there are not any issues where we

are told that because of some law, that we put people in harm’s

way.

Mr. TAYLOR. It may not be a law. It may just be again we are

trying to put a normal face on what is going on in Iraq, and we

end up losing people needlessly. It is my understanding from conversations with Lieutenant General Blum as of last week we still

don’t have a theaterwide policy that says you can’t pass us from

behind, which certainly seems to be a vulnerability.

General NYLAND. Yes, sir. Be honest, sir, I have exhausted my

knowledge on it because I was unaware of any problems when I

was there last year. I will ask that question when I go this week,

and I’ll get word back to you, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. Again, thank you for what you are doing.

Thank you for having us here, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Texas Mr. Conaway.

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Generals, thank you for your service. I appreciate that. General

Catto, thank you for your straightforward opening statement. I appreciate that very much.

Help me understand a little bit what is left to do with the

HMMWVs we have got. With the second MEF, how many do they

have, and do we have any kind of status as to the armoring of each

of those? And just give us a sense of what—you said December.

Help us understand what the scope is we are talking about.

General NYLAND. I will give you sort of a rough count, and then

I will let General Catto go to any details.

Basically what we have right now, on the ground we have about

500 of the up-armored HMMWVs, some which the Marine Corps

purchased and some which were provided by Multi-National CorpsIraq (MNCI). We will have another 400 delivered by the end of

September. We have already MAK armored, which is the highest,

Level II, 700 vehicles. We have 330 fuel——

Mr. CONAWAY. Before you go, that is in addition to the 500 uparmored ones?

General NYLAND. Correct.

Mr. CONAWAY. That is 1,200.

General NYLAND. We have 330 kits that will take 82 HMMWVs

and convert them to MAK. And we have 370-some underbodies

whose rest of the kit will follow. That will also take those vehicles

to the full MAK. That is aggregate numbers. General Catto can

probably go onesie and twosie more, but that gets you to about the

number we have there.

In addition to that, we are also flowing in HMMWV A2s that we

complete here in the States and swap out with our base model

HMMWVs, of which there are about 600 left, because they can’t

even carry underarmor. They are so old, they can’t take the weight.

Mr. CONAWAY. The 400 that will be delivered in September, they

are ready to go fully up-armored?

General NYLAND. Those are the M1114s. And between now and

September, those 400 will be delivered.
28

Mr. CONAWAY. Where are the 600 you just mentioned? Are they

in theater?

General NYLAND. They are in theater. They are Level two armor,

and we are slowly replacing them with A2s that we build in the

United States, not the ones that we convert over there.

Mr. CONAWAY. So I have got a total of 1,800 HMMWVs.

General NYLAND. Ballpark 2,000 plus or minus.

Mr. CONAWAY. Another 400 on the way in September, so we are

really talking about 600 that we got folks at more risk than other—

than the folks driving, than the 1,200?

General NYLAND. As they wait for the underbody, correct.

General CATTO. Six hundred forty baseline. The old HMMWVs.

Now, what we are doing with those is setting them aside, bringing

A2s, which is a better vehicle, can carry more weight, better armor

solution; and then, of course, the up-armored HMMWVs M1114s,

so by September everybody will be in a MAK kit or the M1114.

Mr. CONAWAY. General Nyland, would you check—tactically are

the 600 used differently? It would make sense that you would use

those 600 as last resort and in missions that wouldn’t expose the

troops. Would you check on that?

General NYLAND. Absolutely. I will, sir, but I can tell you for a

fact that nothing leaves a forward-operating base or a base that is

not at least Level two armored.

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yield back.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.

The gentlelady from San Diego Mrs. Davis.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you

to all of you for your service, for being here today.

And I think one of my colleagues mentioned the country under

World War II and the fact that, you know, the entire country was

mobilized, and it is not a surprise that the entire country got the

sense of urgency that we did then. And in many ways we are coming to you and sharing our frustration, and some of that could certainly be spread around. I guess we can look in the mirror for that.

So I appreciate your comments.

But I wanted to also just reflect on the article that—the IG’s article and just the fact that a statement was made that the Marine

Corps’s current strategy to meet the current and future needs of

the force—we are talking about communication needs in Iraq, but

communication needs in other conflicts as well. Can you comment

on that, and also whether or not we are doing everything that we

can to keep communication between the distribution units? I think

in testimony you stated that you are going to Iraq partly to see

what is—you know, why, perhaps, the needs are not getting to the

areas that where the greatest concern is. Why is that not happening anyway?

General NYLAND. Yes, ma’am. I think what the IG’s report is

stating is that we have found in particular the communication requirements in this conflict are significantly greater than what we

had ever anticipated. And so that we can keep the communication

to those disparate units, we find that things as common as a guard

radio and as complicated as satellite stations, we don’t have enough

of that kind of equipment if we are going to be operating over those

kinds of distances. And so what we have to do as a Marine Corps,
29

which we have already undertaken, is an evaluation of what do we

need for the future, because clearly what we used to think we need,

if this war is a harbinger for the future, is inadequate. And so

while I think we have the communications in place over there, as

you point out, that teach, and talk and communicate with distribution and disparate units, we are doing that at the expense of the

rest of the Marine Corps, and what do we really need for the future? And that is what that report is really telling us.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. I guess what has gotten in the way

of that? Is it just the size of the task, or are there other obstacles

that you have?

General NYLAND. I think you have hit it.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. In terms of technology?

General NYLAND. I think it really is the size of the task, and understanding how much equipment, be it the communications, be it

weapons, be it rolling stock, it really takes to operate in a sustained theater such as this.

This was not what we had always planned for. We were going

to be the mule, we were going to kick down the door and then come

out when the larger forces came in. But if this is a message for the

future, then I think just the enormity of what it took to make this

work and work well, we have to take that to heart and understand

and then adapt for the whole of the Marine Corps so that we still

provide for the Nation a ready, relevant, combat force that they

need.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you.

In some ways would you suggest or say that we have downplayed

the need?

General NYLAND. I don’t think that we downplayed it. I think we

went into this making sure that those who went in, who were going

to go in harm’s way, had what they needed. We didn’t realize how

much it would be.

And so as we identified it. Then, of course, we will bring that certainly to the committee and to the Congress in the way of the

budget and the supplemental for help to make the rest of the Marine Corps whole for this type of theater.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Will you also be looking at is different

training required at the distribution centers in order to move

things quicker; do we not have the—I guess, the sort of some basic

training in terms of procurement that is needed?

General NYLAND. I think, as a matter of fact, one of the things

that we did when we did our recent force structure review group,

one of the first things that we identified and seems like a small

number, but was for about 40 field tactical contracting specialists.

So we are looking at those kinds of things. How do we do better

tactics, techniques and procedures not only in combat, but in moving the logistics and supply that goes with it; the ability to use the

radio frequency identification tags and know where everything is in

the process so you can get it to the right person at the right time.

And we are taking all of that on. We have actually learned a great

deal, and we learn every day.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you. I wish you a safe trip.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentlelady.
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The gentleman from Arizona Mr. Franks.

Mr. FRANKS. Well thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, gentlemen for being here. After Mr. Kline’s comments and Mr. Hunter’s comments, it is a little difficult to know

what I can add constructively, so with the realization that there is

a lot of redundance here, maybe I can just restate some things in

a little different way. And I start by reiterating Mr. Kline’s comments that all of us on this committee know and feel your own

commitment to protecting these young men and women in theater.

And we know that you have dedicated your entire lives to the cause

of human freedom. So any criticism that is in the air here should

be focused on what impact it can have on the future.

And with that said, I guess, if I can just clump three or four

questions together here. First of all, I am hearing a strong commitment on your part that, at least as applies to HMMWVs or at least

applies to any personnel vehicle that is in danger of these IEDs,

which seem to be something we are going to be dealing with for a

long, long time, is there—in other words, is there a strong personal

commitment on your part?

So I guess my question would be, number one, what is the longterm plan for dealing with this comprehensively? Number two, in

the short term we know we must never allow what we cannot do

to stop us from doing what we can do. And this gunny has, I think,

shown a tremendous example of what we can do even by way of

retrofit or doing things in the interim that, you know, give some

chance, some hope that some family will not have to hear that

knock at the door, or some mother will not have to hear that call

that changes their life and soul forever. And I know that you know

you understand that part of leadership is being willing to transcend convention when it is appropriate to the primary objective of

what the cause is all about.

So having said that, is there also a willingness to allow those in

the field, and understand that firsthand, to be able to do these retrofits until all of the armor is set up? And then finally, is there any

anything that this committee can do in any way to help you do

what you must do?

General NYLAND. Yes, sir. I am trying to get those in order. As

far as for the long-term plan, we have recently asked the commander of the ground forces to review his requirement for a basically 100 percent up-armored HMMWV fleet. There are certain vehicles that cannot be the 1114 or the 1116, the tow vehicle, some

of the radio vehicles. But to the extent possible, what will it take

to give you a 100 percent all up-armored HMMWV fleet, meaning

M1114s or M1116s? We have a rough cut on that number right

now at about 2,600. We are refining that. And we will certainly be

letting the committee know of that requirement as it gets defined,

because clearly it will be impacted potentially in the 2006 supplemental.

For the shorter term, and tied into the innovativeness, we have

on the ground now today 330 of the full Marine Armor Kits, which

will be installed at our facility in Al Taqaddum. We also have 370-

some underbodies which have been designed so that they can be installed down at the unit level. So it doesn’t mean taking the vehicle

offline, sending it to Taqaddum; rather the underbodies will go to
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the units, and the great young Marines in the motor pools will be

able to install those.

And, sir, for what the committee can do, I don’t like to live in

the past tense, but I have to thank the committee for all that you

have done. And I have heard you loud and clear today that should

we find obstacles, legislation, law, or needs, to come back, and I

can assure you that we will, sir.

Mr. FRANKS. Thank you, gentleman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlemen.

The gentleman from Texas Mr. Reyes.

Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And, Generals, I apologize for having to leave, but I have another

hearing going on, so we have to shuttle back and forth.

I was wanting to follow up on my colleague’s question. Given

what you know about going to all up-armored HMMWVs, over

what period of time would this transition occur? Do you have any

sense or any idea on that?

General NYLAND. I have a little bit of a sense. And if I am wrong,

I will have General Catto correct me, because he does all the buying. But we have about 500 now, and we will have 400 more delivered in September. My understanding on the options that we would

have to buy additional of the up-armored HMMWVs starting in the

September, October time frame would be that we could potentially,

depending on what our final number is, in a period of four to six

months, arrive at an all up-armored fleet, knowing, of course, that

that is not funded right now, and that would obviously be a great

topic for the fiscal year 2006 supplemental. That is the aggregate

number. I would ask General Catto if he can——

General CATTO. Congressman Reyes, Armor Holdings, O’GaraHess, can do 550 a month now. So it is dependent upon what portion of that production rate they will give the Marine Corps. So

with the appropriate funding in the supplemental, if you assume

even 300 a month, we can have the numbers we need in less than

a year.

Mr. REYES. Less than a year. Are you looking at all at the

Stryker and the success that it has had to date? Is that—is the

Stryker of any interest to the Marine Corps?

General NYLAND. No, sir. We have not particularly looked at the

Stryker because it doesn’t fit well inside our expeditionary construct.

Mr. REYES. There is a lot of concern in my trips to Iraq about

the rapid rate of deterioration of equipment, vehicles. Are there

any evaluations or studies ongoing by the Marine Corps, you know,

in a hostile area like the Middle East about the deterioration rate

and what we can do about it, how we can maybe improve?

General NYLAND. Yes, sir. In fact, we sent the inspector again

with the Marine Corps with a team full of members from all disciplines over there recently, and they have just reported back. The

committee staff, I believe, is going to get a briefing on that this

Thursday, and he has taken a look at exactly those kinds of things.

What is the normal wear and tear? What are we experiencing

there? What is the readiness? Is the time at which we rotate vehicles right; should we do it more frequently? It is a very detailed as-
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sessment addressing the readiness issues, and I will make sure

that we get a copy of that report to you, sir.

Mr. REYES. Thank you.

The last thing is, I guess it is under the categories of lessons

learned when we encounter a situation or a threat to our troops—

and I am thinking specifically about the HMMWV and the IEDs

and then stepping up the power of the IEDs by artillery shells and

those kinds of things. In your analysis or in this analysis that you

are doing, is there some way to be able to provide perhaps scenarios as they evolve as we deal with things like urban combat and

IEDs, and perhaps the next level is going to be an IED with chemical or biological parts to it? Who—is somebody working on those

kinds of things so that in the next challenge we are not having to

scurry like we have been with the armor issue? Is somebody working on those kinds of things?

General NYLAND. I think to some extent, yes, sir. Clearly we

take, on a routine basis, the lessons learned as they exist today,

and we incorporate those in our trainings for battalions that are

going over. So the tactics, techniques, procedures that the battalions are going to see in Iraq are based on what the battalions that

are there are experiencing. And when we run them through our

training out on the west coast at 29 Palms and at March, where

we train them for about 3 weeks specific to operations in Iraq,

those things are all taught. We use artillery shell simulators to

replicate IEDs. We have gotten the jammers so that they can train

with the jammer. We have gotten armored vehicles so they can

drive a vehicle that is not just a regular HMMWV.

So absolutely. We use those lessons learned to improve the training and make sure it is the most current ones the Marines deploy.

As far as that next step, to look toward potentially chemical or biological weapons, I think there is some effort in that area. I am not

familiar with the total extent of that.

I will let General Catto.

General CATTO. Congressman Reyes, the Expeditionary Fighting

Vehicle is designed with overpressure inside specifically to deal

with the NBC threat.

Mr. REYES. Very good. Thank you, Generals, and thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Michigan Mr. Schwarz.

Dr. SCHWARZ. General Catto, first I want to say that the frame

for the Cougar vehicle is made in Charlotte, Michigan, by Spartan

Motors, which is in my district; great little town between Battle

Creek and Lansing and the county seat of Eaton County.

I was told about 6 or 8 weeks ago by representatives of the UAW,

United Auto Workers, that the capacity to produce HMMWV

frames by AM General, I believe, is actually twice what is being

produced. They represented to me that they are working a 10-hour

shift 4 days a week, an 8-hour shift 1 day a week and 1 Saturday,

and producing a certain number of frames, I believe it was 28 per

day, but that they could very easily double that if the order came

through to do it. They had the personnel to do it, the space to do

it, the time to do it.
33

The response that I received at that time was that they could do

it, but the holdup would be at the armorer, because the armorer

could only attach the armor to so many vehicles per unit time, and

they were pretty well maxed out. Is that correct?

General CATTO. Congressman Schwarz, I don’t know if it is the

Armor Holdings folks or the guys at O’Gara-Hess that are delaying

us. I know that they have gone from about 250 vehicles a month

and then ramped up successively to where they are now 550 vehicles a month. So I can’t answer your question other than to tell you

it has been an iterative process where they have gotten better

every month.

Dr. SCHWARZ. Would it be correct to assume—all is a dangerous

word. Is it correct to assume that the armorers are working at capacity now?

General CATTO. I cannot answer that. I will have to check and

get back to you.

Dr. SCHWARZ. Then to follow up with that, it wouldn’t be illogical, then, to ask the question of the armorers, if the manufacturer

of the frame could double production very easily, as the UAW that

represents the workers in that plant have represented to me, would

it be possible for the armorers to up their work, their production,

the number of vehicles they put out the door commensurate with

the number of vehicles that the frame manufacturers could put out

the door? That would be, I think, a logical question.

I would be most appreciative, sir, if you or your Army counterpart or whomever would be the appropriate person to ask that

question would ask it. And I will—I tried this morning, and I will

call the UAW again, which is—it might seem a little odd for a Republican to be dealing with the UAW, but the UAW is very big in

my district, and they are great folks. It might be appropriate for

me to keep calling and try to see if those numbers are correct, because it would seem to me that if the armorer can keep upping

their output, it wouldn’t be inappropriate to ask the manufacturer

of the frame to up their output as well.

General CATTO. I will coordinate with Brigadier General Pat

O’Riley, who is my counterpart in the Army. He is program executive officer for combat service support, and we will get back to you.

Dr. SCHWARZ. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Kentucky Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think it is an interesting time, sitting here in the committee,

to—I am not going to speak as a Congressman, but as an engineer

who spoke at the Naval Postgraduate School of Warfare conference,

presented technical papers in the years before the war. And so

many of expectations that were there, I think sometimes we get involved in a lot of emotional introspection here that misses the point

of the successes of services in dealing with a very aggressive, highly adaptive enemy that calls for us to adapt as well.

Just to clarify a point to the gentleman’s comments on World

War II mobilization, I will point out for the record the U.S. Military, the Army specifically, entered OIF–I with 330 armored

HMMWVs in the space of 16 months after the threat was diag-
34

nosed, had over 33,000 armored vehicles in theater, tremendous

manufacturing accomplishment. I recognize the adaptivity of the

Marine Corps in dealing with the same thing, and I think it is very

important for the record to point that out.

Likewise to the gentleman’s comments on V-shaped vehicles, I

will speak as an engineer again, it wouldn’t matter if that vehicle

was sliver-thin, under a 3155 round stacked, the people inside are

going to be in a tragedy. General, I appreciate you pointing out the

importance of TTPs and doctrines to shape the argument.

One thing I would like to bring up, though, and this is really in

light of the Marine Corps’ tremendous history in being a leader in

doctrinal transformation in 1980’s and 1990’s with maneuver warfare, one thing that I have wondered if you can comment on in

product development—and I don’t see this as an individual leadership issue, a people issue or an emotional issue as much as a process issue and procurement itself, and possibly this might be able

to be an opportunity to really redefine the process and let the Marine Corps—and this is hard for me to say as an Army guy, but

to reassume a great leadership role in a less glamorous area in

product development. Toyota Manufacturing, for example, will completely redesign a car bumper to bumper. Its production process,

procurement purchase process is every three years. And perhaps

these unfortunate circumstances we find out ourselves in with a

tremendous amount of initiative on the front lines and motivation

with the soldiers and Marines involved in this, it might give an opportunity to really redefine it.

The committee has given you all the resources, certainly given

the Army as well, but I was wondering if you could comment on

any initiatives; if you have looked into your interest in pursuing

that type of a, let’s say, more flexible response and process and how

we might help you if there are any intransigent agencies that needed a little help from your friends on the committee.

General NYLAND. Sir, I will start and then turn over to our acquisitions specialist, because I am a biology major.We have and we

will continue to seek ways to speed up. We have been very successful, as I mentioned some examples where we have been able to

identify a requirement, slap the table, put it under contract and deliver it in 30 days. We like working that way. We are also appreciative of the legislation that the committee gave us which allowed

us to get the Cougar so rapidly. And so we will continue to look

for ways that we can tweak this process, feed the process, and,

where we have a speed bump, bring it back to you.

That said, General Catto may be able to elaborate a little bit

more on some inside that he has already has knowledge of.

General CATTO. I think our biggest frustration with this whole

process, Congressman, is, you know, you start the fight with stuff

you have, and where we need to fight with the stuff you have. And

where we need to move on now with a new threat is you have got

to get new vehicles that are designed for survivability from the

ground up. So everything from the different frames to the Vshaped, to blast-attenuating seats, to armor, that is a new design.

That the S&T guys help us with so we are not putting threeeighths-thick armor and layers and layers, et cetera.
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General CATTO. It is going to take us a while. I think if we go

with a COTS vehicle we talked about previously, that it may be as

much as 24 months. To develop a vehicle from the ground up with

just something that doesn’t exist, it is going to take us about 5

years.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. One point, I would just give a humble

suggestion that as the Small Wars Manual is reasserting itself now

in the time we live, as we are moving back to a more expeditionary

type of military like we had 100 years ago, it almost suggests some

collaboration or an adaptation of that same doctrine to maybe define a process of continuous improvement that we go to equipment

adaptation in theater for specific threats. I know the threats that

I saw when I spoke at the mine warfare conference, and also my

friends in the Israeli Special Operations Combat Engineers, their

equivalent of Rangers, it is a little bit different than ours. They are

everywhere around the world this is encountered. There are different types of threats, and rather than being prescriptive, I think

having these types of principles that would just help you close that

loop faster. That would be good. Just let us know what we can do

to help you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General NYLAND. Yes, sir. We greatly appreciate your support.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Missouri had a few comments.

Mr. SKELTON. Let me echo what my colleague from Mississippi

said. I don’t see a sense of urgency in a lot of what we are doing.

This is a hearing with the Marine Corps. We have more soldiers

injured and killed than Marines. Is there a coordination between

what you are doing and the United States Army?

General NYLAND. Yes, sir. Absolutely. General Catto’s organization is not only closely linked in all of the program executive offices, but we are closely linked in our plans policy operations as we

look at the forces that are going to deploy, and certainly myself and

the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, General Dick Cody, we talk

often about what we are doing and the way ahead. So there is—

most of these developments are all done jointly between us and the

Army, particularly those that particularly apply to land warfare.

Mr. SKELTON. Would you say that, to your knowledge, the Army

is moving to get up-armored vehicles to replace its entire fleet or

not?

General NYLAND. I think that they have adjusted—not to speak

for them, but they have adjusted their requirement. I have seen in

various sets of testimony that it is well over, I believe, 10,000 now.

I certainly would not want to speak for what their ultimate number

is or whether that would be a 100 percent force.

Mr. SKELTON. From what you see, you all are singing from the

same sheet of music on this issue?

General NYLAND. I think we are. We all believe that the M1114

and the 1116 are the vehicle that we need to put out there for our

young Marines and soldiers.

Mr. SKELTON. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.
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And, gentlemen, thank you for being with us today and for reviewing this very critical issue.

General Nyland, you are going to Iraq tomorrow?

General NYLAND. This afternoon, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. This afternoon. When you are you coming back?

General NYLAND. I come back on Sunday night, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. Let us have another hearing next week,

maybe next Thursday or Friday. You are going to be back this coming—you will be going over for two or three days.

General NYLAND. Coming back I was supposed to go on to San

Diego that night as well.

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. Let us have another hearing, maybe a

classified briefing, when you get back.

General NYLAND. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And the Ranking Member suggests we bring the

Army with you. Let us see what we can do there. We have, under

this rapid acquisition reg that we passed, where the Secretary of

Defense can waive all U.S. laws and regulations on acquisition, we

are building this jammer that is kind of a major project of this committee, 10,000 in number. We are going to try to flood them into

theater as quickly as possible.

Let me make a recommendation that there are certain procedures obviously that accompany that system. If you could get a couple of the prototypes, a couple of the first ones off the line, and

start working those so that we don’t have, then, a long period of

familiarization with that system, I think that would be important

so you know what you are getting, you anticipate what you are getting, start figuring out how you are going to use it in mounted and

dismounted form, because it is going to be one that can be used by

dismounted troops. I think that is important for us.

General NYLAND. This is the Scorpion, which I believe there is

some discussion of now changing the name to Warlock Blue, but we

are familiar, sir, and your point is spot on.

The CHAIRMAN. We don’t care what they call it. We just want it.

General NYLAND. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. You know, we bolted $50 billion in supplemental

money on this authorization bill, and I believe it is bolted on in

such a way that it is available upon the signing of the bill by the

President. That is obviously a lot of money for recap in terms of

producing more up-armored HMMWVs. I am going to ask Mr. Simmons, who has an industrial background, to take a look with your

folks in terms of facilitizing to perhaps increase that production of

the 1114s. And so let us see what is possible. Let us see if we can

surge them.

I think the gentleman from Michigan had a good point. You

know, Mr. Simmons and his team from the HASC worked and

pulled the schedule to the left considerably on the Warlock just by

getting into the subcomponent makers and looking at the long

poles and the tent, seeing where they could compress the schedule,

and they managed to compress it pretty significantly. Let us work

on that. Let us go forward from this meeting and do better. And

we have a major problem here. We have this disconnect which I

think is fairly apparent. We have got to solve it for the folks that

wear the uniform. I know you want to do that.
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My last question, you know, we haven’t mentioned who this

gunny was, but I notice his name is on the front of the briefing.

So it is pretty tough to hide it here. It is Gunnery Sergeant—I

think it is Hal Kelly, who is a motor transport chief in that particular port of the western area of operation in Iraq. Where is he; do

you have any idea?

General NYLAND. I believe he is at 29 Palms, sir. I think he is

in 1⁄7th, the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, I believe, at 29 Palms.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that right? I think we ought to contact him,

and he is the kind of guy we ought to have in one of these deputy

acquisition positions in the Pentagon. I think he knows what he is

doing. So maybe we will try to—if you could, maybe General Kelly

could try to get a call in out there and see if you can locate that

fine gentleman, because we would like to let him know that we

have been talking about him.

Thanks for being here. This is a serious issue. It is by no means

solved. So let us have this first hearing, another hearing as soon

as you get back.

And I want to thank the Members for their very thoughtful contribution here and for your testimony today.

And, General Catto, thank you for your testimony. We appreciate

it.

The hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:10 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]

A P P E N D I X

JUNE 21, 2005

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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. HUNTER

The CHAIRMAN. Was there an Urgent Universal Need Statement sent from II

MEF requesting underbody armor? If yes when was it sent and what was USMC

time on sending it through the system?

General CATTO. There was not a specific UUNS submitted. That said, we have

been iterating armor requirements directly with the warfighter since the beginning

of our return to Iraq and II MEF (Fwd) sent a message (271728Z Apr. 05) that delineated this requirement.

The CHAIRMAN. Did the USMC look into the feasibility of using a ‘‘task order’’ to

speed up the process of acquiring armor?

General CATTO. MCSC did not consider a task order for either the MAK or MAS

because there was no extent task order for either the HMMWV or MTVR that met

our requirements.

• MAK: While MCSC was still fielding first generation armor, PM MT was already in contact with Aberdeen regarding the best HMMWV kit protection available

at that time. It was the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) kit. However, since we

had preponderantly HMMWVA2s, we opted to enhance the protection, and thereby

developed the MAK. The most expeditious means of producing it was through the

depot at Albany. To date, MAK is probably the best add-on HMMWVA2 protection

available.

• MAS: MCSC initiated an ECP with OTC in November 2003 to develop a kit

for the MTVR, leveraging off the vehicle’s capabilities. The MTVR is a Marineunique piece of equipment, therefore there was no ‘‘task order’’ or extent contract

from which to leverage MTVR armor. OTC solicited participation from the civilian

sector and only three vendors responded.

Obviously, it was going to be a ‘‘bottom up’’ effort, not ‘‘adapt-a-kit.’’ We opted to

develop and test a high-end and low-end solution. The resultant contract with

Plasan Sasa through OTC is unique to the MTVR.

The CHAIRMAN. How many rocker panels are we purchasing in the contract?

General CATTO. Approximately 650 rocker panels will be produced from the 450

sheets of 6′ x 6′ 10 mm sheets of rolled homogeneous armor steel purchased from

Defense Logistics Agency in Kuwait. The rocker panels will be installed on base

model HMMWVs. Rocker panels were chosen vice underbodies because the base

model HMMWV with the current level II armor package cannot readily accept the

additional 850 pound under body without exceeding its gross vehicle weight. In addition, AMC is not facilitized to perform the precision cutting required for

underbody kits.

The CHAIRMAN. Is the USMC requirement for under body armor 675?

General CATTO. The II MEF (Fwd) requirement is for 400 MAK underbodies to

be installed on HMMWVA2s. All 400 underbodies have been produced; as of 15

June, 140 have been delivered with the remaining 260 enroute via military air. The

650 rocker panel requirement is based off the number of base model HMMWVs that

will be rotating in/out out of theater coupled with normal MAK installs, the 400

MAK underbodies, and what II MEF (Fwd) could reasonably install based off operational tempo and manpower availability at the organizational level.

The CHAIRMAN. Is the contract we completed two days ago using the steel in Kuwait only to fill the requirement or are we using steel from other places?

General CATTO. The contract was signed on 20 June. The steel procured in Kuwait is being used only for the rocker panel effort. The steel for the (400) MAK,

(124) 5-ton, and (243) LVS underbodies was procured in CONUS. The MAK effort

was completed by Maintenance Center Albany who is also producing the LVS kits;

the 5-ton effort is being produced by Maintenance Center Barstow.

Underbody Steel Current Status: Per Marine Corpse Systems Command

(MCSC), overall plan is for contractor to fabricate 650 steel rocker panels for II MEF

forward and units to install on base model HMMWV’s in Iraq. USMC has purchased

steel (450 plates, RHA 3⁄8 inch x 6 feet x 6 feet) and is expecting contract award

on 20 June. Deliveries of panels are expected in three weeks and complete 8 weeks

after contract award.
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Ballistic Glass Current Status: Per MCSC, II MEF forward has submitted an urgent needs statement for ballistic glass to be incorporated into the HMMWV/MTVR

cargo flanks and gunner shields. MCSC immediately began work on the ballistic

glass design into HMMWV cargo flank. First prototype has been produced; 25 prototypes will be produced and sent to II MEF for evaluation. In addition, Marine Corps

has engaged OSHKOSH troop company to incorporate ballistic glass into the MTVR.

Incorporating ballistic glass into the gunner shields will take a deliberate engineering effort as there is no readily available COTS solution. Survivability, weight, balance and durability will be a challenge.

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