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i 

50–822 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–5] 

ARMY AND MARINE CORPS 

FORCE PROTECTION PROGRAMS 

JOINT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

AIR AND LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

MEETING JOINTLY WITH

SEAPOWER AND EXPEDITIONARY FORCES 

SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

FEBRUARY 4, 2009 
(II) 

AIR AND LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii, Chairman 

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina 

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia 

DAN BOREN, Oklahoma 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

LARRY KISSELL, North Carolina 

FRANK KRATOVIL, Maryland 

ERIC MASSA, New York 

BOBBY BRIGHT, Alabama 

ROSCOE BARTLETT, Maryland 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JOHN C. FLEMING, Louisiana 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio 

DOUG BUSH, Professional Staff Member 

BEN GLERUM, Staff Assistant 

SEAPOWER AND EXPEDITIONARY FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi, Chairman 

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

GLENN NYE, Virginia 

CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine 

ERIC J.J. MASSA, New York 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

ROB WITTMAN, Virginia 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida 

JESSE TOLLESON, Professional Staff Member 

ELIZABETH DRUMMOND, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2009 

Page 

HEARING: 

Wednesday, February 4, 2009, Army and Marine Corps Force Protection 

Programs ............................................................................................................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Wednesday, February 4, 2009 ................................................................................ 41 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2009 

ARMY AND MARINE CORPS FORCE PROTECTION PROGRAMS 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Abercrombie, Hon. Neil, a Representative from Hawaii, Chairman, Air and 

Land Forces Subcommittee ................................................................................. 1 

Akin, Hon. W. Todd, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking Member, 

Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee .......................................... 9 

Bartlett, Hon. Roscoe G., a Representative from Maryland, Ranking Member, 

Air and Land Forces Subcommittee ................................................................... 7 

Taylor, Hon. Gene, a Representative from Mississippi, Chairman, Seapower 

and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee ........................................................... 6 

WITNESSES 

Brogan, Brig. Gen. Michael M., USMC, Commander, Marine Corps Systems 

Command, Program Executive Officer, MRAP Joint Program Office, U.S. 

Marine Corps ........................................................................................................ 12 

Lennox, Maj. Gen. Robert, Assistant Deputy Chief Of Staff, G–3/5/7, U.S. 

Army, Accompanied By Brig. Gen. Peter N. Fuller, USA, Program Executive Officer, Soldier, Commanding General, Soldier Systems Center, U.S. 

Army, and Kevin M. Fahey, Program Executive Officer, Combat Support 

& Combat Service Support .................................................................................. 9 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Brogan, Brig. Gen. Michael M. ........................................................................ 62 

Lennox, Maj. Gen. Robert, joint with Brig. Gen. Peter N. Fuller and 

Kevin M. Fahey ............................................................................................. 50 

Taylor, Hon. Gene ............................................................................................. 45 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Mr. Abercrombie ............................................................................................... 77 

Mr. Massa ......................................................................................................... 78 

Mr. Taylor ......................................................................................................... 77 

Mr. Wittman ..................................................................................................... 78 
Page

IV 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Abercrombie and Mr. Taylor .................................................................... 81 

Mr. Bartlett ....................................................................................................... 88 

Ms. Giffords ....................................................................................................... 90 

Ms. Shea-Porter ................................................................................................ 90 

Ms. Tsongas ...................................................................................................... 94 

Mr. Wilson ......................................................................................................... 88 
(1) 

ARMY AND MARINE CORPS FORCE PROTECTION 

PROGRAMS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED

SERVICES, AIR AND LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE, 

MEETING JOINTLY WITH SEAPOWER AND EXPEDITIONARY FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, 

Wednesday, February 4, 2009. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:00 p.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Neil Abercrombie 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. NEIL ABERCROMBIE, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM HAWAII, CHAIRMAN, AIR AND LAND 

FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Hello, everybody. Thank you so much for your 

patience. We were a little bit too optimistic in terms of the classified briefing that we were going through up until now, and it necessitated us being a bit longer to come here than we intended. 

And again, I want to emphasize our appreciation, Mr. Taylor and 

myself and the members. 

We are coming to order for our first subcommittee meeting of 

this session of the Congress. We are holding a joint hearing on the 

Army and Marine Force Force Protection Programs. 

We are joined, of course, with the Seapower and Expeditionary 

Forces Subcommittee under Mr. Taylor, to receive testimony today 

on force protection programs from witnesses representing the Army 

and the Marine Corps. 

If members will look at the witness list, there is an extensive 

number of witnesses, but we are going to have singular speakers. 

And some of the witnesses are there to provide perspective, observations, backup, et cetera, and to answer questions or comment on 

observations of the members. 

In addition, should there be questions or observations which 

need commentary arising, we have the Deputy Director of the Live 

Fire Test and Evaluation and Deputy Inspector General for Auditing, as it proves appropriate and useful. 

For the Army, may I ask just who is going to be speaking for the 

Army? Will it be Major General Lennox? 

General LENNOX. It is, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. And for the Marine Corps, it will be Major General Brogan, right? 

General BROGAN. Sir, I am still a Brigadier General, but yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. I beg your pardon, it is Brigadier General. Well, 

we can change that. I am engaged in sympathetic magic, General. 
2 

The testimony then, obviously, will include the status and effectiveness of force protection equipment, both in Iraq and looking— 

you can look forward or project forward to Afghanistan or elsewhere, if you wish, as well—with particular focus on tactical vehicle and personnel body armor initiatives. 

I want to say, for those who are new members, that this committee—this subcommittee and its counterpart, and Mr. Taylor and 

Mr. Bartlett—in terms of my personal experience, has been in the 

forefront of providing necessary nonpartisan—we don’t use the 

word ‘‘bipartisan’’ in our committee, we use ‘‘nonpartisan.’’ We don’t 

believe that questions of life and death and the national strategic 

interests where the armed service is concerned is a question of partisanship in any respect—the full spectrum of force protection matters. 

For a number of years, members have been aggressively urging 

the Pentagon to be more proactive in fielding Counter Improvised 

Explosive Device (IED) systems, better personal body armor, better 

helmets, add-on armor to tactical vehicles; and adding intelligence 

in this respect as well—intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems (ISR)—to Iraq and Afghanistan. And we have had 

the added advantage of having the Chair of the Intelligence Committee serving on Armed Services, as well, in Mr. Reyes. 

I go through some of this preliminarily for the witnesses, not because you don’t know any of these things, but because the public 

at large, of course, is viewing and listening and hopefully understanding what is going on; and we are trying to provide a perspective, and also one for new members, as I said. 

Too often the Pentagon’s and the military services’ discussions 

and promises of transformation in joint programs have not necessarily been met because of what I would call ‘‘grinding bureaucracy’’ and failure to overcome individual service cultures. I do believe that that is a difficulty that—in other words, there has been 

some partisanship on the part of the Pentagon, I think, maybe even 

more so than there has been in the political arena, in the electoral 

political arena, and that needs to be overcome. 

So today’s hearing will continue our efforts to assure that our 

personnel—and I say our personnel, not the military’s personnel, 

those people serving in the interests of the United States of America—have the very best equipment possible. 

We are told that equipment deemed operationally suitable in 

Iraq may not be operationally suitable in Afghanistan. The operational environment in Afghanistan differs from that of Iraq in 

very significant ways, including a less-developed transportation infrastructure, higher and more rugged terrain. This places greater 

demands on personnel and equipment; it requires modification with 

regard to tactics, techniques, procedures to address specific threats; 

and it requires continuing oversight by the Armed Services Committee. 

We ask that the witnesses provide testimony on what they see 

as the unique equipment requirements of Afghanistan and how 

they are addressing those equipment requirements in a timely way 

and how we can be helpful in that regard. 

We hope to not replicate previous delays in getting proper equipment fielded for our personnel, and we don’t want to go through 
3 

what we did go through previously in terms of having to have hearings in order to expedite or to bring focus to these questions. 

Regarding the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicles, commonly known as MRAPs—again, Mine Resistant Ambush 

Protected Vehicles—$24 billion has been authorized and appropriated for these vehicles. Over 15,000 vehicles have been produced 

in just under 2 years, with approximately 10,000 MRAP vehicles 

being fielded in Iraq and 2,000 currently in Afghanistan. 

These vehicles have saved lives and may save more, and are considered to be the most survivable vehicle class in theater. However, 

these MRAP vehicles are heavy and they are wide, and they have 

been altered in various and sundry ways and come in various 

versions. Operational feedback from theater has indicated a need 

for a lighter weight, smaller and narrower version, if possible, of 

the MRAP, especially for Afghanistan. 

My mother used to say, if wishes were horses, we would all be 

riding. So we know what we are looking for. Whether that is possible, whether we need to bend laws of physics—which my good 

friend, Mr. Bartlett, would say is impossible and will no doubt comment on it if he thinks that is the case—we want to make sure that 

we are not trying to say we can do something we can’t do. We don’t 

want to mislead anyone. 

At the same time, the MRAP vehicle requirement in Afghanistan 

continues to increase, we are told. The word we have now is that 

the requirement is for at least 2,900 vehicles. This is before any 

changes which may occur in the strategic environment, let alone 

the political environment, that will unfold in the weeks and months 

to come. 

We are also very concerned and have the advantage again of having the Readiness Chairman with us as well, where we are dealing 

with spare parts, distribution, rollover accidents, repair, maintenance depot questions with regard to the vehicles and personnel. 

We understand that there is a program now to field a lighter 

MRAP variant. We don’t want to fall into something where we are 

going to be told, as we have with other programs, everything is on 

schedule and on budget. If it is not on schedule and it is not on 

budget, or it is not on schedule because we are not able to do what 

we hoped we could do, we need to be told what we need to know. 

We expect to receive updates on this program today and on a 

continuing basis so that we can better understand the acquisition 

strategy, the fielding plan, and what we can do to be helpful. 

With regard to soldier equipment, recent media reports have indicated that in Afghanistan soldiers routinely carry loads from 130 

to 150 pounds for a 3-day mission. We have previously received testimony that personnel can wear only so much armor beyond which 

their operational effectiveness is inhibited, which, in turn, increases their risk of being injured. 

We expect to receive updates and efforts to lighten the load of 

soldier and marine without sacrificing their safety. For our purposes today, we are not talking about whether it makes tactical 

sense to even have military personnel operating in that kind of environment under those kinds of circumstances; we won’t explore 

that today, but that is a policy issue when we may be expecting 

something to occur because we want a political outcome, and we 
4 

are asking military personnel to effect that outcome perhaps in 

ways that are not appropriate. But that will be the subject taken 

up in other venues. 

Finally, despite the fact that the committee has received continued assurances of body armor systems effectiveness from the Department of Defense (DOD) and the military services over the past 

several years in hearings, briefings and personal conversations, 

body armor effectiveness continues to be an issue, which I am sure 

is no news to anybody who is going to be testifying today. 

Most recently, the Department of Defense Inspector General 

(DOD IG)—and when I say ‘‘recently,’’ I am talking January of this 

year—report stated that if standardized procedures for body armor 

were consistently followed by the Army, three-plate designs procured under one contract would have failed first article testing, affecting 16,000 sets of body armor plates. I bring that up again because that is out there, people know that, members may be aware 

of it. 

I understand, as well, it depends on how you start defining 

things and what criteria you use and what protocols were in place, 

and I am sure that will be gone into. 

But I bring it up because this is the kind of thing that becomes 

part of the conversation that takes place, and we have to answer 

for that on the committee. The DOD IG, the inspector general, recommended that the Army remove the body armor plates in question from the inventory. We need to address that. 

The Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, 

the DOT&E, the Department of Defense’s testing expert, reviewed 

the three tests and disagreed with the DOD IG. So the DOT&E 

concluded that the plates met the contract performance specifications, although agreed that there were significant issues in the 

Army’s testing documentation process and scoring analysis. 

Again, I bring this to the attention of the public at large and to 

the members because this is the kind of thing that we have to then 

resolve when it comes to putting a defense bill together; and we 

want to make the right decision, because decisions that this subcommittee makes and the committee as a whole makes are lifeand-death issues. And I know that you are as vitally concerned 

about that as we are and take it as soberly and as seriously as we 

do. 

And so I am going to take it that the testing and evaluation 

branch and the inspector general branch are both operating on the 

basis of professional competence and commitment and determination to persevere in that regard. So it puts us in a dilemma, and 

we need your professional observations and commentary. 

We understand the Secretary of the Army has requested the 

Deputy Secretary of Defense to adjudicate the issue. I am not sure 

that is the right way to go. I am not interested in adjudication, we 

are interested in what do we need to do in terms of policy that we 

put into the defense bill that is going to advance the interests of 

the personnel involved. 

In the interim, the Secretary has issued a precautionary order to 

identify, collect and return the plates in question while the matter 

is being adjudicated. I am not sure that that advances what this 

committee’s work is going to be. 
5 

I regret having to go into such detail about this, but we have a 

lot of new members, and the public is not necessarily aware of all 

these things; and I want you to know what is on our plate right 

now. 

Why the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) authorized the 

release of the Inspector General’s report with its own testing director disagreeing with its own inspector general is not known to me, 

but many things are not known to me in the Pentagon. I realize 

there are no politics involved in the Army or the Marine Corps, so 

this may be an obscure corner for you. Perhaps politics of some 

kind was involved in that, but we can’t allow that to affect our decisions. 

Given the critical importance of the issue, we would like to see 

prompt action taken to resolve this body armor testing issue. That 

is the reason I am bringing it to your attention today; we want to 

have answers. 

What direction should we go? None of the members on this subcommittee, let alone the committee as a whole, is going to do any 

of this testing. We are totally and completely reliant upon your professional understanding of what is required for military personnel 

as translated or transposed into the defense bill. And then we have 

to make that recommendation to Mr. Skelton and the committee as 

a whole and then on to the appropriators. So we are counting on 

you to have this issue resolved. 

The number of body armor plates in question comprises a very 

small percentage of the total number of the plates procured, about 

two percent, but the implication is the Army is not fully testing 

plates and allowing them to go into the hands of our soldiers. So 

the whole program gets brought into question, even though it may 

not be entirely the case. 

Because of continued concern with the Army development testing 

process for body armor, the committee has taken action to have the 

Government Accountability Office (GAO) review and evaluate the 

body armor first article test. The GAO has this under way. 

The IG has also made recommendations regarding standardizing 

body armor, which I hope that you will address, and we expect to 

receive an update on these provisions. 

We are told, finally, that there is not a single fatality in Iraq or 

Afghanistan due to the failure of the currently fielded body armor 

plate to defeat the small arm threats it was designed to stop. 

I want to repeat that. We are told there is not a single fatality 

at this point in either of those two immediate fields of military endeavor. Our goal must be to maintain that record and to provide 

our military personnel with the best body armor and force protection equipment available. That is the duty and obligation of this 

subcommittee, first and foremost, to the committee as a whole, and 

to the Congress and the people of this country. 

So troops and their families must have continued confidence in 

the body armor being provided to our personnel. And the hearing 

today is to be the first practical step in seeing that task completed. 

Again, I apologize for taking so long to do that. I ordinarily don’t 

have such a long opening statement, but the issues involved are so 

volatile, they have such public attention being focused on them at 
6 

the moment—not necessarily fully informed—that I felt it was required of me to do that. 

And with that, I am going to turn to Mr. Taylor for any remarks 

that he would like to make at this juncture. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I would like 

to submit a very well written statement for the record. 

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection. 

STATEMENT OF HON. GENE TAYLOR, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM MISSISSIPPI, CHAIRMAN, SEAPOWER AND EXPEDITIONARY FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank our acquisition folks 

for being here today. I think that the purpose of this is not just to 

educate a couple of Congressmen, but to let the moms and dads 

and loved ones of the people in uniform know what the military is 

doing and what this Congress is doing to minimize American casualties as we pursue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

I think everyone on this committee was very frustrated with the 

attitude taken under the previous Secretary of Defense (SECDEF). 

That attitude, summed up in my line, was that casualties were acceptable, and that we were so busy worrying about the next war 

that we were not responding quickly enough to the war we were 

fighting; and hence, the foot-dragging that took place, first on body 

armor, on getting a jammer on every vehicle, on up-armoring High 

Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs). It should 

not have been up to the individual trooper to go to a junk yard in 

Iraq in order to up-armor his HMMWV. We, as a Nation, should 

have been taking the steps. 

Although I don’t see him in the audience, I want to thank again 

publicly Colonel Jim Littig, United States Army (USA), Retired, for 

being the first person to actually come up to me and say there is 

a better way to protect a vehicle from an underbody explosion, it 

is called a mine-resistant, ambush-protected, V-bottom vehicle. The 

South Africans figured it out, the Israelis figured it out, the Japanese figured it out. It is regrettable that it took the United States 

Army as long as it did to figure it out. 

I also want to remind people that these hearings have a purpose. 

Two years ago right now, the United States of America had less 

than 500 mine-resistant vehicles. Right now, we have over 13,000 

in theater. I want to commend General Brogan of the United States 

Marine Corps for the outstanding job he has done in, first, developing that vehicle, fielding that vehicle when needed, flying those 

vehicles to theater, and finally, producing enough vehicles to where 

we can send them shiploads out of town to theater. 

General, I wanted to let you know that in December I met a 

Lieutenant General Helmick, who tells me that the vehicle he was 

in was attacked by an 800-pound vehicle-borne IED, and he lived 

to tell me about this, walked away from that explosion. 

I want to let you know that the Mississippi Guard unit I visited 

in December, every route clearance mission they run is in ambushprotected vehicles, mine-resistant vehicles. I met another colonel 

who will not let his troops leave the wire unless they are in mineresistant vehicles. Your work is saving lives every day. 
7 

It took longer than any of us would want to; none of us like the 

idea of going to five suppliers, using three different engines and all 

the other different parts that you had to do in order to get them 

fielded in a hurry. But I want to commend you and all of your team 

for the work that you did. You are saving lives every day. 

The purpose for hearings like this is to identify other needs, and 

on the part of Congress to fund and on the part of your acquisition 

boards to build the things that we need to save the lives of troops. 

We also need to know, in the case of MRAPs, what sort of logistical 

problems we have created, as we have—I mentioned three different 

engines, approximately 30 different varieties of vehicles. What do 

we as a Congress need to do to help you simplify that process and 

make sure that the troops are getting what they need? 

Lastly, General, I would hope we could touch on it, for the many 

years I have been fortunate enough to serve on this committee we 

have heard the Army, in particular, say, ‘‘We train as we fight.’’ We 

know in the case of MRAPs you did the right thing in fielding those 

MRAPs as they came off the production line, getting them to theater as soon as they came off the line—in many instances, flying 

them there, later on, sending them there by ship. I would hope that 

as that need is filled in theater, that there is a plan in place to get 

those vehicles to our training installations so that the first time our 

troops see an MRAP is not in theater, but at that training installation, and that they have adequate time to train on them before 

they get to theater. 

For whatever reason, I do read the casualty reports. And every 

time I see a noncombat-related injury listed in those casualty reports, I have got to wonder, was it an MRAP rollover by someone 

who wasn’t properly trained to operate that vehicle in a tough environment, and is someone dying needlessly because we haven’t gotten the vehicles to the training installations? So I would very much 

like to hear from you what is being done to get them to the training installations in a timely manner. 

And again, I want to commend all of you for the job you have 

done. And I hope I told General Helmick your name in particular, 

General. If I didn’t, I hope he will get a copy of this transcript and 

know that your work resulted in the saving of his life and the lives 

of lots of sailors, soldiers, airmen and marines on a daily basis in 

Iraq and Afghanistan. And I want to thank you publicly for the 

work you have done. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Taylor can be found in the Appendix on page 45.] 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you. As I indicated, we are nonpartisan in this subcommittee and in the committee as a whole. 

Gene and I have the pleasure, the honor and the delight of having 

two close friends and colleagues serving now as ranking members 

as we served as ranking members previously, in Mr. Bartlett and 

Mr. Akin. And I will go to them now for their remarks, Mr. Bartlett 

first, followed by Mr. Akin. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MARYLAND, RANKING MEMBER, AIR AND LAND 

FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
8 

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank our panel for being with us. We 

are very fortunate to have each of you serving our country. And we 

are very pleased to have you with us here today. 

Force protection has always been a top priority to both of these 

subcommittees—and I serve on both—and I have no doubt it will 

continue to be. We in Congress recognize that it is our constitutional duty to properly outfit our brave men and women who 

choose to serve their country in the military. Many of these brave 

troops are currently overseas serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and 

all over the world. 

As the threat to our military personnel continues to evolve, force 

protection requirements must continue to change accordingly. We 

as a committee need to be reassured that all force protection programs are being accomplished expeditiously, the services are communicating with one another, and that every effort is being considered to meet new force protection requirements. Every day we must 

be able to confidently say that we are doing everything possible to 

provide our warfighters the protection they need and deserve. 

It is along these lines—and I know the Chairman already hit 

upon this in his opening statement—but I am troubled with recent 

press reports in regards to the Army pulling body armor from the 

field based on faulty testing. These press reports are based on a recent Department of Defense Inspector General report. 

Many of you may be aware that although I did not serve in the 

military, I worked for more than 20 years as a scientist and engineer on military projects to improve or invent equipment to protect 

the lives of military personnel. I mention this because I understand 

the importance of testing to guarantee that equipment performs to 

specifications and expectations. I believe a fundamental foundation 

for those who do serve is confidence in their government, confidence in their civilian and military leadership, and confidence in 

their equipment. 

We are very fortunate to have some new members who have recently served in the military and, Mr. Chairman, I think it would 

be very beneficial for us to hear from them in regards to how soldiers and marines react when they read these types of articles that 

question the capabilities of their equipment. 

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I am puzzled as to why the Department 

of Defense leadership has not yet weighed in on this issue. We certainly know where the Department stands on MRAPs and ISR, and 

rightly so. It seems to me that if the enemy gets through the ISR 

and gets through MRAPs, body armor is the ultimate last line of 

defense for the individual soldier and marine. We have the Department of the Army, the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, 

and the DOD IG, all DOD agencies and all with differing conclusions. I hope that this hearing will shed some light on this issue. 

And depending on what we learn today, Mr. Chairman, I may suggest that we work together to send some kind of official correspondence to DOD leadership expressing our concerns. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. And I want 

to thank you again for your service to our country and for appearing before us this afternoon. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. And last, but certainly not least, our good 

friend, Todd Akin. 
9 

STATEMENT OF HON. W. TODD AKIN, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, SEAPOWER AND EXPEDITIONARY FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. AKIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And also, thank you very 

much to our distinguished panel. 

Like some of my colleagues, I have some great comments that 

were prepared, and I would ask that they be made part of the 

record. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Without objection. 

Mr. AKIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The one thing that I might add, and I don’t know that this is 

specifically any of your specific responsibilities, but as we were 

dealing in Anbar Province with the problem of MRAPs and having 

those fully armored vehicles there, what happened that was kind 

of interesting was that our number of fully protected MRAPs, we 

had met that in Iraq. But the problem was that the distribution 

was improper, and so we had a lot of people riding around where 

there was no action going on in fully protected vehicles, and yet our 

marines in Anbar Province did not have enough of those vehicles. 

Fortunately, we did a quick adjustment and made sure that the 

distribution followed where the attacks were most significant. 

So as we start looking at Afghanistan, trying to wrap up the 

number of the smaller, I guess the 2,000 additional MRAPs that 

are narrower and a little bit lighter for that road system, that we 

could also be careful that those are distributed at the most strategic places as they are delivered. 

I don’t mean MRAPs, I meant the up-armored Humvees. We had 

trouble with the up-armored Humvees going to the wrong places. 

The same thing could happen with the MRAPS. I am just encouraging that we don’t make that same mistake again. 

And that is all I had. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. We will go right away to General Lennox. 

Should there be a call for us to vote, we will return as quickly as 

possible from that. 

And in relation to the policy of my subcommittee, because I happen to be in the Chair now, we are going to start with the most 

junior members. The newest members will start the questioning 

and we will work our way up to the senior members. And then the 

next hearing we have we will reverse that and start with the senior 

members back down. 

So when the testimony is over—and by the way, you can summarize if you would, because I do expect we are going to have to vote 

fairly quickly—we will start with the newest members and work 

our way up. 

General Lennox, please. 

STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. ROBERT LENNOX, ASSISTANT DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF, G–3/5/7, ACCOMPANIED BY BRIG. GEN. 

PETER N. FULLER, PROGRAM EXECUTIVE OFFICER SOLDIER, AND KEVIN M. FAHEY, PROGRAM EXECUTIVE OFFICER, COMBAT SUPPORT & COMBAT SERVICE SUPPORT 

General LENNOX. Chairman Abercrombie, Chairman Taylor, Congressman Bartlett, Congressman Akin, and distinguished members 

of the committees, on behalf of the Army, thank you for this oppor-
10 

tunity to appear before you today to discuss the Army force protection programs. 

I would like to start by introducing the fellow panel members 

and the soldiers that have come with me today. 

First, Brigadier General Pete Fuller, next to me, is the Program 

Executive Officer (PEO) Soldier and the Commanding General for 

Natick, Soldier Support Systems. So, body armor, the fire-resistant 

gear, all those kinds of things, General Fuller is in charge of. 

Mr. Kevin Fahey next to him is a Program Executive Officer, 

Combat Support and Combat Service Support, and he is in charge 

of armoring the vehicles, mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles 

and things like that. 

Behind me is Brigadier General Tom Cole, and he is the Program 

Executive Officer for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors. 

So the sensor platforms that are protecting our combat outposts, 

forward operating bases and things like that are delivered by Brigadier General Cole. 

To my right is First Sergeant Patrick Schrader. First Sergeant 

Patrick Schrader is a combat veteran of OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom). He has been awarded the Bronze Star medal with a ‘‘V’’ device for valor for his conduct during OIF. 

Next to him is Staff Sergeant Fred Rowe. He is a veteran of multiple tours in Operation Iraqi Freedom. In fact, he is a survivor of 

several improvised explosive device attacks. And Staff Sergeant 

Rowe has an amazing personal story that helps validate the effectiveness of the body armor that we provide our soldiers. And I hope 

he gets an opportunity to share that with you, Mr. Chairman. 

Today, we are honored to be accompanied by Brigadier General 

Mike Brogan of the United States Marine Corps, with whom we 

work closely on the Army-Marine Corps Board, and we help synchronize together the requirements and our efforts to the greatest 

degree possible. 

Mr. Chairman, we are going to discuss a lot of facts and figures 

today, but our overriding concern is the welfare of our soldiers. Today’s Army general officers have 107 daughters and sons that serve 

in the Army. The Army is really a family business. And I don’t 

mean to tell you that to be self-serving, but I need to convey the 

idea that when we think about soldier protection, we think about 

it like our sons and daughters. And we are inculcated with that 

idea from the first moment that we serve as leaders when you 

stand at the end of the chow line and make sure that your soldiers 

are taken care of first. Soldier protection, force protection are those 

kind of concerns for the leadership of the United States Army. 

As I was preparing to come speak with you today, I contacted 

leaders in both Iraq and Afghanistan and I asked for updates on 

what is going on in the areas of force protection in their theaters 

so I could share with you all today. And what I was struck with, 

really, was the effort in both theaters, but a story that was told to 

me by leaders in Iraq about how they are laser-like focused on defeating the improvised explosive device threat there and their passion for solving this tough issue; and how that number one threat 

to our soldiers in Iraq starts with the individual protection gear, 

the body armor that a soldier wears. It then goes to the vehicle 

that they ride in, the armor that we have added to the side of the 
11 

vehicle, the MRAPs, the mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles 

with a V-shaped hull. And then it goes to the technology that we 

provided to them, with both active and passive countermeasures to 

help either detonate the IED before they get there or to defeat the 

explosion in general. 

And then it goes to the use of manned and unmanned aerial platforms that provide sensors to help find the devices as they are 

placed, to track the networks down to find out who is doing those 

kind of things. It goes to the route clearance teams that Chairman 

Taylor talked about that are out there on the roads 2,500 miles a 

day, running the routes, making sure they are clear. And it goes 

to putting all those bits and pieces of intelligence that they grab 

together to form a picture to help roll up the threats of these bomb 

makers before they are allowed to hurt and damage our soldiers. 

Even this total commitment, this passion that comes through in 

their discussions with me, is not sufficient, and they know this. We 

are making progress. We are finding 40 to 50 percent of these devices and either detonating them in advance or exploiting them for 

information. 

I wanted to share that with you today because I know that this 

committee shares the same passion for protecting our soldiers. We 

care, and we know that you do, too. 

For this same reason, there may be some information I am reluctant or hesitant to share in an open hearing with you today. If that 

is the case, I want to make sure that we follow up quickly in a 

closed setting or a classified setting to address the concerns that 

you raise without endangering our soldiers that are deployed. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. It may be that the briefing we had will have 

covered that. If it doesn’t, we will take it up. So when that comes 

up, just say so and we will move on. 

General LENNOX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that. 

The progress I have talked about wouldn’t be possible without 

the help and cooperation of the committee members here, your support for our investment in training and equipment, facilities and 

services. 

Mr. Chairman, I have submitted a written statement that I ask 

be made part of the official record. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Without objection. 

General LENNOX. It has a lot of those facts and figures. The main 

point that I want to make today, and the one that often gets lost 

in the middle of those facts, is that we do care. The leadership of 

the Army is committed to protecting our soldiers. 

With that, sir, we stand ready to answer your questions. 

[The prepared statement of General Lennox can be found in the 

Appendix on page 50.] 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. So General Fuller and Mr. Fahey, you are 

prepared to answer questions and comment on observations? 

General FULLER. Yes, sir, I am. 

Mr. FAHEY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. General Brogan, would you like to make a 

statement at this point? 
12 

STATEMENT OF BRIG. GEN. MICHAEL M. BROGAN, COMMANDER, MARINE CORPS SYSTEMS COMMAND, PROGRAM 

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, MRAP JOINT PROGRAM OFFICE 

General BROGAN. If I may, sir. 

Chairman Abercrombie, Chairman Taylor, Mr. Bartlett, Mr. 

Akin, distinguished members of the subcommittees, thank you for 

the opportunity to appear before you today, and thank you for your 

continued support of our men and women who wear the cloth of our 

Nation. 

The theme that I would like to provide for you today is one of 

iteration and evolution. Our personal protection equipment has 

evolved significantly throughout this current conflict. From the flak 

vest that we were all used to wearing prior to 9/11 to the outer tactical vest, the modular tactical vest, and looking forward to future 

improvements in that vest. 

But beyond just the ability to stop shrapnel and limited small 

arms fire, we included the small arms protective inserts (ESAPI), 

the first time that we had ever fielded bullet-proof equipment to 

our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. And then, as the conflict 

progressed, we moved on to the enhanced small arm protective inserts. We have now fully fielded that ESAPI ensemble to the marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen engaged in the current conflict. 

Likewise, we began this effort with helmets that used a webbed 

suspension system. We have now fully fielded the pad suspension 

system to all of our troops. 

We entered the conflict with canvas High Mobility Multipurpose 

Wheeled Vehicles, the HMMWVs, through two generations of Marine Armor Kits, and then to the M–1114, and finally today, the 

expanded capacity, up-armored HMMWV vehicles; and as you both 

discussed in your opening statements, the Mine Resistant Ambush 

Protected program. We have now taken delivery of more than 

15,000 of these vehicles by the U.S. Government. We have over 

13,000 in theater, and today, over 11,600 are in the hands of our 

warfighters. 

Likewise, we armored our line-haul logistics vehicles, the Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement truck and the Logistics Vehicle 

System. 

We also made significant improvements in the fire-resistant 

clothing we issue to our marines. Through the fire-resistant organizational gear ensemble, we went from what was historically given 

to our aviators in flight suits, our combat vehicle crewmen, with a 

combat vehicle crewman suit, to now issuing to every single individual who leaves a forward operating base a combat suit that has 

fire-resistant properties. And as we look forward to migrating to 

Afghanistan, we are including in our cold weather ensemble those 

same fire-resistant properties. 

But this has been, as General Lennox indicated, more than just 

that last line of defense, with vehicle armor, body armor, and flame 

resistance; it is that holistic way that we look at defeating IEDs 

through intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets, some 

of which he described. Through mine rollers, through jamming 

equipment, through a number of different means we look to protect 

our troops. We believe that today we have the best equipped, best 
13 

protected force this Nation has ever fielded, and we continue to 

make improvements to that equipment. 

We look forward your questions. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you very much, General. 

[The prepared statement of General Brogan can be found in the 

Appendix on page 62.] 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Sayre, could you identify yourself just for 

purposes of the committee members being able to see who you are, 

should questions or—and Ms. Ugone. There you are. Very nice to 

see you. 

They won’t be testifying as such, but will be available; and you 

can chime in when you think it is pertinent or appropriate. And I 

don’t take it as anything other than the luck of the draw that you 

are sitting on opposite sides of the room. 

Let’s see, the first question, then, or commentary is from Massachusetts, the winner of the new member lottery is Representative 

Tsongas—I should say, new member to the committee. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Maybe one of the newest members, but I hate to 

admit I am one of the oldest as well. 

General Lennox, a question for you. And I appreciate very much 

your testimony and the professionalism with which you take the 

concerns we all have for how we care for our soldiers, but I do have 

a question. 

The Army reported 250,000 acute orthopedic injuries in 2007 

that were linked to the stress of bearing heavy loads during repeated deployments. According to General Peter Chiarelli, Vice 

Chief of Staff of the Army, there are about 20,000 nondeployable 

soldiers equal to about four brigade combat teams, which puts an 

additional stress on the force, that were hurt from the sheer weight 

of the equipment. Now it appears that the Army will issue a contract award for a stronger but heavier ceramic plate. 

I understand the need to be prepared for contingencies that may 

require the increased protection of this equipment, but what are we 

doing to produce lighter-weight plates at current levels that are not 

only requested by commanders in theater, but will also preserve 

the health of our force and allow us to remain at appropriate force 

levels? 

General LENNOX. Yes, ma’am. You hit upon a very, very good 

point. 

It is a real tradeoff between protection of our soldiers, providing 

the requisite amount of body armor, and the impact that it is having not only on their wear and tear over time of our soldiers and 

the readiness of our units, but really on their effectiveness as they 

fight day to day. 

Sergeant Rowe can tell you, if permitted at an appropriate time, 

that wearing the body armor today, day in and day out over an extended period of time, does take its toll. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. General, would you like to bring him up now? 

General LENNOX. If you don’t mind, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Not a bit. Can you do it so we can get the 

microphone so everybody can hear. 

General LENNOX. Sergeant Rowe, would you mind just explaining 

about the impact of the body armor. 
14 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Before you start, that is indicating that we 

are going to have a vote. I expect it will be more than one. If we 

hear five bells, it means that we will have about 10 minutes; I will 

stay here that long, but the members will have to leave. 

I expect there will be three votes. So there will be a 15-minute 

vote, two 5-minute votes. And it doesn’t mean that, obviously; it 

will be longer than that. 

We will have about 10 minutes, Sergeant. I don’t think we will 

get to a second question before we have to go. 

Sergeant ROWE. Mr. Chairman, I can tell you from firsthand experience—— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you for being here, Sergeant. And 

thank you for your service. 

Sergeant ROWE. No problem. 

Over time, the wear and tear on our bodies is—— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Did you hear the question from Ms. Tsongas? 

Sergeant ROWE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay. 

Sergeant ROWE. Over time, sir, the body armor, it does wear on 

your body. I can tell you from personal experience in Iraq that, you 

know, with the heat and all the weight, it does wear on your body. 

I was there for a year and a half on this deployment, and it is 

rough. But I couldn’t imagine doing what I did and carrying what 

I carried in Afghanistan. It would have been absolutely impossible 

to have carried the weight and the weapons and the ammunition 

that I had to carry in Iraq. It would have been absolutely impossible to have carried all that equipment in Afghanistan. 

General LENNOX. Would you mind sharing your experience about 

how you know the body armor does work. 

Sergeant ROWE. Mr. Chairman, we were conducting a patrol, and 

my truck was struck by an IED and was blown up and landed on 

its right side. 

Myself and the rest of the soldiers in the vehicle went ahead and 

exited the vehicle through the turret because obviously we couldn’t 

get out of any of the doors and the truck was on fire. 

When we came out of the truck, there was an ambush set up for 

Iraqi insurgents, and they began shooting us as we came out of the 

truck one at a time. I took three rounds to the chest at a less distance between me and you with the body armor, and all three 

rounds were stopped by the plate. It hurt, but I was still mission 

capable, and I was still able to do my job throughout the rest of 

the day. 

General LENNOX. To answer your question, it is just a tradeoff 

between effectiveness and weight. 

General Fuller can probably talk a little bit about what we are 

doing in terms of research and development to develop lighter 

armor that is equally capable. And that is the tradeoff, I think, 

over time: How are we going to be able to have lighter capabilities, 

lighter armor that still allows our soldiers to perform and do their 

mission? 

And we struggle with that, frankly. And we struggle with that 

in some of the decisions. 
15 

If you will allow me, I would prefer to respond to the question 

about the new production in a closed session for some of our rationale. 

Ms. TSONGAS. One quick question before we hear from General 

Fuller—and I can’t see the time to know—but does the temptation 

exist to take the armor off because it is heavy or hot or whatever? 

Sergeant ROWE. Yes, ma’am. There is a risk that all soldiers are 

willing to take. And I think that in certain situations, mission dependent, that as soldiers we would be happy to take off some of the 

body armor to be more mission capable, more mobile on the 

ground, more flexible, faster. It comes to a point where you are 

more mission incapable of doing your job or more at risk or vulnerable with all of the equipment on. 

I think it should be left up to the commanders or to the independent leaders on the ground to decide what kind of armor we 

need to take out or what we could downgrade. Because there are 

times that I have been on mission where I could have got out of 

the firefight a lot quicker and I could have handled business a lot 

easier if I would have been able to be more mobile or do my job 

more effectively with less weight. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you. 

General BROGAN. Ma’am, this is an area where we need some additional science and technology research conducted. In public appearances over the last 18 months, on six separate occasions where 

I have met with leaders of industry and their marketing representatives, I have implored them to develop the materials that will 

allow us to go from the hard ceramic plates with the Aramid fibers 

that we currently use to something that may involve carbon tube 

nanotechnology that can significantly reduce the weight. 

Currently, that technology does not exist. There is limited work 

being done in government laboratories that the Office of Naval Research, some sponsored by Defense Advanced Research Projects 

Agency (DARPA), but today we do not have that technological 

breakthrough. We need to significantly lighten the load. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. General Fuller, did you want to comment? 

General FULLER. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

Ma’am, an interesting point is, you also have to recognize that 

Sergeant Rowe didn’t tell us what he was doing at the time. He 

was a sniper. And we now are looking at a solder as a system. We 

just can’t focus on giving him body armor independently, giving 

him a weapon independently, giving him all the other gear that 

they would carry. Now we are looking at it as how do we provide 

soldier as a system and recognize you might save five pounds in 

one area, but add it back in another area that you didn’t intend 

to because you are not managing it as a system. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. So in other words, when you are dealing with, 

as the sergeant indicated in Afghanistan, or dealing with a different kind of terrain, a different kind of situation may call for a 

different set of body armor, which may not be the same kind of protection you would have under other circumstances. But as he mentioned, the mobility question is more important than the stopping 

power, necessarily, of the armor. 

I am not trying to simplify it, but I am just trying to give a forinstance. 
16 

General FULLER. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I think that is an accurate 

assessment. I think what we are trying to do is provide the commander in the field that flexibility. We want to make sure that 

they stop the rounds that come at them, but how they carry that 

plate might provide a different weight factor and different weight 

consideration. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I think we will leave it at that, because if we 

go further, we are dealing where we need to get into a classified 

situation. 

Let’s try one more and we can get started. 

Congressman Wittman, followed by Congressman Massa. Congressman Wittman, maybe we can get started and we will take it 

from there. 

Mr. WITTMAN. I will get started by directing a question to General Lennox. 

I had the opportunity to go to Iraq and Afghanistan here recently, and I heard a number of complaints when I was there about 

stoppages and malfunctions with the M9 pistol and the M4 rifle. 

And with respect to the M9, I have been told that the 9mm doesn’t 

have the stopping power that some of the larger calibers do like the 

.40 and .45 caliber pistols. And what I have learned in the meantime is that there is a 2006 study out by the Center for Naval 

Analysis which polled soldiers who use these weapons in combat 

and found that 48 percent of the respondents were dissatisfied with 

the M9 Barretta, and 26 percent requested a larger caliber rifle. 

Given these issues and the fact that there have been numerous 

advances and improvements made in pistols since the M9 was 

fielded in the mid–1980’s, can you tell us a little bit about what 

the Army is doing to address those concerns? And is the Army 

working to generate a new pistol requirement? 

Are we doing things to increase the competition for those small 

arms? And if so, when do you anticipate that this requirement 

would be released? 

General LENNOX. I am not aware of the stoppages and the trouble that you’ve identified, and we will definitely look at that. And 

if you don’t mind if I take that for the record, I will go and investigate and get you feedback on that, in particular. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 78.] 

General LENNOX. We do have an open competition for a new carbine. The Secretary of the Army has made sure that we were doing 

an open and competitive competition, looking at all comers to see 

if we can provide something with the right capability for our soldiers, using the latest technology and weighing things like maintenance and effectiveness and looking at it, as General Fuller said, 

in terms of soldier as a system—the weapons part of it, the optics 

are part of it, the soldier’s training is part of it, and it all comes 

together to deliver an effective soldier in the field. 

I believe there may be some work being done on a pistol, but I 

can’t tell you that for certain, sir. 

General FULLER. Sir, I am also responsible for the weapons, and 

I am not aware of a new pistol competition, though we are constantly looking at improvements and looking at other calibers, but 

we have not initiated an action to get a new pistol. 
17 

We are looking at constant improvements. As you articulated on 

the M4, we aren’t just waiting for the new carbine competition to 

come forward. We have been doing industry days, we have been 

asking industry, what can we do to our current systems to give it 

better capability, make constant improvements, not just waiting for 

our future technology or future capability, but constant improvements. And I believe you will see, as General Lennox articulated, 

it is more than just the actual weapon; it is the training, it is the 

ammunition, it is the optics, and it is the soldier. 

Body armor actually has an impact on the soldier when you are 

talking about the rifle, ensuring that they can get their butt stock 

into their shoulder to get a good firing position. We actually gave 

a little pad for left- and right-hand shooters to ensure they can get 

that rifle into the correct position and hold it there to get a steady 

bead. 

We are constantly looking at everything we can. And as General 

Lennox said, a soldier as a system, let’s just not look at the pistol, 

the rifle; let’s look at what does that soldier need to be able to do 

in their mission? How does it interface with their body armor? 

Where would they carry their pistol? Where do they carry the ammunition, et cetera? 

Mr. WITTMAN. Let’s go back real quickly to the Center for Naval 

Analysis. They did conduct a survey on small arms fire in 2006, 

and let me speak specifically about the M9. 

The study found that 38 percent of soldiers who experienced a 

stoppage with the M9 reported an inability to engage the enemy 

with the weapon even after performing immediate action to clear 

the stoppage during a significant portion or throughout the entire 

firefight. So I think there is some concern there with the M9. 

Special Operations Command (SOCOM), I know, as you say, is 

looking to replace the M4 rifles with a new weapon. Given the level 

of dissatisfaction with the small arms and the issues that our solders are having to deal with found by the Center for Naval Analysis, can you tell us why the Army hasn’t been able to generate a 

new requirement for a pistol or a rifle, and some of the directions 

we need to take to address that? 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Can you answer that in about 30 seconds? I 

doubt it. Do you think we should come back to that? 

General LENNOX. I think I can be very quick, Mr. Chairman. 

This is the first I have really heard of the level of dissatisfaction, 

sir, that you are aware of. And I think not having heard that, we 

have not seen that kind of a problem with an M9 before or heard 

about it. It is something we will definitely look into and see if there 

is that kind of dissatisfaction. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Are you familiar with the report or the article 

that the Representative is referring to? 

General LENNOX. No, sir, I am not. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay. Maybe we can take a look at it. Why 

don’t you take a look at it and get back to us and to him with 

some—perhaps you can do a book review of it. How does that 

sound? 

General LENNOX. That is great, sir. 
18 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. With that, we will recess and return as soon 

as we can, but I expect it is going to be closer to a half an hour 

than 20 minutes. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 78.] 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you for your patience. We almost made 

it. Let us see. We finished with Representative Wittman. I don’t 

know if Representative Massa—let us give him another 10 seconds. 

Who will be next, then, after Eric? It will be Mr. Sestak. 

Mr. SESTAK. I am Navy also. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I beg your pardon? 

Mr. SESTAK. Massa is Navy also, so I will take his place. 

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

I wanted to ask a question. It came up already with the Representative from Massachusetts, and the chairman mentioned it to 

some degree. This morning we had a briefing, classified, in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And I have been quite taken by the difference between the two ventures, as I think the sergeant pointed 

out. And to my mind is why Congress has done immense goodness, 

under the two gentlemen behind me particularly, but to some degree I am almost concerned that we can become risk-averse, particularly as we head into Afghanistan. Because force protection, 

you would know better than I would, is not really just solely or 

even maybe primarily a materiel solution. So my question is to you, 

and I would be curious is, how does training, tactics, techniques, 

intelligence, mobility, and I don’t mean mobility with a lighter vehicle only, tie into this? Have you seen, you know, I mean, because 

I think Afghanistan is so different, that the lessons there that 

maybe were pending a little bit too much down the road here 

thinking about armor rather than the holistic approach that maybe 

it is kind of hard to transition out of that after you have had such 

a focus from Congress on it? 

Do you have comments upon that? 

General LENNOX. Sir, if you don’t mind, I will start. I think your 

point is spot on, that there is enormous environmental differences—Chairman Abercrombie talked about it earlier—between 

the two different theaters. One size does not fit all. I was assigned 

in Colorado Springs a couple years ago, and that was about a mile 

high. And for the soldiers there, you take that mile high and now 

you add another 4,000 feet on top of it. And now you add combat 

loads on top of that it. And it is got a tremendously debilitating effect in terms of your ability to maneuver. 

We are taking some initiatives at their request, at the theater’s 

request. We are trying things like the Special Forces tactical vest 

and armoring system in small numbers because it is about 7 

pounds lighter just to see if that works and try to get some feedback and learn from that. We are trying a lighter machine gun, 

four or five pounds lighter in small numbers trying it to see if that 

helps us. 

You heard the earlier discussion perhaps about the mine-resistant ambush-protected all-terrain vehicles. One of the constant 

themes that has come from Afghanistan is the desire for vehicles 

that are lighter, capable of going off road, a smaller turn radius, 

capable of keeping up with some of the pick-up trucks they may be 
19 

chasing and things like that, giving you a little bit more capability. 

And not in all cases have we given people MRAPs, for example. 

The Third Brigade 10th Mountain Division was outfitted with armored security vehicles, specifically because MRAPs didn’t fit their 

needs. So I think you are exactly right that the conditions are different in both theaters. You have to be cognizant of that. And we 

are working initiatives—— 

Mr. SESTAK. General, could you take me one step further. How 

do you begin to measure performance versus protection? For instance, there are really no roads along where the insurgents tend 

to cross into Afghanistan. There just aren’t. And my goodness, I 

imagine down in Marine Corps Combat Development Command 

(MCCDC), I understand they are looking at an Unmanned Aerial 

Vehicle (UAV) to carry logistics around in Afghanistan, because the 

key here is to stay off any roads that might be anywhere. I mean, 

are we kind of pushing a little bit too much on this? Every solution 

you came back to me here with is something on the man. Shouldn’t 

we be looking beyond that now for performance rather than protection only? 

General LENNOX. I don’t mean to give the impression that everything is on the soldier. Frankly, a lot of this is about intelligence, 

surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities that empower the soldiers. In terms of the increase manned and unmanned vehicles 

that are going into theater, that provides situational awareness, 

can direct you and save labor. Some of the things that we are putting around the bases to provide situational awareness, the camera 

systems that work both day and night and allow you to see the 

enemy at farther distances. So some technological advances are not 

just in armoring but are in intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, I think that help get at some of those problems. 

General Fuller, do you have any thoughts about that, or General 

Brogan? 

Mr. SESTAK. I throw this out because this will be my last one 

comment and close. As you answer, I guess my issue is, Iraq you 

know you place people in a place and you basically secured it and 

held it and enhanced it, and we had to get logistics back and forth. 

I think the concept is so different in Afghanistan, and that is why 

I am just curious. 

Thank you. 

Go ahead, General. 

General BROGAN. Sir, in addition to the things like General Lennox mentioned, when you met recently with Lieutenant General 

Flynn, he may have described for you the Combat Hunter initiative 

that we have going on, instilling that offensive mind-set into each 

and every marine, not just the riflemen, giving them the skills to 

help find enemy combatants in the shadows, behind windows 

where they would normally be out of view, those type of things, so 

that we can take the first shot and not be forced to rely just on 

our body armor when we detect an ambush because they have initiated it with a firing action. 

You mentioned the cargo UAV. Anything that we can do to get 

our troops off of the roads certainly limits the opportunity of the 

threat to target us with the improvised explosive devices. 
20 

And then, in the training base, you know we have a pretty well 

established Mojave Viper, Desert Talon events that go on at 29 

Palms and Marine Corps Air Station Yuma that have proved their 

worth in Iraq. We have a similar effort to focus on the unique aspects of the theater in Afghanistan, specifically so that we are not 

relying just on personal protection equipment to be the end of the 

story. 

Mr. SESTAK. Thank you. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Is that sufficient, Representative Sestak? 

Mr. SESTAK. Yes. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you. 

Mr. Coffman is next. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And gentlemen, thank you so much for appearing before this 

committee. I think my question is, if we look across the spectrum 

of the force protection initiatives that you have been discussing, 

whether it is a protective vest or Hesco barriers or it is MRAPs, 

are there any—obviously the Congress of the United States is looking at spending some money to get this economy moving, and we 

are trying to parallel our spending with the Nation’s needs and 

with things that have a multiplier effect on this economy. Are there 

any deficits in the area of force protection that if the requisite 

funding were available could accelerate procurement so that our 

troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have the most up-to-date equipment possible? 

General LENNOX. Thank you, sir. 

We do have some differences between capabilities in Iraq and Afghanistan today. We do have funded things like route clearance vehicles that are en route to Afghanistan that are not yet the same 

as Iraq. Some of the unmanned aerial vehicles and things like that 

we do have funded, but they are not yet there. So there is a difference still in the theater capabilities that we are working to address. And should the President decide to switch emphasis or—and 

the Secretary of Defense—decide to switch emphasis into Afghanistan, there are some things that we have been doing to lean forward in terms of armoring vehicles and preparation for that. But 

there will likely be requirements for additional supplemental funding addressing some of those kinds of concerns in the event that 

policy decision is made. 

General BROGAN. Sir, I would submit that the work of the legislature has fully funded all of our personal protection needs as well 

as the armoring needs for vehicles. So, unfortunately, there is not 

any of those quick wins that we can get that would fall in the 

realm of economic stimulus with respect to personal protective 

equipment. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you. 

One follow-up question, Mr. Chairman. 

And that is, with the MRAP, are there some issues given the nature of the terrain in Afghanistan that create a safety hazard given 

the weight of those vehicles? 

General LENNOX. Sir, I think the right answer is, they are challenged. There have been accidents. There was an accident today 

with an MRAP in Afghanistan. The vehicle’s rear wheels got 
21 

caught, and the vehicle turned over. Thankfully nobody was injured. 

I think the terrain is extraordinarily demanding there, and it is 

a challenge each and every day to operate in those vehicles. We 

have received requests for the lighter version, and hence the request for the mine-resistant ambush-protected all-terrain vehicle. 

Nevertheless, it is state-of-the-art and it is saving lives in both theaters today. I don’t know if I answered your question adequately 

or if there is additional comments. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Is training a function of some of these—a lack of 

training, since some of these soldiers and marines, as I understand 

it, don’t see these vehicles until they are in theater? 

General LENNOX. I think that is a good question, sir. 

There is training that goes on in theater before a soldier, marine, 

is allowed to operate the vehicle. It is not optimal. 

We would clearly like to do training, as Chairman Taylor mentioned earlier, before the soldiers deploy back here. We would like 

to take our time. We want to make sure that it is right. But before 

they operate the vehicle, there is training in theater. 

And some of it is certainly an impact of the theater itself. Roads 

give way, precipitous turns. And those things have an impact as 

well. 

General BROGAN. If I may, sir, we have analyzed all of the vehicle incidents that resulted in rollover. Roughly—and that is about 

94 vehicle accidents that resulted in rollover. Two-thirds of those 

are directly related to the weight of the platform. The road bed 

crushed underneath it, and the vehicle fell over onto its side or slid 

down into a canal. The next largest category has to do with maneuvering; a sharp turn, avoiding an accident, avoiding a pot hole, 

avoiding what they perceive to be an improvised explosive device. 

So those, I believe, can be impacted by training. Today we have 

simulators. 

In fact, one is now at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. We also have 

in the Marine Corps, the Navy, the Air Force, and Special Operations Command, a significant number of vehicles in the training 

base. And there is an Army plan to cascade vehicles as we put the 

newest, most capable vehicles into theater to bring the ones that 

they are replacing out and put those at home station to be used for 

training by the forces here in the continental United States. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. General Brogan, could you comment further 

in relation to that question in the context of the question about the 

idea then of the so-called lighter, I don’t know, smaller, faster, you 

know, the welter-weight version of the light or heavy weight or 

heavy-weight versions with regard to whether or not that takes you 

into what General Fuller was talking about and what some of the 

questions previously related to with regard to function and purpose 

altering. In other words, you have heavy armor, that is one thing, 

but you lose mobility. Now, if we are talking about a lighter, faster, 

et cetera, MRAP, are we also talking about a difference then in 

what you can expect in terms of vulnerability? 

General BROGAN. I won’t go too far into the vulnerability area, 

sir, in open session. But what I will offer is that the MRAP all-terrain vehicle was specifically requested by the Commander of Joint 

Task Force 101, those folks operating in Afghanistan. The at-
22 

tributes that they described in their desire for that platform indicate that they want MRAP-like survivability with Humvee like mobility, the tighter turning radius, et cetera. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I understand that. So here is where the testing question, here is where the research and development question 

has to be concentrated on. And we need to move in that direction. 

In other words, I am not saying it can be done or not be done. 

But if it is going to be done, that means we have to concentrate 

funding and emphasis on research and development, right. 

General BROGAN. We believe we have the technology today for 

MRAP All-Terrain Vehicles (ATV), sir. I mean, it may be lighter, 

but it is still 24,000 pounds, which is 10,000 pounds more than an 

up-armored Humvee. So that is still a fairly significant, substantial 

platform. As we discussed previously, the three mechanisms that 

injure people in an improvised explosive device event are the blast 

and over-pressure, fragments, and then acceleration. It is that 

third piece, the acceleration, that is more of a concern with a lighter platform because the same size explosion will move that lighter 

vehicle much faster. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. And that is also a question of training, too, 

isn’t it. 

General BROGAN. It is, sir. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. You are going to need preparation. You can’t 

just drop somebody in theater and say, you will pick this up real 

quick I am sure. 

General BROGAN. These are large vehicles with air brakes, high 

centers of gravity, so training certainly plays a role. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you. 

Mr. Hunter would be next. 

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, first for Staff Sargent Rowe, I would like to get back 

to what you were talking about, about body armor. You are a sniper, right, which means you aren’t necessarily walking point, and 

this goes back to your answer that you would not wear the same 

equipment in Afghanistan that you wore in Iraq, correct? That was 

your statement. And then you said you were a sniper. I have been 

to both theaters. I have been to Iraq twice and Afghanistan once. 

I have had shrapnel bounce off my flak jacket and never have an 

actual bullet hit it and break it. But you are a sniper, so you have 

a much different role than the guys walking point or the guys just 

driving roads every day or the guys just walking through passing 

out Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) or anything else. So what you are 

saying is not that the usual equipment is bad, but that you would 

like to have different equipment for different scenarios like climbing cliffs in Regional Command East (RC-East) in Afghanistan as 

opposed to walking roads in Regional Command South (RC-South) 

correct? 

Mr. ROWE. Yes, sir. I am 11 Bravo; I am just a regular infantryman, too. I have done both jobs, and that is why I say I think the 

decision should be left up to be tailored by the commanders on the 

ground to whether, if I was a sniper one day and I was out doing 

a mission, then I might not need all the body armor because I will 

be dragging my equipment behind me. 
23 

Mr. HUNTER. Is it not now, though? Is it not up to that ground 

commander? 

Mr. ROWE. No, sir. You know, the body armor and the equipment 

that we wear is tailored for the Army as a policy that you will wear 

all your equipment at all times and that all equipment is needed 

at all times. Whereas, you know, as an infantry squad leader, and 

you are on the ground and you are trying to chase down the enemy 

or you are reacting to contact, you need to be lighter; you need to 

be able to react to that contact properly or enter and clear buildings. Whereas, if you are just walking down the street as a patrol, 

you might want all that body armor because you are just going to 

get shot at. So, yes, sir, I think it should be tailored to the soldier, 

his job and the situation at hand. 

Mr. HUNTER. So, General Lennox, that is more of an Army staff 

level tactical decision. That is not a congressional decision or necessarily even a DOD decision. That is your decision. 

General LENNOX. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HUNTER. Right, so that is not up to us whether or not have 

you to wear your body armor. We had Marine snipers that would 

wear outfits like the enemy. They wouldn’t wear anything. And 

that was up to that ground commander at that time. So that is up 

to the Army generals. 

General LENNOX. And what we are after is actually trying to 

equip them with things that give them equal protection but at a 

lighter weight. And I think that is the common theme that comes 

from theater, sir. 

Mr. HUNTER. And my last question here, this is a force protection 

meeting. But the golden hour in Afghanistan, there is no golden 

hour, the much talked about golden hour that we developed in 

Iraq. And that means that if you got somebody back within one 

hour, they had a much higher chance of living as opposed to, after 

that hour, they would bleed out or whatever else happened to 

them. That does not exist in Afghanistan right now at all. There 

is no golden hour. It is like an hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes because how spread out everything is. And I was wondering 

if you have been working that, are we going to start deploying 

more forward surgical units? Are we going to use the Osprey there? 

What are we going to do to make that golden hour come to Afghanistan? 

General LENNOX. The Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the 

Army have been very personally involved and committed to getting 

the same capabilities in both theaters responsiveness to a forward 

surgical team. They are in the process of deploying an increased 

number of assets. I don’t want to go into details of a request for 

forces here in the open hearing. But they are in the process of deploying additional capabilities to meet that objective. 

Mr. HUNTER. Is there an actual time line for that. 

General LENNOX. Yes, sir. 

Actually, by April, it will be done. We are trying to mitigate that 

by pushing as much earlier as possible. So there are steps that are 

happening now, but by April, it should be accomplished. 

Mr. HUNTER. In Afghanistan by April? 

General LENNOX. Yes. 

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you very much. 
24 

I yield the rest of my time. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Could you as a matter of interest to not just 

this committee but to Mr. Skelton, if not resting with you personally or within your command area, give us an update, give the committee a perspective on that question about the surgical units and 

so on and how that is going to be done and how the funding is 

going to take place, et cetera, how that is being accounted for? 

General LENNOX. It is really a question of the resources that are 

being reallocated and pushed forward in order to make sure, resources that are available now to make sure that the capability is 

the same for a soldier in both theaters. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. No, I understand that. But the logistics of it 

are going to be entirely different. 

General LENNOX. Absolutely. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I think that is what Mr. Hunter is referring 

to. Am I correct? 

Mr. HUNTER. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

General LENNOX. Mr. Chairman, you are right. Some of the challenges are things like, in Afghanistan, you may have to use a 

lower— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. That is okay. You needn’t go into it now. But 

why don’t we get a little more direct report about that, what is involved in it. 

General LENNOX. Absolutely, sir. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Or what is likely to be involved in it, because 

that needs to be made a part of the budget process. I don’t want 

to see this stuff start showing up in supplemental budgets because 

that means it is not real in terms of the budgeting process of the 

Pentagon—do you get what I mean—or the services. And once you 

get started down that road in Afghanistan like we did in Iraq, we 

are going to have serious problems, budget problems, okay. So it 

is not entirely on your shoulders, but the question is a real one, 

and it needs to be pursued. So if it is not entirely within your purview, if you can shift that to somebody who can alert Mr. Skelton 

about it and then send us a copy of it, we would be gratified. 

General LENNOX. Yes, sir. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 77.] 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Taylor is next and is going to take the 

Chair of the committee for the moment. 

Mr. TAYLOR. [Presiding.] I want to thank you gentlemen again, 

and we all apologize for keeping you here later than you would like 

to be because of the votes. 

General Brogan, a couple of things that I would like you to address. For one, for the newer members, I want to commend General 

Brogan on the huge task you had in developing the MRAP. It is 

a lot more than just a V-shaped bottom. For what it is worth, the 

fuel tanks have to be designed to blow away, otherwise you incinerate the occupants; that as a matter of the seats, whether you suspend them from the bottom or from the ceiling, again, because of 

the initial shock of the blast coming up, limiting the number of port 

holes where a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) or explosive penetrator can enter. So it was a, in fairness to the General, it was a 

huge task. And as new threats evolved the need to respond to those 
25 

threats, and, General, again, you and your crew deserve our Nation’s gratitude and the gratitude of every mom and dad who has 

got a loved one over there. 

One of the things we discussed as you were looking at the nine 

or so different varieties at the testing ground was you had come up 

with a grading system and you had, I don’t know, maybe 10 different criteria that you were looking at; one of it being the hull, 

another being the fuel tanks, fire suppression, et cetera. And I remember you saying that one or two of the vendors might do really 

well on one thing but poorly on nine, or it might do well on nine 

and poorly on one. And I think at the time you expressed a frustration that the ideas belonged to the vendor, that you couldn’t pick 

and choose different characteristics and incorporate them in your 

ideal vehicle. And one of the things I hope I had asked you to do 

was see to it that future contracts were written so that, as our Nation paid to have these different varieties of vehicles proposed, if 

you saw something you liked, a feature you liked, that you could 

incorporate it in the final version of the vehicle that you ordered, 

water under the bridge with the first MRAP. And again, you did 

a great job, but as you are looking at the second variety, the one 

that is being designed for Afghanistan, I am curious if you have the 

contractual freedom, if you see a characteristic you like in one vehicle, that you could incorporate that idea in the final vehicle that 

you decide to make. 

General BROGAN. Sir, as you recall in a previous hearing where 

you brought the representatives from industry in here, each of 

them agreed to share the test results on their platforms with the 

other vendors. And that spirit of cooperation continues to exist 

today. I am going to have to check and see if we put a specific 

clause in the contract. As you know, we intend with MRAP ATV 

to down select eventually to a single manufacturer. And we will do 

everything we can to ensure that that vehicle is the most survivable, most capable platform that we are able to field. 

Mr. TAYLOR. I am curious, given the unfortunate economic downturn, one of the problems that we were facing as you built the first 

batch was a fairly red hot economy and a limited number of people 

who could make the vehicles and wanted to make the vehicles, 

which is why you ended up going to five vendors. I am curious, 

given the economy now, I am glad to hear that you can go to one 

vendor. Once you down select, what do you anticipate the time line 

from the day you place that order, let us say the first order is for 

2,000 vehicles, which is the number being kicked around, from the 

day you place the order, what do you expect the delivery day to be 

of that 2,000th vehicle off the assembly line and headed over to 

South Carolina for integration? 

General BROGAN. Sir, as you know, we are now in source selection on that. And I have not personally looked at the proposals. 

And even if I did, were I to divulge the most aggressive of those 

time lines, I could be adversely affecting the outcome of that solicitation. So I am going to have to take that for the record, and after 

source selection is complete and we have awarded the initial five 

contracts for the more exhaustive testing of the platforms, be able 

to provide you an update at that time. 
26 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 77.] 

Mr. TAYLOR. I guess my last question, General, would be, it is 

common knowledge in this town that we have paid too much for 

the first of any platform, but the real bargains come at the tail end 

of a production run. That is when the manufacturers come and say, 

hey, I am getting ready to lay people off. It is a fact that the price 

of particularly metals have dropped dramatically since you started 

the MRAP program because of the worldwide economic slowdown. 

I think the price of aluminum is the cheapest it has been in about 

five years. I am sure steel is about the same. So, given the fact that 

the tail end of the run you get your best bargain and that we need 

vehicles at the training installations, do you have, number one, the 

financial empowerment and the legal empowerment to buy whatever vehicles you deem necessary or the training commander 

deems necessary to get them to Fort Polk, Camp Shelby and the 

other training installations, again in a timely manner? And this is 

very personal. I have got about another 5,000 Mississippi Guardsmen have been notified that they will be training up this summer 

to be deployed. I would sure like to be able to tell their families 

that they will train on an MRAP stateside before they deploy some 

time next fall. 

General BROGAN. The short answer is, yes, we have all of the 

funding we need to buy all of the vehicles that are destined for the 

training base. All of those vehicles are on contract and being produced. But as I indicated, the plan is to take the most capable vehicles, which are the ones coming off the assembly line now, place 

them forward into theater and then retrograde the vehicles, the 

early delivery vehicles, back into the CONUS training base. So we 

don’t need any additional money to buy training vehicles, sir. They 

are all on contract. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Again, so what would your time line be to get 20 

or 30 vehicles of each to the stateside training bases? 

General BROGAN. Sir, I would defer that to Major General Lennox with respect to the Army training. 

General LENNOX. Sir, I think we have about 300 scheduled to be 

back in the March time frame. And I don’t want to commit to an 

exact date, but it is because we have to take a look at the states 

of those vehicles, make sure they are refit and ready to go out for 

training and we don’t put any of those soldiers in danger. But I expect the big numbers to start flowing some time in this next quarter. And our ultimate goal is about 1,000 total, so to have enough 

of every variety at all the different post camps in the station. 

We also are very aggressive with the trainers. General Brogan 

mentioned the very first one, by coincidence, did go to Camp 

Shelby. But there are many more that are coming. And not just the 

drivers trainers but also the rollover trainers to try to get us to 

where we are comfortable exiting the vehicles and not just doing 

make-believe drills to get at that training that you so aptly put. 

Mr. TAYLOR. General, if I could, Secretary Gates had what I 

thought was a pretty good quote last week when he said that there 

is nothing magical about putting a date on a calendar, but in our 

world, if you don’t do that, you really don’t ever get there. 
27 

So what I would ask for the record is when you intend to have 

those vehicles at the different training installations, understanding 

the world changes, requirements change, but I would like to know 

at least what your target day is. 

General LENNOX. Yes, sir. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 77.] 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you very much, sir. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. 

Massa. 

Mr. MASSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, gentlemen, on behalf of the 645,000 men and women I represent, thank you and thank you for all that you do. 

Just a quick series of tactical kinds of questions. I had a wonderful opportunity to talk with the staff sergeant, who I know is representative of so many. And I notice that he is a path finder, at 

least one of—my eyes are failing—but at least one of the senior officers at the table is an airborne qualified officer. To what extent 

is the United States Army and perhaps the brigadier can also mention, to what extent are the armed services looking at personal protective equipment and body armor from a weight-saving point of 

view with respect to airborne tactical services? We saw the largest 

air drop when we went into Iraq. We have added an awful lot, as 

you have said here today. And I am wondering if anyone has a 

weather eye on what this personal protective equipment does with 

respect to tactical air drops. 

General, if you would like to lead off, and I would enjoy hearing 

a variety of responses. 

General FULLER. Sir, I am not aware of jumping with—I manage 

the parachutes. We have a new parachute to ensure that we get 

the soldier safely to the ground. But I would have to sort out 

whether we jump with our body armor on. I am not aware of that 

at this time. 

Mr. MASSA. So, as far as you know, there has been no tactical 

testing or training with respect to the increases in potential weight 

because of body armor vis-a-vis the kind of use of air drop forces? 

General FULLER. No, sir, I am not aware, but I can find out. 

Mr. MASSA. Obviously, you don’t want to drop heavy. You can 

break a leg. But I am just wondering if anyone is looking at this 

as a synergistic issue. 

General FULLER. I am not aware, sir, but we can sort that out 

for you. 

Mr. MASSA. Anyone else? 

General. 

General LENNOX. I have to take that for the record. We recently 

opened a free-fall school, and I will find out whether or not we are 

jumping with the body armor or not. 

Mr. MASSA. I appreciate the looks from the table. I hope it is because we brought up something that people aren’t thinking about 

and not something that I am completely off the wall in asking. 

General BROGAN. I think it is more a lack of knowledge of the 

details than it is inappropriate—— 

Mr. MASSA. Perhaps in a detachable kit, in a stringer, so the 

weight doesn’t impact on the individual air drop element. Again, if 
28 

I had the honor of doing what you do, I can’t imagine dropping 

with another 25 pounds, but I think it is something worth asking 

about. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 78.] 

Mr. MASSA. Two other real quick questions if I may, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Sure. 

Mr. MASSA. One is, first off, I honor all of the things you have 

said. It is incredible how far so many have come so quickly considering the starting point on these important issues. At any time 

during the years that this has been an issue of conversation have 

you ever felt that budgetary processes, money, inhibited your movement forward. 

General FULLER. Not from my perspective. We appreciate all the 

support we have received from Congress. I think we inside the Department of Defense understand the priorities of protecting soldiers, providing them the best. When they come out of that MRAP 

vehicle, when they climb into that MRAP vehicle, they are a soldier, we want to give them the best kit that they have as a baseline. As we have articulated before, the soldier is the basic and is 

the centerpiece of our formation. The vehicles are the mechanism 

in which they get there, whether it is an aviation platform, a 

MRAP or whatever it may be. And I don’t believe we have been 

slighted or not requested or been supported by this committee or 

any of the other organizations in that endeavor. 

Mr. MASSA. And this is the concurrence of the panel. 

General BROGAN. I would suggest that there are some processes 

that occasionally made it challenging but certainly never prevented 

us from fielding the life-saving equipment we needed to our troops. 

For example, the above threshold reprogramming ceilings, there is 

a limited amount of money we can move around ourselves without 

the support from the full committees. But even at times when the 

full committees were out of session, we were still able to get the 

chairman and get signatures on those Above Threshold 

Reprogrammings (ATR) actions, reprogramming actions. So it 

never inhibited us from doing our job. As you know, money is appropriated for specific line items. Having the flexibility to move between those line items requires that sort of reprogramming. 

Special Operations Command has a pot of money that is kind of 

unlabeled, and it allows them, when a need arises, to rapidly react 

to it and then report after the fact how that money is spent. A 

similar pot of money for the other services would be very valuable. 

In the MRAP program, we have enjoyed the benefits of a transfer 

account. So all of the money from the MRAP program was put into 

one account, and then it was given to a service. And they either 

executed it on their own if they were buying the government-furnished equipment for the platform, or they transferred it to the 

MRAP program office for us to place on contract to buy vehicles 

and the things that we did jointly. If, instead of a transfer account 

that had been a true joint account, a huge amount of recordkeeping 

and accounting would have been able to be avoided because then 

the lead financial manager of the MRAP program could have done 

one set of books, one set of transactions. Now, she made it work 
29 

through Herculean effort. I mean, I very much appreciate Chairman Taylor thanking me for what has been done on MRAP, but in 

all honesty, it was a huge team effort. Mr. Fahey sitting next to 

me, my counterpart in the army, has shouldered every bit of the 

load that I have. The program manager, the extended program 

team, Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA), Defense 

Supply Center Columbus, the Aberdeen Test Center. A huge number of folks have made this effort possible. I am very pleased to be 

here to accept the thanks and congratulations, but in no manner 

did I do that on my own. 

Mr. MASSA. Thank you. 

And with the indulgence of the Chair, one final follow-up, sir. 

If I could ask the staff sergeant, please. Sorry to make you shift 

chairs there, staff sergeant. Now, I know that no one is looking at 

you and you are under no pressure or scrutiny. But if you could 

ask of the United States Congress anything before or if you had to 

go back to where you came from in Iraq, what would you ask of 

us? 

Mr. ROWE. The restrictions that are mandated on us as soldiers 

in Iraq and Afghanistan, sir, I would like for some of those decisions or the majority of those decisions be left up to the commanders or the ground troop commanders on the ground. Depending on the mission or depending on the location of the mission, I 

would think that body armor, ammunition, being able to engage 

the enemy differently than you would in the city environment, 

those are decisions I would like to have left up to the commander 

rather than the Army in general or as a whole. 

Mr. MASSA. Thank you for your candor. I appreciate that. And 

as an example of all who have served, again, I thank you personally. 

Thank you gentlemen. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. [Presiding.] Mr. Bartlett. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. 

General Brogan, it is nice to have a confirmation once in a while 

that what we are doing is really important and makes a difference. 

In this regard, just yesterday I was made aware of a communication received just this week by the manufacturer of a new device 

from a Marine field officer in Iraq. I would like to read it to you 

and the committee for the record, Mr. Chairman, if I may. It is 

short. 

He says, he e-mailed: I am the logistics Officer in Command 

(OIC) for my battalion currently serving in Baghdad, Iraq. We are 

having a serious issue compounded by the fragile political situation 

with bystander kids throwing rocks at our convoys as they pass by. 

We have had a few soldiers seriously injured from such occurrences. I researched the Long Range Acoustical Device (LRAD), and 

I believe that this device will fulfill our requirement to strongly 

deter personnel at distances of 50 to 75 meters from throwing rocks 

at our passing convoys. I just wanted to confirm with my company 

that my assessment of your product is correct and that it is the 

product we require. Thank you for your assistance. 

The LRAD, which is the long range acoustical hailing device can 

be used to transmit clear voice instructions or deterrent tones to 
30 

break up crowds, encourage vehicle drivers and animals to move 

out of the way and to simply communicate to the outside from the 

safety of the inside of the convoy or an MRAP vehicle. The new 

LRAD 500X was developed in cooperation with the Joint Nonlethal 

Weapons Directorate and Research, Development, and Engineering 

Center (RDEC). It completed safety testing by RDEC, and Aberdeen is in the initial stages of fielding to the Army while also being 

deployed and supported by the U.S. Navy. 

Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM) commissioned 

Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) to complete an evaluation of the use of LRAD for convoy protection, and the recommendation was to field the system throughout the Army. 

My question is, are we moving fast enough to get this added 

layer of force protection to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? And 

specifically, what is the MRAP joint program office doing to rapidly 

equip our forces with this technology? 

General BROGAN. Sir, there were some early requests from theater for acoustic hailing devices. LRAD was one of the companies 

that provided those devices. There were some others as well. And 

there is obviously debate between the manufacturers about whose 

is the better product. 

Specifically, with respect to MRAP, there has been no request 

from the field for us to integrate an acoustic hailing device on that 

platform. We certainly have that capability down at Space and 

Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) Charleston to conduct that sort of integration and, if the need arises, to field those 

types of devices into theater. 

Mr. BARTLETT. General, you can’t ask what you don’t know exists. I suspect that most of your people in MRAPs don’t even know 

this capability exists. Wouldn’t it be nice to let them know that? 

General BROGAN. Sir, we are familiar with LRADs in the program office. I have been shown a number of that type of system 

by several manufacturers. And as I said, we have fielded some of 

this capability into theater. We are using some acoustic hailing devices at entry control facilities and things of that nature. So I believe there is some knowledge of those systems in theater. And if 

they wanted more, they have certainly not been shy about asking 

us for things when they need them. 

Mr. BARTLETT. I appreciate that very much. 

General Fuller, I am very distressed that there are newspaper 

articles out there implying that some of our young men and women 

in the theaters over there are wearing defective body armor. I have 

been briefed on this issue, and I don’t think there is any evidence 

that this body armor is in fact defective. 

The DOD IG report raises a number of questions regarding the 

integrity of the testing process for body armor. Specifically, the report states that parts of the testing were not consistently conducted 

or scored in accordance with contract terms and specifications. I 

don’t think this means that our soldiers in theater are wearing unsafe body armor. This is just a disagreement as to how to conduct 

these tests, is it not? 

General FULLER. Sir, I appreciate your concern. It is a disagreement on how we conduct the tests. We do agree with the Department of Defense Inspector General that we had deficiencies in our 
31 

testing processes, not in our product. Our product is safe. What we 

have done is gone and changed the processes. We have pulled the 

testing out, which was a point of discussion; we pulled the testing 

out of a National Institute of Justice certified lab and brought it 

back within the government. We are talking about a critical force 

protection survivable item. We should be monitoring that within 

the government, and we have done that. We have pulled back the 

testing inside the government. We have changed our processes and 

our procedures. And to this date, we recognize we needed to fix 

this, and we have changed it. We have gotten support from the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation. We applaud the insights 

that were provided to us by the Department of Defense Inspector 

General, and we want to fix this. 

But we never issued defective body armor. We might have had 

process issues. We have cleaned up these process issues. We are 

moving forward to continue to straighten this out. But soldiers 

have the best body armor by far. And besides the discussion of Sergeant Rowe talking about receiving shots in the chest, they have 

the best body armor, and they continue to have the best. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Would you yield a moment? 

Mr. BARTLETT. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Ms. Ugone and Mr. Sayre, you heard Representative Bartlett’s question. He was making a differentiation, if 

you will permit me, Roscoe, between experiment protocols per se 

and whether or not the body armor could be construed as being insufficient or not up to standard as a result of those. You don’t have 

to argue with each other here about what your reports say or don’t 

say. But could you comment with direct reference to Mr. Bartlett’s 

observation and question? 

Mr. Sayre, why don’t you go first. 

Mr. SAYRE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman for the opportunity to respond. The Inspector General has issued an important and significant report with significant recommendations that we find we are 

in agreement with all but one. In fact, this report is very supportive of our view that department-wide standards and processes 

for the testing of personal protection equipment is essential, and 

we support that view. Since the House Armed Services Committee 

(HASC) hearings in June of 2007 relative to the dragonskin issue, 

the Army Test and Evaluation Command has conducted significant 

testing of ballistic inserts under our oversight. We can report that 

many of the issues in the Inspector General’s report had been resolved through that testing process; not all of them, but some of 

them independent testing by the Army Test and Evaluation Command is a significant improvement. New instrumentation that resolves many of the measurement issues, new processes that standardize the scoring and have resulted in, and I will comment on 

some of the statistics, resulted in improved scoring and consistency. 

Furthermore we also appreciate that the Congress, recognizing 

this, has in the last Defense Authorization Act given us authority 

to exercise oversight over these systems. And we are moving out 

to do that so that, by the end of this calendar year, we believe we 

will have processes in place that will address all of the issues mentioned in the Inspector General’s report. We do take issue with the 

finding that two tests failed and one was inconclusive which re-
32 

sulted in their recommendation to return the plates. We defer to 

the Secretary on the return, but we do believe that using sound engineering judgment and the contract specifications in place and our 

professional judgment, that the three first article tests in question 

did in fact meet the contract specification, and that is our view. We 

do appreciate the issues that the Inspector General has raised 

about the consistency of scoring. But we were asked to conduct a 

limited review of these three specific tests which I believe to be appropriate as these first article tests are the basis to qualify the design and proceed to procurement. So we looked at the record of 

these tests and made this judgment. I am prepared to expound on 

each one of these if the members would like me to. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I don’t think that is necessary. The question 

here is, in your judgment, are the plates that are being utilized in 

the field meeting the test of field service? 

Mr. SAYRE. My answer is that we stand behind the judgment 

that these three specific first article tests of these three designs 

met the contract specification. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. You understand the differentiation here. We 

are not—there can be arguments about whether or not the elements of scientific experimentation are being met; replication, et 

cetera, those kinds of things. It may be—an argument about that 

doesn’t mean that the product coming out of that process is any 

less capable than that which was contracted for in the first place. 

Mr. SAYRE. I don’t believe it is any less capable. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay. 

Ms. Ugone, you get the context of the question? 

Ms. UGONE. Yes, I do. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Because I really don’t think this is the forum 

to conclude, let alone get an explication of what the differences may 

have been as to whether or not scientific procedure was adequately 

followed in all instances, let alone documentation of it. 

Ms. UGONE. I agree with you, Chairman Abercrombie, but I 

would like to in general answer the question. 

And thank you, General Brogan, for sharing the mike. If I could 

just give you a little bit of context in which we did this audit. This 

report is a third in a series of body armor reports conducted in response to requests from two Members of Congress. 

This report had two findings. The first finding related to the inconsistencies in the testing and scoring processes during first article testing for contract 0040, and we used the criteria of the contract specifications. The second finding had to do with a lack of 

DOD standards for ballistic testing. In fact, with regard to the recommendations, we do not believe we have any disputed recommendations. The Secretary of the Army had agreed to identify 

and collect the ballistic inserts that are in question. However, we 

are still in disagreement about the finding. And as you have already mentioned, we are not here to argue the actual finding, but 

we are satisfied with the response that both the Army and DOT&E 

have made to our recommendations. 

What we did also in our final report is ask for an additional information on the plan of action the Secretary of the Army has implemented as a result of his order to identify and collect these ballistic inserts. We have also added a recommendation with respect 
33 

to not allow government contracting officer technical representatives to make any changes to contracts without authorization from 

the contracting officer. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Well, again, though, I appreciate all of that, 

and I understand it. 

Ms. UGONE. Well, we can state because of the inconsistencies, 

the Army does not have assurance that all inserts purchased under 

contract 0040 provide the level of protection required by the contract. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay. Well, then, that goes to your point, 

Roscoe. Back to you. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. Let me give an example 

of what I understand was one of the inconsistencies. The plates are 

exposed to a shot. And the speed of the bullet is determined by 

camera, and sometimes there is an over-velocity of that first shot. 

Sometimes the testing officer would simply replace that plate with 

another plate and another shot to have the correct velocity. Sometimes he would take that plate and subject it to the second shot. 

If there was no penetration with the second shot—see, the notion 

is that the first shot, although it may not have penetrated the 

plate, may have weakened the plate so that it was now more susceptible to a second shot. So sometimes the officer would simply 

take the plate that had an over-velocity shot, expose it to a second 

shot, and if the second shot did not penetrate, then he made what 

I think is a logical conclusion that the plate is okay. Now, clearly, 

that is an inconsistency because sometimes he would simply take 

a second plate and do a correct velocity shot and then proceed with 

the test. 

Now, if the first shot was over-velocity and you used the plate 

for the second shot and the second shot went through the plate, 

why did it go through? Because the plate was defective or because 

its capability was reduced by the first shot? So now he would take 

a new plate and do it again. This is not consistent. But I don’t 

think that there is any evidence that this results in any lesser of 

a test for it. And I don’t know what the other inconsistencies were. 

But my major concern is that, why couldn’t this have been resolved in-house? I like oversight, and I would love to have seen an 

article after the fact saying that the Inspector General found these 

problems, the Army immediately responded to this and fixed it, 

and none of the plates were found to be defective. Now there is the 

press out there which is implying that we have a lot of body armor 

out there that is putting our young people at risk. I am not sure 

that is at all true, and I think that does a disservice to all of you 

who work so darn hard to provide our people with the best equipment to have this out there. Why couldn’t this have been resolved 

this way before it got out into the press? That added nothing to 

this, by the way, getting it out into the press. Why couldn’t it have 

been resolved before it got out into the press? And what can we do 

in the future to make sure this kind of thing is resolved? I want 

oversight. I want visibility. I would love to have had an article out 

in the press saying that the IG did this inspection, the tests 

weren’t consistent, the Army corrected the thing, they went back 

and the tests are consistent now, and what do you know, all of the 

armor was good, thank God. What do we have to do in this com-
34 

mittee to make sure that this kind of thing doesn’t get out prematurely in the future and harm what you all are doing and the 

image of this whole institution? 

Ms. UGONE. Mr. Bartlett, if I could answer that question. You 

had mentioned a fair shot determination. And I am going to respect 

Chairman Abercrombie. I am not going to get into the details. But 

the issue with that was scoring. And how it was scored and the 

manner in which it was scored resulted in a first article test that 

had passed that really should have failed if you looked at the scoring. And when they entered into that determination, they already 

had four points; there is a six point system. And what we are saying is, had they scored it appropriately, it would have failed. So we 

can provide you more details upon that for the record. But in the 

second instance, with regard to our effort to dialogue with the 

Army, absolutely, we have been dialoguing with the Army since the 

middle of October when we first alerted the Army to the issue that 

we had related to standards of ballistic testing. We have had two 

discussion drafts, one formal draft. We have had numerous meetings. And, frankly, the Army has taken corrective action on all our 

recommendations. We don’t have a disputed recommendation. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Then why would we have this negative article out 

in the press? What could we do in the future to avoid that? This 

is not helpful to you or any of us. 

Ms. UGONE. I am not sure that I can do anything about the 

press, sir. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Maybe we can, Mr. Chairman. 

If I might I have one more issue I would like to address very 

briefly, if I could. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes, you may. 

Let me just say, this hearing, I think, provides the necessary incentive not to have this occur again, right? Okay. I have already 

quoted my mother once. I will quote her again. She used to say, 

a word to the wise should be sufficient. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. She said that to me numerous times. Hopefully, we won’t have to say that again here. 

Mr. BARTLETT. General Brogan, we have read and heard 

testimonials in regard to how the ESAPI body armor has and is 

saving lives, and that it is obviously very important. We have also 

heard that we have added so much weight to what the individual 

soldier and marine has to carry that it is causing serious long-term 

medical problems and decreased deficiencies. 

What are we doing to motivate or incentivize industry to reduce 

the weight of body armor, say by 50 percent? There is currently, 

as you know, no dedicated Research and Development (R&D) funding line. Maybe that is our fault. 

Mr. Chairman, we need to fix that. 

There is no dedicated R&D funding line for body armor, and the 

procurement is done through the Operations and Maintenance 

Command. What do we have to do so that body armor gets the 

same level of interest as a major weapons system, such as the Future Combat System or the F–22. 

I have just got to think that meaningful R&D here, basic research and R&D could yield meaningfully better armor. What do 
35 

we have to do, Mr. Chairman and panel, so that we have a dedicated line for R&D? 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Maybe Mr. Fahey would be most appropriate 

to speak at this juncture. You are getting an offer here, you understand. 

Mr. FAHEY. I mean, I can talk about the armor of vehicles, and 

General Fuller can talk about the armor of personal vests. But we 

do have a—— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Do you have a line as well, or not? 

Mr. FAHEY. We do. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Staff tells me we don’t have a dedicated R&D line 

for body armor. 

General FULLER. Sir, for body armor, that is correct. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. So, just for the record, Mr. Fahey, that is why 

I wanted to ask you, you do have a dedicated line, right? 

Mr. FAHEY. For vehicles. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. For the vehicle, right. 

Mr. BARTLETT. I am asking body armor. 

General FULLER. Sir, that is correct. At this time, the Army does 

not have a dedicated line for both research and development funding nor procurement funding for body armor. However, it is 

predecisional, but the Army is looking at funding that in the near 

future. 

We also have efforts underway, in our science and technology 

field, to try to reduce the weight of the armor and give it the same 

protection at a reduced weight or give it increased protection at the 

same weight. We are funded in that area. The research and development line associated with constant improvements is in our 

science and technology field right now, not directly in a body armor 

research and development line. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you for your patience, Mr. Chairman. I 

yield back. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. So you compete, then, within that category, 

correct? 

General FULLER. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. What is the extent of the category? What are 

some of the other elements that are part of that science and technology line, if you know? 

General FULLER. Yes, sir. Part of that is associated with, for example, as Mr. Fahey said, the armor associated with vehicles. 

Some of the technologies that we will see are common between a 

ground platform armor and a body armor. So we are looking at the 

basic core elements that allow us to—— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Who do you compete with aside from that in 

that category? 

General FULLER. Sir, we will compete with all the efforts that the 

Army has going on in research and development, whether it is in 

the aviation—— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. So you are in a big pool. 

General FULLER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. You are not in a little pond. 

General FULLER. Correct, sir. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I think it is important, in response to Mr. 

Bartlett’s inquiry with regard to the question of whether a line is 
36 

appropriate, you are competing against some pretty powerful internal research and development interests. 

General FULLER. Roger, sir. On the science and technology side, 

a lot of the basic science. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay, very good. 

General LENNOX. Mr. Chairman, do you mind if I add something 

to this? 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. No, not at all. 

General LENNOX. There has been a lot of scientific talk and testing talk across the table here. And I want to go back to Representative Bartlett’s point and underscore the fact that we believe every 

soldier has absolutely safe body protective armor. The Secretary of 

the Army has made a decision to identify and collect those that are 

disputed in this disputed lot—it is just the prudent thing to do—— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. That is 30,000-plus plates, right? 

General LENNOX. Exactly, sir. So we don’t have any question in 

the soldier’s mind that they don’t have the finest body armor in the 

world. And I just wanted to state that. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. What stage is that in, that collection? 

General LENNOX. The order went out last week, sir. We are monitoring that. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay. Very good. 

Mr. Hunter, do you want one more shot? 

Mr. HUNTER. I just want to say, my father was in the 173rd Airborne in the Army Rangers in Vietnam. I was a marine in these 

latest conflicts. And my little brother is now a specialist, just graduated from advanced infantry training (AIT). He is going to jump 

school in about a week and a half. So if you see Specialist Hunter, 

you can go ahead and haze him and tell him that his older brother 

said it was okay. 

But, General Lennox, this really is a family business for quite a 

few of us up here. And what you all do affects our family and our 

friends as well as our constituents and young people across America. So I just want to say thank you. And especially to the staff sergeant, who was very candid here and answered the questions in 

front of all these folks, thank you for your service. 

First Sergeant, thank you for yours, I really appreciate it. 

And semper fi. 

General LENNOX. Congressman Hunter, if you don’t mind, I 

didn’t want to leave you with the impression that commanders in 

the field don’t have a lot of leeway, enormous leeway to do what 

is right for their soldiers. And that is taking place today. It is the 

commanders in the field, their role and responsibility to make 

these important decisions about tradeoffs and mobility and body 

protection. And it is not something that is being dictated by headquarters, Department of the Army. We provide the equipment. We 

provide the resources for commanders in the field to fight the fight 

and make those decisions. 

Mr. HUNTER. Good. That is how it ought to be. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. And for the record, this is something that the 

committee, let alone the Congress, won’t be involved in, that is for 

sure. That is a policy and tactical and strategic decision that you 

have to make—or the services have to make, right? 
37 

General Brogan, I assume you wouldn’t disagree with that. That 

is not something—to me, I will tell you, it is like this question 

about the UAVs and whether it is 3,000 feet or 3,001 feet and 

whether the Army is doing it or the Navy and all the rest, we 

shouldn’t be involved in all that stuff. And that got kicked to us. 

What happens is, if there is a question like that and it doesn’t get 

settled internally, what happens is, it ends up here. That is the 

problem. But I can assure you we won’t get into that. 

But what we do want to get into—and I am going to ask my 

questions right now, if that is okay, and then we will finish up. 

Especially with relation to the last line of questions about a written line in order to do research and so on, is all of this or any of 

this part officially a program of record? Because I am concerned, 

going back to the MRAP situation, you have already heard me 

speak today and you have heard Representative Taylor mention 

this over and over again in this hearing and others, I am very concerned that this not drift into the supplemental budget situation. 

If I have my way, we will never have another supplemental budget 

unless it is real, an actual emergency, and it is supplemental to the 

actual real budget. 

So is the research and the activity associated with the vehicle or 

with the personal armor force protection, is this a program of 

record? 

General BROGAN. Sir, it is a program of record. But we have done 

some of the procurement—— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Is the MRAP acquisition a program of record? 

General BROGAN. Body armor. The family of personal protective 

equipment is a program of record. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. What about the vehicle force protection? 

General BROGAN. Each individual vehicle program—leave MRAP 

off the table for a minute, if I may, sir—but Humvees, Advanced 

Artillery Vehicle (AAV), Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), 

tank, those are all programs of record. And the equipment—survivability, packages, things that go with them—are part of the program of record. So research, development, testing and evaluation 

lines are rolled into the budget for those particular things. And 

they are normally at the program element level. 

Part of the challenge is, with personal protective equipment, 

there is a whole family of things that are included in a single program element because program element is a fairly high level, so 

helmets, body armor, flame-resistant equipment, all of that is included in that one Program Element (PE), the procurement, because they are very small dollar value items. It is really not procurement. It is purchasing with operation and maintenance funding. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. How are you funding the former? What you 

just cited before this last—how are you funding all the things that 

you just mentioned? 

General BROGAN. A major vehicle program you would procure 

after you have done the research effort, the development effort, 

with procurement Marine Corps dollars, the Procurement, Marine 

Corps (PMC) appropriation. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Where does that fit in in the program of 

record? Is it a base budget item or not? 
38 

General BROGAN. It absolutely is a base budget item. And we 

have in our base budget money for this personal protective equipment. We did, however, take advantage of supplemental funding to 

accelerate the fielding of this equipment once we went to conflict. 

But we always had money to buy vests, to buy plates in our base 

budget. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay. Well, let’s see, I understand that. That 

is a true emergency supplemental item that gets no argument from 

me or from other members because you are already doing something. The situation arises that wasn’t anticipated during the regular budget process. You have to supplement it because it is in fact 

an emergency to make sure everybody has what they need. Is that 

a fair summary of what an emergency supplemental budget should 

be? 

General BROGAN. I concur with your assessment, yes, sir. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Well, okay. Where does the MRAP fit into 

this? 

General BROGAN. MRAP was not a program of record. It was 

funded purely under supplemental appropriation. However, all of 

the oversight that was provided in that program by the Department of Defense, Secretary Young, Secretary Etter, now Secretary 

Stackley, Mr. Popps and Secretary Bolton within the Army, it was 

managed as if it was a program of record. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I agree with you on that. But the status 

today, it is still not a program of record. 

General BROGAN. In fiscal year 2010, the direction has been provided by the Department of Defense that each service will fund the 

sustainment of those vehicles not specifically associated with combat operations within their base budgets. So it, in effect, migrates 

to program of record status—— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. This is very good. You are going to be major 

general sooner than you think. 

Leaving aside for a moment the migrating, in the effect, it is not 

a program of record as of now, although you are trying to treat it 

as much as you possibly can. 

General BROGAN. Because it will be in the base budget, because 

it will have a program element associated with it—— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. It will be a program of record? 

General BROGAN [continuing]. It will be a program of record. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. So we haven’t done the 2010 budget yet. 

General BROGAN. Correct, sir. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. That is upcoming. We are living with a continuing resolution—time out. I am asking for a real purpose. I am 

not trying to harass you or trick you or anything. There is a method to this. 

We are dealing with a continuing resolution, and we will have a 

budget shortly that will be presented to fix that. There will be a 

supplemental budget, much to my great regret, that we will have 

to deal with in one form or another. Then there will be the budget 

for 2010, for the fiscal year starting in October of this year, of this 

calendar year, right? 

General BROGAN. That is correct. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. So, will the MRAP program be a program of 

record in the upcoming fiscal year 2010 budget which we will be 
39 

drafting in terms of the DOD bill and subsequent appropriations 

over the next few months? 

General BROGAN. I would say, yes, given that each service was 

directed to fund its own share of the operations and maintenance 

costs of that program—— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. You can see where I am going, General. I 

hope the message goes back to the Pentagon and the administration—— 

General BROGAN. It will remain a hybrid program, because as 

new things emerge, for example, if we have to insert a technology 

into that program that we did not anticipate, it is going to come 

to you in supplemental. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes, but that is separate. A supplemental 

budget should be on programs of record. And if some emergency 

comes up that wasn’t anticipated by anybody about anything and 

it doesn’t fit in anything, yes, then we can take it up. But that is 

an emergency, an urgent program. I mean, that is what the whole 

MRAP was. And that came out of the Congress. It didn’t come out 

of the Pentagon. But now that it is there, I hope we are not going 

to get into, well, this got originated by the Congress, so we are not 

going to pay attention to it. 

General BROGAN. No, you are not, sir. The services will budget 

to continue the vehicle and—— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. The message should go back upstairs or down 

the street, or however it goes, or across the river, this has got to 

be a program of record. 

General BROGAN. I understand, sir. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay. And then one other thing on the question of the multiple engines and the different variations—none of 

which I disagree with, by the way, the variations, they all have 

their reasons. But what are you doing, because we have scarce resources, to prevent duplication of effort? Maybe that is a program 

issue. 

General BROGAN. Well, sir, one of the things that we did was we 

trained all of the commercial field service representatives—— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. In other words, I am not conflating multiple 

efforts with duplication, as I realize there are variations, the different manufacturers are not doing the same thing. There are different vehicles that are being put—there are variations in the vehicle. So I am not saying that the variations mean that that is duplication. 

General BROGAN. I understand. So, for example, we trained field 

service representatives to operate on all of the platforms so we 

didn’t have to hire them just from an individual company to work 

only on that company’s vehicles. So we didn’t duplicate field service 

representatives, we use a single one who is universal. 

Because the engines on these vehicles are widely used in both 

commercial and Department of Defense, we are able to take advantage of some of those economies of scale. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay. One last thing, but you need not answer it now, but I would appreciate in writing, I would like both 

the Army and the Marine Corps, when contemplating the shift of 

forces to one degree or another from Iraq to Afghanistan, to give 

us, if you can, your primary force protection challenges—and I am 
40 

putting it in the plural. I am not asking you to rate one, two, three, 

or something like that. In fact, you may have one; I don’t know, 

maybe you will have five. But if you can give us your primary force 

protection challenges with an eye toward helping us draft the DOD 

bill for this upcoming fiscal year. 

General LENNOX. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. The budget that will be forthcoming within 

the next few weeks, I expect, isn’t going to really address that. It 

is going to get rid of the continuing resolution and will essentially 

help us to operate up until October of this calendar year. So I am 

thinking about, for the next DOD authorization bill and its appropriation implications, if you could simply provide us with your primary force protection challenges as you see them for the Marine 

Corps and for the Army. 

General LENNOX. We will do that, sir. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 77.] 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Very good. You have been very patient. And 

again, I apologize for the fact that we had to have this break in 

between, but this has been very, very helpful and useful to us. I 

hope you found it informative as well. I appreciate it. Aloha to everybody here. 

[Whereupon, at 5:40 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

FEBRUARY 4, 2009 

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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

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RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ABERCROMBIE 

General LENNOX. Mr. Chairman, improving MEDEVAC response times requires 

a systematic approach and the synchronization of aircraft, medical capabilities, communications, infrastructure, training, and security to support these operations. The 

Secretary of Defense directed a comprehensive bottom-to-top review last fall on how 

to best synchronize efforts in theater and improve MEDEVAC response times there. 

Based on detailed analysis and coordination, the Department of Defense is now executing a course of action that achieves parity of MEDEVAC operations in both theaters to the mission completion standard currently used in Iraq. This is to be accomplished through constructive MEDEVAC procedural improvements and by adding 16 

more dedicated aircraft and 3 additional forward surgical teams. The medical infrastructure to support operations in Afghanistan is included in the Army’s regular 

budgeting process. The incremental costs of our operations in Afghanistan are budgeted as part of the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) request. [See page 24.] 

General BROGAN. The Army and the Marine Corps continue to coordinate effectively on the development and fielding of force-protection solutions. The DoD has established a standard system for truck armoring and both the Army and Marine 

Corps are armoring their vehicles to the same level as we converge on armor solutions. As for individual personal protective equipment, the Marine Corps coordinates 

closely with PEO Ground Soldier. Both organizations continue to share test data 

with one another in an effort to continually upgrade and provide the best protective 

equipment available to our troops. We share all test data and communicate openly 

with each other. Even when specific products are different as in the case of Medium 

Tactical Vehicle Replacement and Improved Modular Tactical Vest, the protection 

levels are the same. 

The Army and the Marine Corps do not believe that duplication of effort is counterproductive. There is value in competition and we effectively leverage our scarce 

resources by challenging industry to come up with the best and most innovative solutions available today. Through these efforts, we ensure that our Services are provided with the most sophisticated and reliable equipment on the market today. 

There are no unique force protection challenges in Afghanistan. However, as we 

shift forces from Iraq to Afghanistan the different terrain, topography and cultural 

landscape will present challenges. Restrictive roads, and mountainous terrain will 

restrict the use of MRAPs. Minimizing the weight of personal protective equipment 

will be more important in the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan than in the flat 

urbanized landscape in Iraq. We are developing policies and acquisition practices for 

our future equipment that will make it more modular and scalable to allow us to 

increase and decrease armor protection and its associated weight according to the 

commander’s assessment of mission requirements and threat. [See page 40.] 

General LENNOX. As the Army repositions forces from Iraq to Afghanistan we recognize we may need to address resulting increases in force protection requirements. 

As movement on existing and future Ground Line of Communications (GLOC) 

heightens, we may need additional security forces as well as route clearance assets 

to secure our logistics. Aviation requirements may increase along with ground based 

radars to ensure integrated networked force protection coverage. Additional Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR) assets will also facilitate heightened 

threat warning in support of force protection. As we flow additional soldiers into existing bases as well as establish future bases we will plan to increase base force protection operations should OIF conditions warrant the increase in those operations. 

[See page 40.] 

RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. TAYLOR 

General BROGAN. We cannot respond at this time due to SS sensitivities. In the 

transcript, Gen Brogan states that he would take the question for the record and 

respond after the contracts have been awarded. The estimated award date will be 

in the month of May. [See page 26.] 

General LENNOX. The Army has identified that a total of 702 MRAP vehicles are 

currently needed to support pre-deployment training. The Army expects to have that 
78 

many vehicles at approximately twenty different training locations by the end of December 2009. There are already 26 vehicles supporting training in the United 

States, and another 25 have been identified in Kuwait for shipment back to support 

training by April 2009. As the Army receives the newest and most capable MRAP 

vehicles in theater, older and less capable vehicles are being replaced and returned 

for use in training Soldiers before they deploy. The Army will adjust the schedule 

for the return of these older vehicles based on a number of factors, including how 

much maintenance is required on the vehicles before they are shipped, and when 

shipping is available. Changes in the operational situation could also cause the 

Army to adjust the schedule or numbers. [See page 27.] 

RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MASSA 

General LENNOX. The Army’s current inventory of personal body armor with Enhanced Small Arms Protective Insert (ESAPI) plates is generally not worn during 

airborne operations with the T–10 parachute, as the T–10 harness is not large 

enough to accommodate the increased size of the jumper wearing the body armor 

with plates inserted. Additionally, the Modified Improved Reserve Parachute Systems (MIRPS) is limited in the weight it will safely support—the weight of the body 

armor severely limits the amount of other equipment a parachutist can carry. The 

new T–11 parachute, which replaces the T–10, is specifically designed to support 

greater weights to include the additional weight of all body armor. The additional 

size of the T–11 harness allows parachutists to jump with the Improved Outer Tactical Vest (IOTV) including mounting the front and rear ESAPI plates. The IOTV 

in this configuration is certified for T–11 airborne operations. Parachutists no longer 

have to jump without protective plates in their body armor. [See page 28.] 

RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WITTMAN AND MR. 

ABERCROMBIE 

General LENNOX. Mr. Wittman, I’ll address the carbine first. In the same Center 

for Naval Analysis (CNA) study you cited, approximately 90% of the Soldiers surveyed were satisfied with the performance of the M4 Carbine. Additionally, in another recent survey of 917 Soldiers with recent combat experience with the M4 in 

Iraq or Afghanistan, 89% of Soldiers reported overall satisfaction with the M4 and 

only 1% of these Soldiers recommended that the M4 be replaced. Although the 

weapons are performing well, the Army continually seeks ways to improve their performance as well as provide Soldiers with enhanced capabilities. The Individual Carbine Capabilities Development Document (CDD) is currently in the staffing and approval process. The goal for the CDD to complete all staffing is September 2009. As 

directed by Secretary Geren, we plan to conduct a full and open competition utilizing the new requirement beginning in late 2009. The new requirement is not caliber specific and will allow different calibers to compete. 

Addressing the dissatisfaction for the handgun, the Army’s Small Arms Capability 

Based Assessment confirmed the shortfall in the area of close engagements which 

includes both the pistol and the sub-compact personal defense weapon. The Army 

has prioritized the development of a sub-compact or ‘‘miniature carbine’’ capability 

ahead of the pistol at this time. However, the Air Force (AF) has completed a new 

joint requirement for a handgun that can be adopted by any service. The Army is 

looking closely at adopting this requirement in the near future. The AF wrote the 

Modular Handgun System Capabilities Production Document with significant input 

from the Army and joint participation from all services. This new requirement addresses an improvement in stopping power along with improvements in ergonomics 

and other areas. The CNA study reveals that only 1⁄2 of 1% of Soldiers surveyed had 

a stoppage with their M9 that made a significant impact on their ability to engage 

the enemy. Even so, by adopting the AF pistol requirement, we can address all of 

the issues with the M9. However, I need to state again, the priority for the Army 

in this area is currently the carbine and the sub-compact personal defense weapon. 

[See pages 16 and 18.] 
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

FEBRUARY 4, 2009 

(81) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ABERCROMBIE AND MR. TAYLOR 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. Many force-protection items, such as body 

armor, vehicle armor, and counter-IED equipment have been developed by both the 

Army and Marine Corps to address similar requirements. In 2006, GAO reported 

that a lack of a synchronized approach between the Marine Corps and the Army 

on addressing truck armor requirements and solutions resulted in the Marine Corps 

identifying its truck armor requirements and seeking armor solutions months after 

the Army, potentially delaying the availability of armored vehicles to deployed Marines.- How do the Army and Marine Corps coordinate on the development and 

fielding of force-protection solutions that address similar urgent needs requirements 

of both services?- How does each of the services ensure that they are preventing duplication of efforts and effectively leveraging their scarce resources when developing 

solutions that might address both Army and Marine Corps needs? 

General LENNOX. In the area of Tactical Wheeled Vehicles, the Army and Marine 

Corps coordinate on force-protection solutions through the Joint Program Office for 

MRAP vehicles, Protection issues for other vehicles used by both services are coordinated at the Army and Marine Corps Board (AMCB). For future programs, such as 

the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, the vehicle is being developed jointly to ensure that 

they have inter-service commonality and economical as possible. 

The Army and Marine Corps constantly coordinate with each other through the 

AMCB and the ‘‘Army-Marine Corps Staff Talks’’. These forums help ensure that 

the services are aware of each others on-going initiatives, and are able to take advantage of the other service’s efforts when possible. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. What are your primary force protection challenges that you will face should we shift forces from Iraq to Afghanistan? What does 

the Army need? What does the Marine Corps need? 

General LENNOX. As the Army repositions forces from Iraq to Afghanistan we recognize we may need to address resulting increases in force protection requirements. 

As movement on existing and future Ground Line of Communications (GLOC) 

heightens, we may need additional security forces as well as route clearance assets 

to secure our logistics. Aviation requirements may increase along with ground based 

radars to ensure integrated networked force protection coverage. Additional Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR) assets will also facilitate heightened 

threat warning in support of force protection. As we flow additional soldiers into existing bases as well as establish future bases we will plan to increase base force protection operations should OIF conditions warrant the increase in those operations. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. Do you consider the X–SAPI requirement to 

be an urgent and compelling need? If not, why? 

General LENNOX. Chairman Abercrombie and Chairman Taylor, the Army does 

not consider the XSAPI requirement to be urgent and compelling. The approval of 

the XSAPI requirement is a prudent, precautionary measure to ensure the combatant commander in theater has the ability to counter potential emerging threats. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. Are you aware of an operational need statement, universal urgent need statement or joint urgent operational need statement 

for a next generation body armor plate that provides for a higher level of ballistic 

protection? 

General LENNOX. Chairman Abercrombie and Chairman Taylor, I am not aware 

of an Operational Need Statement within the Army or a Joint Urgent Operational 

Need Statement being submitted for a next generation body armor plate. I will defer 

to BG Brogan regarding the status of any United States Marine Corp urgent need 

statement. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. Explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) are a 

primary killer on the battlefield. What force protection measures and TTPs are we 

using to defeat this threat? How are we staying ahead of this adaptive enemy? 

General LENNOX. The Army acknowledges that Explosively Formed Projectiles 

(EFPs) are a significant enemy threat and as a result has taken extensive measures 

to protect Soldiers. The Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle was initially developed to protect Soldiers against the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) 

threat. As the threat has changed to include EFPs, the MRAP design underwent 
82 

several changes to defend against them. The Army has also developed systems that 

target EFP initiators. Additionally, the Army has continued to develop tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) designed to counter the threat. We have included individual and team training of EFP awareness into Counter Improvised Explosive 

Device (IED) training across the Army. Organizations designed specifically to defeat 

IEDs have been established and serve a vital role in providing EFP awareness and 

measures to counter the threat. Highly trained post attack analysis teams and route 

clearance packages are examples of these types of organizations. 

Timely and relevant intelligence is the primary method we stay ahead of new 

threats and an adaptive enemy. Continuous identification of emerging EFP technology and enemy TTPs is key to the identification of new requirements for equipment and training. The Army’s Attack the Network IED targeting methodology is 

intelligence driven and has been highly effective in defeating EFP networks. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. How do you encourage the development of 

next generation body armor by the industrial and R&D communities and what is 

the Army and Marine Corps’s process for evaluating these potential advances? Is 

this process standardized? What is the extent of the R&D effort to reduce the weight 

of body armor systems? 

General FULLER. The Army and Marine Corps both work extensively on a continual basis with representatives from industry to address material requirements. 

Both participate, along with the other Services and SOCOM, in forums such as the 

Cross Service Warfighter Equipment Board (CSWEB) and the annual Advanced 

Planning Brief to Industry (APBI). The CSWEB is an opportunity for DoD to exchange ideas on future improvements of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). The 

APBI is an opportunity for the Services to present briefings to industry on current 

and future requirements with respect to body armor and other PPE and for industry 

to provide immediate feedback and to ask questions on those stated requirements. 

APBI provides an annual launch point for continued collaboration between the Services and industry throughout the year to ensure effective and efficient communications and results. Another key venue to encourage innovation from the industrial 

base is periodic ‘‘Request for Information’’ postings on Federal Business Opportunities (FEDBIZOPPS) in support of the Soldier Protection Demonstrations (SPD). The 

SPD provides a setting for the Army and USMC requirements community to assess 

current technology to support the development of operational requirements and for 

vendors to demonstrate creative solutions to specific capabilities; such as low profile 

lighter weight body armor plate carrier. The effort will include an assessment using 

Soldiers with previous combat experience conducting various activities while wearing the various candidate systems. The baseline for comparison will be the current 

Army Improved Outer Tactical Vest (IOTV). The United States Marine Corps 

(USMC) Scalable Plate Carrier will also be assessed. The Army will defer to the 

USMC on their specific programs to evaluate potential body armor solutions. The 

Army has several on-going R&D programs to reduce the weight of body armor systems. The focus is to reduce the weight of X–SAPI by 10% in the near term (FY10– 

13) with a long-term goal of 30–40% reduction of the entire system by FY 14–15. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. What quality control measures are used to 

ensure that all body armor fielded to troops meets specifications? 

General FULLER. The Army uses a comprehensive and holistic approach to ensure 

the body armor fielded to Soldiers meets stringent standards. The Army conducts 

multiple levels of continuous testing throughout the life cycle of body armor. The 

first level of continuous testing is the rigorous First Article Test (FAT). The second 

level of testing is Lot Acceptance Tests (LAT). LATs are conducted with the same 

ballistic test criteria of the FATs and provide statistical confidence the body armor 

accepted is of the highest quality and will meet the Soldiers’ needs for protection. 

The third level of testing is the continuous surveillance testing of plates and environmental surveillance of soft armor. The Army has a Non-Destructive Test Equipment (NDTE) facility to scan plates in Theater and return plates for additional testing. The Army conducts ballistic testing on plates with cracks as determined by the 

NDTE. To date 100% of the plates passed testing with the most prevalent round. 

The fourth level of quality control is user inspection of the body armor. Additionally, 

the Army upgraded all body armor contracts to surveillance criticality level designator A, which requires increased DCMA surveillance. The increased surveillance 

of contractor manufacturing processes is identified in Quality Assurance Letters of 

Instruction (QALIs) for each contract. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. Why are the Army and Marine Corps procuring different outer tactical vests that provide the same level of protection? Please 

explain why one design would not be appropriate for both services. 

General FULLER. The Army and Marine Corps collaborated in the development of 

the Outer Tactical Vest (OTV), which provides the same level of protection. How-
83 

ever, different mission requirements required the Services to field a different OTV. 

In an effort to reduce weight and integrate components that had been fielded during 

the overseas contingency operation to counter emerging threats, the Army developed 

the Improved Outer Tactical Vest (IOTV). The IOTV reduces weight of Interceptor 

Body Armor (IBA) by 3 lbs, increases area of coverage, is compatible with other 

Army Organizational Clothing and Individual Equipment (OCIE) and weapons, has 

a quick release and medical access. The Army is in the process of transitioning all 

OTVs to IOTVs. Additionally, the Army is currently evaluating the Marine Corps 

plate carrier to determine if it will meet specific Army mission requirements. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. Do you consider flame resistance to be a key 

performance specification requirement for combat helmet pad suspension systems? 

If not, why not? Are you seeing any burn injuries as a direct result from pad suspension systems igniting? 

General FULLER. Flame resistance (FR) is not a requirement for the combat helmet suspension system in the ACH. The complete helmet system is inherently flame 

resistant due to the para aramid fiber (Kevlar/Twaron) material used in the rigidly 

constructed helmet shell. The ACH protects against ballistic and blast effects; to include flash flame incendiary events. The Brooks Army Medical Center, the Defense 

Department’s premier burn center with responsibility for treating all DoD burn casualties and the Joint Trauma Analysis and Prevention of Injury in Combat 

(JTAPIC) Program Office has no recorded burn injuries associated with helmet 

pads igniting or melting. The Army will continue to analyze injury data and seek 

improvements to helmet pads. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. What metrics do you use to evaluate and procure pad suspension systems? Do you consider comfort and feedback from the 

warfighter? 

General FULLER. Impact protection is the key metric in the selection of a combat 

helmet pad suspension system. Comfort is also a key consideration and warfighter 

feedback is actively sought. The Army proactively pursues Soldier feedback via Webbased surveys, exhibits of equipment, post-combat surveys, Army Materiel Command Forward Support Brigades, and Logistics Assistance Representatives. Additionally, trained and experienced Soldiers are used for Human Factors testing in 

operationally relevant (and controlled) environments to assess the pad systems. Soldier acceptance is considered an important criteria to determine the best overall 

performing pad, however the pad system must meet or exceed threshold impact resistance requirements. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. Where will the Army and Marine Corps conduct future body armor testing and how did you select your approach? 

General FULLER. The Army plans to conduct all body armor testing at a government test facility. The Army Acquisition Executive directed on February 9, 2009 

that the Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) will conduct all Body Armor 

First Article and Lot Acceptance Testing. The Army will defer to the Marine Corps 

on their testing requirements. If the testing requirement exceeds the capacity of 

ATEC, ATEC will contract the work to independent certified testing facilities to include the National Institute of Justice. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. What is the status of the Army’s current 

source selection for next generation and current armor plates? When is it expected 

that new plates will be fielded under the latest solicitation? 

General FULLER. Source Selection for the next generation armor plates (XSAPI) 

was completed in 1Q09. Notice of Fair Opportunity to Compete for Delivery Orders 

under Contract W91CRB–09–D–001, -002 and -003 was issued in March 2009 for 

Theater contingency stock. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. The Army has just issued a return order for 

some 16,000 sets of armor plates as a result of an audit by the DOD Inspector General. What were the problems found with this armor and were there any adverse 

impacts on warfighters in the theater due to the return? Have any of these or any 

other armor plate designs shown performance problems in the theater? Will any additional testing performed on these plates? And if so, what is the status of this testing? 

General FULLER. The Army maintains that the armor plates in question continue 

to meet or exceed ballistic requirements. The decision to return the 16,000 plates 

was not the result of any defects in the plates. The Secretary of the Army non-concurred with the DoD IG findings that the plates in question failed First Article Testing. The DOT&E concurred with the Army and concluded in their evaluation, ‘‘the 

DoD Inspector General has identified significant issues with the documentation of 

the test process and analysis (scoring). However, the three designs meet the performance specification in place at the time of each test.’’ Out of an abundance of 

caution, the Secretary of the Army directed; ‘‘To ensure there can be no question 
84 

concerning the effectiveness of every Soldier’s body armor, I have ordered that the 

plates at issue be identified and collected until such time as the findings by the DoD 

IG are adjudicated by the Deputy Secretary of Defense.’’ The Army is collecting the 

plates in question from Theater and is currently performing additional ballistic testing. All the plates tested met the Army’s ballistic standards. Testing is ongoing. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. Do you plan to conduct all body armor test 

and evaluation (to include first article tests and lot acceptance tests) at a government laboratory? If yes, why? 

General FULLER. The Army plans to conduct all body armor testing at a government test facility. The Army Acquisition Executive directed on February 9, 2009 

that the Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) will conduct all Body Armor 

First Article and Lot Acceptance Testing. 

A January 29, 2009 Department of Defense Inspector General (DoDIG) report on 

testing requirements for body armor underscored the need for internal controls to 

ensure adequate oversight of the First Article Test (FAT) process and proper review 

and approval of FAT results. The DoD Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, 

who has oversight of body armor testing, reiterated this finding, stating that FATs 

conducted at a government facility with government oversight would significantly 

reduce the risk of recurrence of the types of issues DoDIG cited in its report. 

The Army policy on Personal Protective Equipment testing adopts this recommendation for FAT and extends it to Lot Acceptance Testing (LAT). The Army 

policy is based on the belief that the same benefits of conducting testing at a government facility equally apply for both FAT and LAT. 

If the testing requirement exceeds the capacity of ATEC, ATEC will contract the 

work to independent certified testing facilities to include the National Institute of 

Justice. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. Many force-protection items, such as body 

armor, vehicle armor, and counter-IED equipment have been developed by both the 

Army and Marine Corps to address similar requirements. In 2006, GAO reported 

that a lack of a synchronized approach between the Marine Corps and the Army 

on addressing truck armor requirements and solutions resulted in the Marine Corps 

identifying its truck armor requirements and seeking armor solutions months after 

the Army, potentially delaying the availability of armored vehicles to deployed Marines. How do the Army and Marine Corps coordinate on the development and fielding of force-protection solutions that address similar urgent needs requirements of 

both services? How does each of the services ensure that they are preventing duplication of efforts and effectively leveraging their scarce resources when developing 

solutions that might address both Army and Marine Corps needs? 

General BROGAN. The Army and the Marine Corps continue to coordinate effectively on the development and fielding of force-protection solutions. The DoD has established a standard system for truck armoring and both the Army and Marine 

Corps are armoring their vehicles to the same level as we converge on armor solutions. As for individual personal protective equipment, the Marine Corps coordinates 

closely with PEO Ground Soldier. Both organizations continue to share test data 

with one another in an effort to continually upgrade and provide the best protective 

equipment available to our troops. We share all test data and communicate openly 

with each other. Even when specific products are different as in the case of Medium 

Tactical Vehicle Replacement and Improved Modular Tactical Vest, the protection 

levels are the same. 

The Army and the Marine Corps do not believe that duplication of effort is counterproductive. There is value in competition and we effectively leverage our scarce 

resources by challenging industry to come up with the best and most innovative solutions available today. Through these efforts, we ensure that our Services are provided with the most sophisticated and reliable equipment on the market today. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. What are your primary force protection challenges that you will face should we shift forces from Iraq to Afghanistan? What does 

the Army need? What does the Marine Corps need? 

General BROGAN. There are no unique force protection challenges in Afghanistan. 

However, as we shift forces from Iraq to Afghanistan the different terrain, topography and cultural landscape will present challenges. Restrictive roads, and mountainous terrain will restrict the use of MRAPs. Minimizing the weight of personal 

protective equipment will be more important in the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan than in the flat urbanized landscape in Iraq. We are developing policies and 

acquisition practices for our future equipment that will make it more modular and 

scalable to allow us to increase and decrease armor protection and its associated 

weight according to the commander’s assessment of mission requirements and 

threat. 
85 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. Do you consider the X–SAPI requirement to 

be an urgent and compelling need? If not, why? 

General BROGAN. [The information referred to is classified and retained in the 

committee files.] 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. Are you aware of an operational need statement, universal urgent need statement or joint urgent operational need statement 

for a next generation body armor plate that provides for a higher level of ballistic 

protection? 

General BROGAN. No, the Marine Corps is not aware of an operational need statement, universal urgent need statement or joint urgent operational need statement 

for a next generation body armor plate. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. Explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) are a 

primary killer on the battlefield. What force protection measures and TTPs are we 

using to defeat this threat? How are we staying ahead of this adaptive enemy? 

General BROGAN. [The information referred to is classified and retained in the 

committee files.] 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. How do you encourage the development of 

next generation body armor by the industrial and R&D communities and what is 

the Army and Marine Corps’s process for evaluating these potential advances? Is 

this process standardized? What is the extent of the R&D effort to reduce the weight 

of body armor systems? 

General BROGAN. The load carried by the individual Marine in combat is based 

upon the mission, the enemy threat, and the environment and terrain in which they 

will be operating. The Marine Corps has fielded PPE items that enhance our commanders’ ability to scale loads to best suit the situation. The Marine Corps continues to actively challenge industry to design equipment that can perform at least 

as effectively as today’s gear but with reduced weight and volume. 

Dialogue with our vendors and potential vendors continues to involve discussions 

about ways to decrease the burden on the individual Marine. The Marine Corps 

uses continuous strategic market research, Quarterly Industry Days, and the Small 

Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program to enhance links with industry. We 

have engaged industry at events such as Modern Day Marine Exposition, Executive 

Workshop, Expeditionary Warfare Conference, Navy League Sea, Air & Space Exposition, Advanced Planning Brief to Industry, and Acquisition Excellence Day. As it 

relates to body armor, the Marine Corps is currently pursuing SBIR efforts in the 

areas of developing a lighter weight Enhanced-SAPI (E–SAPI) plate and the development of an objective-weight (same weight as E–SAPI with performance characteristics of X–SAPI) X–SAPI plate. 

The Marine Corps is involved with the science and technology communities and 

is funding research efforts designed to yield material solutions that can reduce the 

weight, and volume of equipment being used today while also increasing performance. Inclusive in these studies are projects being sponsored under the Department 

of Defense’s Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program, as well as Marine 

Corps funded projects through the Naval Research Labs (NRL), and the Office of 

Naval Research (ONR). 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. What quality control measures are used to 

ensure that all body armor fielded to troops meets specifications? 

General BROGAN. Our body armor test protocols are constantly evaluated to ensure that they thoroughly and properly test the plates in all potential operational 

environments. The Marine Corps uses International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9000 family vendors that make use of best industry practices to maintain 

optimal quality control. Ballistic performance of the armor is initially verified by 

First Article Testing (FAT) and is complemented by Lot Acceptance Testing (LAT) 

of a pre-determined quantity of random samples gathered by the Defense Contract 

Management Agency (DCMA). The PPE that is issued by the Marine Corps has met 

government test standards by National Institutes of Justice certified labs. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. Why are the Army and Marine Corps procuring different outer tactical vests that provide the same level of protection? Please 

explain why one design would not be appropriate for both services. 

General BROGAN. The physical dimensions, missions, and operational approach of 

the two services differ, therefore, the desired form, fit, and function of the soft 

armor carriers are developed by each service to satisfy these dissimilar needs. Body 

armor requirements are based on protection from ballistic projectiles, blast, and fire, 

balanced against the need to keep the equipment light enough to permit Marines 

to carry out their missions. The Marine Corps incorporates the feedback of its user 

community on the desired attributes and features that they would like to see included in the design of body armor. 
86 

The Commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC) has approved the way ahead for 

the next generation vest, including the parallel development of improvements to the 

MTV and SPC as a bridge to development of the next generation vest. The objective 

of the next generation vest will be to incorporate all of the modular and scalable 

aspects of the ‘‘improved’’ MTV and ‘‘improved’’ SPC into one ‘‘Joint’’ vest. The Marine Corps is committed to the development of the Next generation vest in close coordination with the Army and the other Armed Services. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. Do you consider flame resistance to be a key 

performance specification requirement for combat helmet pad suspension systems? 

If not, why not? Are you seeing any burn injuries as a direct result from pad suspension systems igniting? 

General BROGAN. No, flame resistance is not a key performance specification requirement for combat helmet pad suspension systems. The USMC Lightweight Helmet (LWH) is composed of a para-aramid fiber that exhibits natural flame resistance properties, and protects against ballistic threats and flash flame incendiary 

events. Any flame in contact with a pad long enough to ignite would have already 

seriously injured the individual wearing the helmet. 

The Brooks Army Medical Center, the Department of Defense’s burn center responsible for treating all DOD burn casualties, has no record of burn injuries associated with helmet pads igniting or melting. The Naval Health Research Center reports that out of 192 burn patients, there are no injuries associated with helmet 

pads melting or dripping. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. What metrics do you use to evaluate and procure pad suspension systems? Do you consider comfort and feedback from the 

warfighter? 

General BROGAN. Blunt Impact: Blunt impact testing was performed in 2006 by 

the US Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory, with oversight from the Office of 

the Secretary of Defense, Director of Test and Evaluation (DOT&E). This helmet 

pad testing evaluated the performance of the helmet padding material (in ambient, 

cold and hot temperatures) by impacting the helmet in different locations and tested 

impact attenuation of the material in large and small contact areas. The testing 

methodology was chosen to compare the test results across the previously fielded 

suspension systems. 

Flame Resistance: The USMC Lightweight Helmet (LWH) is composed of a paraaramid fiber that exhibits natural flame resistance properties, and protects against 

ballistic threats and flash flame incendiary events. The flame resistance of the helmet is tested as part of a modified FED–STD–191 test method 5903.1 and the Marine Corps tests the helmet pads as part of a system within the USMC Lightweight 

Helmet and other associated gear. The helmet pad flame resistance testing was performed according to the Pyroman test method, a commercial standard which simulates flash fires of up to 4 seconds in duration, and correlates to a Burn Injury Prediction (BIP) scale, similar to what occurs in an IED event. 

Comfort: The Marine Corps completed three user surveys on the LWH in 2007. 

A Limited User Evaluation (LUE) was performed assessing the fit, form, and function of the helmet pads in 2008. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. Where will the Army and Marine Corps conduct future body armor testing and how did you select your approach? 

General BROGAN. The Marine Corps looks forward to fully participating in the 

DOT&E’s Integrated Process Team for the development of standard protocols and 

processes for the testing of body armor. In the interim, the Marine Corps’ approach 

to body armor testing will continue to rely upon government-approved independent 

test labs, with periodic inspections, to test its body armor. First Article Testing will 

be conducted at government owned labs and Lot Acceptance Testing will be permitted at National Institutes of Justice certified labs with appropriate government 

on-site for oversight testing. When the revised standard protocols and processes are 

implemented, the Marine Corps envisions using a combination of government-owned 

and government-approved independent lab facilities to conduct future body armor 

testing. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. If modifying MRAP design proves to be a significant mitigating factor in MRAP rollovers, is it possible to modify the thousands 

of deployed MRAPs and those already manufactured and in the MRAP pipeline? If 

these MRAPs can be modified, what are the associated funding issues? 

General BROGAN. If there are modifications that can mitigate rollovers, we are capable of making them in theater. We do not have to transport vehicles back to the 

United States. 

It is unlikely that a design modification is going to significantly affect rollover – 

this is a high center of gravity vehicle. Of the 116 rollovers recorded during the (17 

month) period, 72 were attributed to the road failing, (e.g. poor infrastructure). 
87 

Twenty-two were due to driver maneuverability, which is best addressed in the 

training pipeline. The better trained the driver, the less likely they are to conduct 

a maneuver that will hazard the vehicle. 

The JPO currently has some funding in hand and some included in future budget 

requests to procure and install various modifications into MRAP vehicles. If a modification is designed or becomes available to prevent vehicle rollovers, we will either 

realign on-hand/requested funds or seek additional funds. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. DOD is currently ‘‘catching up’’ in terms of 

acquiring and stockpiling MRAP repair parts. Is this shortage a function of funding, 

the ability of the respective MRAP manufacturers to produce sufficient stocks of repair parts, of programmatic priorities, or a combination of factors? 

General BROGAN. We are no longer catching up; repair parts generally available. 

We have effectively balanced production and sustainment. We have maintained 

higher than 90 percent operational readiness availability while producing vehicles 

and building operating stocks. 

In a little over a year, the Program began provisioning vehicles from five different 

manufacturers. We based our initial Stockage levels on our limited experience with 

route-clearance vehicles, and used analogies from heavy trucks and Stryker. We also 

learned the specifics of our MRAP fleet and determined which parts were going to 

become high demand and needed to be stocked. Overall, we have been effective in 

our parts supply and resupply efforts and have maintained the vehicles so they are 

operational and available to the user. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. DOTE has recommended ‘‘the MRAP JPO in 

conjunction with the Army Test and Evaluation Command conduct a detailed operational assessment of all variants of MRAP vehicles based upon data gathered from 

deployed MRAP-equipped units. This operational assessment would provide information for further vehicle improvements.’’ Do you plan to implement this recommendation from DOTE? If not, why not? 

General BROGAN. JPO MRAP is gathering data from forces in theater. There are 

at least five formal operational unit feedback mechanisms in place for capturing 

what the warfighter states as their requirement for MRAP capability improvements: 

the deployment of JPO Forward personnel, a Joint User Working Group-Monthly 

meeting of all Services and SOCOM representatives, user surveys conducted by deployed personnel from the testing community, weekly video teleconferences to review current issues, and user conferences. Some engineering change proposals are 

the result of field feedback, and the MRAP Operations Cell has developed a process 

that requests all information required for appropriate analysis. As a result, capability improvements to both safety and survivability include a gunner’s restraint 

system, fuel tank fire suppression, and overhead wire mitigation kits. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. What is the difference between the M–ATV 

and Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV)? 

General BROGAN. M–ATV is designed to meet an urgent near term need. It is not 

a development effort. The JLTV is designed to meet a critical long term need, and 

with the concomitant insight and influence on life cycle cost and effectiveness within 

the future force available through the CJCSI 3170/DOD 5000 paired processes. A 

major difference between the two vehicles is weight. An M–ATV weighs approximately 25,000 pounds, whereas a JLTV is expected to weigh about 13,500 pounds. 

The JLTV is needed to preserve the MAGTF’s expeditionary nature. Therefore, 

JLTV sets rotary wing transport as a boundary condition of the system, whereas 

M–ATV does not. The JLTV is also intended to have modular scalable survivability. 

As the threat increases, additional protection in the form of kits may be added to 

the vehicle. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. Are there sufficient contractors in Iraq and 

Afghanistan to support the ever-growing MRAP fleets? 

General BROGAN. Yes, there are currently sufficient Field Support Representatives (FSRs) in Iraq and Afghanistan to support the MRAP fleet. We are adding additional FSRs as the fleet grows. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. When do you plan to transition the life-cycle 

management of MRAP vehicles from the Marine Corps to the Army? 

General BROGAN. The transition will be event driven. The agreement between the 

two Service Acquisition Executives is that we will begin the transition when production and fielding are complete. Since we are yet to begin producing M–ATV vehicles, 

transition is far in the future. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE and Mr. TAYLOR. How many M–ATVs do you expect to procure? 

Will the M–ATV program have the same priority rating as the MRAP vehicle program? If not? Why not? 

General BROGAN. The approved Joint Urgent Operation Needs Statement 

(JUONS) is for 2,080 vehicles. We will also have to procure some overhead vehicles 
88 

for testing, but we currently plan to field 2,080 vehicles to Commander, Joint Task 

Force 101. They will be used to compliment the other tactical vehicles that are already in the theater of operations. Yes, the M–ATV will be produced and fielded 

using the DX rating and an Urgent Material Release (UMR). 

QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. BARTLETT 

Mr. BARTLETT. Describe the Army’s program of record for a counter sniper system 

to include the funding profile, schedule, and acquisition strategy. 

General LENNOX. The Army currently does not have a program of record for a 

counter sniper system. However, of the two potential acquisition programs that are 

related to ongoing sniper defeat initiatives, the following is the status: 

The Gunshot Detection System (GSD) vehicle borne system: 

The GSD requirement document was approved by HQDA on 13 Feb 09 and HQDA 

G3 issued the requirement document CARDS number 02077. The program will compete for funding in the FY12–17 Program Objective Memorandum (POM). Should 

the GSD program be funded, the Army plans to conduct a full and open competition 

to identify the best materiel solution to procure. As far as the urgency based procurement of vehicle borne gunshot detection systems is concerned, the Army has 

fielded 607 Boomerang III Gunshot Detection Systems in Iraq/Afghanistan to date 

and plans to field over 2000 more systems throughout the year. 

The Individual Gunshot Detector (IGD) soldier worn system: 

The IGD requirement document is currently being staffed at the Army Requirements Oversight Council for approval. The Rapid Equipping Force (REF), Asymmetric Warfare Group (AWG), and Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) are 

conducting an evaluation in OEF and OIF on an IGD representative system called 

the Soldier Wearable Acoustic Targeting System (SWATS). The test report is expected by early April 2009 and will be used to inform Army decision makers regarding the approval of the IGD requirement. Should the requirement be approved, the 

program will compete for funding in the FY12–17 POM. If the program is funded, 

the Army plans to conduct a full and open competition to identify the best materiel 

solution. To date, the REF has fielded over 1000 SWATS to units in Iraq/Afghanistan that have requested individual gunshot detection capability. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WILSON 

Mr. WILSON. General, the Center for Naval Analysis conducted a survey on small 

arms for the Army in 2006. This survey questioned Soldiers recently returned from 

combat who had used their weapon to engage the enemy. The study found for example that 38% of the Soldiers who experienced a stoppage with the M9 reported an 

inability to engage the enemy with the weapon even after performing immediate action to clear the stoppage during a significant portion of or all of the firefight. I also 

note that Special Operations Command is replacing their M4 rifles with a new 

weapon. Given the level of dissatisfaction with small arms found by the Center for 

Naval Analysis is the Army doing anything to generate a new requirement for a pistol or rifle? 

General LENNOX. Mr. Wilson, in the same Center for Naval Analysis (CNA) study 

you cited, approximately 90% of the Soldiers surveyed were satisfied with the performance of the M4 Carbine. Additionally, in another recent survey of 917 Soldiers 

with recent combat experience with the M4 in Iraq or Afghanistan, 89% of Soldiers 

reported overall satisfaction with the M4 and only 1% of these Soldiers recommended that the M4 be replaced. Although the weapons are performing well, the 

Army continually seeks ways to improve their performance as well as provide Soldiers with enhanced capabilities. To that purpose we conducted an Industry Technology Day on November 13th that was designed to gather information from our industry partners as to what is achievable in terms of small arms technology. This 

is an important step in the effort to ensure that our Soldiers always have the best 

industry has to offer. The Individual Carbine Capabilities Development Document 

(CDD) is currently in the staffing and approval process. The goal for the CDD to 

complete all staffing is September 2009. As directed by Secretary Geren, we plan 

to conduct a full and open competition utilizing the new requirement beginning in 

late 2009. We will look at the industry’s best innovations and proposed solutions for 

a possible new individual weapon. 

For the handgun, the 38% you refer to is actually a percentage of another percentage which translates to 1⁄2% of the Soldiers surveyed. That said, the Army’s Small 

Arms Capability Based Assessment (CBA) confirmed the shortfall in the area of the 

personal defense weapon, and the Army has prioritized the development of a sub- 
89 

compact or ‘‘miniature carbine’’ capability ahead of the pistol at this time. However, 

currently the Army plans to wait until the completion of the carbine competition to 

see what industry provides as solutions to better inform the writing of a sub-compact requirement. The Air Force (AF) has completed a new joint requirement for a 

handgun that can be adopted by any service. The Army is looking closely at adopting this requirement in the near future. The AF wrote the Modular Handgun System (MHS) Capabilities Production Document (CPD) with significant input from the 

Army and joint participation from all services. 

Mr. WILSON. Is the Army and Marine Corps working to equip every military vehicle, including light, medium and heavy tactical vehicles, with fuel tank fire suppression kits? 

General LENNOX. No. The vehicles most vulnerable to fuel tank fire hazards have 

been those with external side saddle fuel tanks: the Army Line Haul tractors, Heavy 

Equipment Transport (HET) tractors, Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck 

(HEMTT) and the Marine Corps Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement Vehicle 

(MTVR). In Iraq insurgents have specifically targeted these side saddle tanks during 

IED attacks. Only vehicles destined for, or in, Theater are equipped with a Fire 

Suppression Kit (FSK); either a Kevlar ‘‘quilt’’ made of 6-inch stitched pouches of 

fire suppression powder or a molded, hollow plastic shell filled with fire suppression 

powder, wrapped around the saddle tanks. When activated by an IED event, the 

powder disperses in the shot line and the surrounding area suppressing the fire. 

Pooling fuel that comes in contact with the powder becomes inert, reducing the likelihood of secondary fires caused by penetrated fuel lines or secondary ignition. 

The Army has a validated ONS, and is equipping all armored Line Haul, HETS 

tractor, and HEMTT vehicles in Theater with FSKs. The Marine Corps plans to 

equip every MTVR with fuel tank protection kits, with initial priority on armored 

vehicles. All MTVRs in theater have been retrofitted with fuel tank protection kits. 

The USMC is looking at adapting the MTVR (Firetrace) fuel tank protection kit to 

Logistics Vehicle System Replacement, but there is no current requirement to add 

these kits to the vehicles. 

Mr. WILSON. Is fuel tank fire suppression viewed differently depending on the category of vehicle? 

General LENNOX. Yes, the Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership 

and Education, Personnel and Facility (DOTMLPF) analysis for Tactical Wheeled 

Vehicle Fires completed in April 2008 concluded that no one solution will fill the 

capability gap to prevent and then quickly eliminate/extinguish vehicle fires. Solutions are dependent on vehicle type, age, design and specific mission. First priority 

is crew safety, survivability, escape and rescue. Second priority is to minimize vehicle and cargo damage. 

Many vehicles in theater (included all Tactical Vehicles) are equipped with portable, vehicle-mounted and back-pack foam systems as Basic Issue Items. Stryker 

systems have integrated a foam distribution system into the design of the vehicle, 

focusing on extinguishing tire fires. Foam agents are one effective solution for extinguishing petroleum based fires in tactical vehicles. Automatic foam systems, however, may not be possible in every tactical vehicle because of design strictures, integration structures, crew areas. Some MRAP vehicles also employ dry powder fuel 

zone fire suppression systems which can be manually or are automatically activated. 

Saddle tank, dry-powder Fire Suppression Panels or Kevlar quilts are very effective for external fuel tanks on tactical trucks. These solutions have been installed 

on HEMTT, HET, Line Haul and MTVR vehicles in theater. M978, HEMTT, 2,500 

gallon Fuel Tankers also have additional protection that incorporate Fuel Tank SelfSealing spray, which closes small-arms and splinter punctures in the fuel tanks 

thus mitigating fire hazards from fuel leaks, and armor grade steel over hoses and 

pumping components to protect critical equipment from small arms fire and IED 

fragments. 

Mr. WILSON. When does the Army expect to have the MRAP home station training requirement at 100%? 

General LENNOX. The Army has identified that a total of 702 MRAP vehicles are 

currently needed to support pre-deployment training. The Army expects to have that 

many vehicles at approximately twenty different training locations by the end of December 2009. There are already 26 vehicles supporting training in the United 

States, and another 25 have been identified in Kuwait for shipment back to support 

training by April 2009. As the Army receives the newest and most capable MRAP 

vehicles in theater, older and less capable vehicles are being replaced and returned 

for use in training Soldiers before they deploy. The Army will adjust the schedule 

for the return of these older vehicles based on a number of factors, including how 

much maintenance is required on the vehicles before they are shipped, and when 
90 

shipping is available. Changes in the operational situation could also cause the 

Army to adjust the schedule or numbers. 

QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MS. SHEA-PORTER 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. General, the Center for Naval Analysis conducted a survey on 

small arms for the Army in 2006. This survey questioned Soldiers recently returned 

from combat who had used their weapon to engage the enemy. The study found for 

example that 38% of the Soldiers who experienced a stoppage with the M9 reported 

an inability to engage the enemy with the weapon even after performing immediate 

action to clear the stoppage during a significant portion of or all of the firefight. I 

also note that Special Operations Command is replacing their M4 rifles with a new 

weapon. Given the level of dissatisfaction with small arms found by the Center for 

Naval Analysis can you tell us why the Army has not been able to generate a new 

requirement for a pistol or rifle? 

General LENNOX. Ms. Shea-Porter, in the same Center for Naval Analysis (CNA) 

study you cited, approximately 90% of the Soldiers surveyed were satisfied with the 

performance of the M4 Carbine. Additionally, in another recent survey of 917 Soldiers with recent combat experience with the M4 in Iraq or Afghanistan, 89% of Soldiers reported overall satisfaction with the M4 and only 1% of these Soldiers recommended that the M4 be replaced. Although the weapons are performing well, the 

Army continually seeks ways to improve their performance as well as provide Soldiers with enhanced capabilities. To that purpose we conducted an Industry Technology Day on November 13th that was designed to gather information from our industry partners as to what is achievable in terms of small arms technology. This 

is an important step in the effort to ensure that our Soldiers always have the best 

industry has to offer. The Individual Carbine Capabilities Development Document 

(CDD) is currently in the staffing and approval process. The goal for the CDD to 

complete all staffing is September 2009. As directed by Secretary Geren, we plan 

to conduct a full and open competition utilizing the new requirement beginning in 

late 2009. We will look at the industry’s best innovations and proposed solutions for 

a possible new individual weapon. 

For the handgun, the 38% you refer to is actually a percentage of another percentage which translates to 1⁄2% of the Soldiers surveyed. That said, the Army’s Small 

Arms Capability Based Assessment (CBA) confirmed the shortfall in the area of the 

personal defense weapon, and the Army has prioritized the development of a subcompact or ‘‘miniature carbine’’ capability ahead of the pistol at this time. However, 

currently the Army plans to wait until the completion of the carbine competition to 

see what industry provides as solutions to better inform the writing of a sub-compact requirement. The Air Force (AF) has completed a new joint requirement for a 

handgun that can be adopted by any service. The Army is looking closely at adopting this requirement in the near future. The AF wrote the Modular Handgun System (MHS) Capabilities Production Document (CPD) with significant input from the 

Army and joint participation from all services. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. GIFFORDS 

Ms. GIFFORDS. Given the weight of individual body armor systems and associated 

equipment, what is being done to treat muscular or skeletal injuries associated with 

carrying these loads for extended periods? 

General LENNOX. Soldiers complain of pain in the spine (neck, mid, and lower 

back), shoulders, and lower extremities after wearing the gear for an extended period of time. One study queried the Soldiers who had these complaints and found 

that those who wore the gear for four hours or longer had more complaints than 

those wearing the gear for shorter periods. The immediate treatment is to allow for 

frequent periods of ‘‘unloading’’ or taking the gear off if it is safe to do so. The Army 

recognizes physical therapists (PTs) as the primary care providers for prevention, 

identification, treatment, and rehabilitation of musculoskeletal injuries. These PTs 

use a sports medicine approach to identify, treat, and rehabilitate musculoskeletal 

injuries expeditiously which is critical in a wartime environment as Soldiers are 

able to stay healthy and ‘‘in the fight’’. Treatments for Soldiers with musculoskeletal 

injuries include joint manipulation, specific therapeutic exercises, soft tissue manipulation as well as a variety of modalities to mitigate pain, promote healing, and prevent reoccurrence. PTs also assist Commanders with unit exercise programs that 

strengthen the shoulders, lower extremities, and muscles surrounding the spine in 

order to prevent injuries from occurring when wearing the gear. Programs focusing 

on injury prevention and performance enhancement emphasize core strengthening, 
91 

plyometrics (used to train explosiveness and power in muscles i.e., jumping on/off 

boxes of varying heights simulates jumping on/off vehicles in combat), and cardiorespiratory endurance. The programs also emphasize muscular strength, muscular 

endurance (anaerobic endurance), power, and movement proficiency (incorporates 

balance, flexibility, coordination, speed, and agility) to better prepare Soldiers to 

physically withstand the rigors of combat. In conclusion, by making sure Soldiers 

receive early identification and treatment of their musculoskeletal injuries and improving Soldiers’ physical strength and conditioning, we also improve the overall 

medical readiness of our Force. 

Ms. GIFFORDS. What changes have you made to your fitness and nutrition programs to better train servicemembers for carrying their current combat loads? Are 

your current fitness tests and weight standards sufficient? What type of fitness 

trainers do you have at company and battalion levels to train your servicemembers 

for the rigors of combat? 

General LENNOX. The Army Physical Fitness School at Fort Jackson, South Carolina has researched our physical fitness doctrine and found our current model that 

emphasizes aerobic and muscular endurance does not correlate well with the physical fitness requirements of current combat operations. To fill this gap, the Physical 

Fitness School drafted a new doctrine called Army Physical Readiness Training 

(Field Manual 3–22.20) that aligns with our current operations and training doctrine. Army Physical Readiness Training focuses on improving Soldiers’ aerobic endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance (anaerobic endurance), power, and 

movement proficiency which physically prepares Soldiers and units to meet the 

physical demands of full spectrum operations. As this new doctrine is inculcated 

throughout the Army, we will adjust our physical fitness test to reflect this change. 

In the meantime, units across the Army, with the assistance of subject matter experts, have adopted a variety of injury prevention and performance enhancement 

programs. For example, Special Forces and several Brigade Combat Teams have implemented programs that, in addition to traditional aerobic exercise, emphasize core 

strengthening, short term bursts of power, and speed and agility drills. Army training policy continues to highlight that commanders are the primary training managers and trainers for their organization. Although the Army no longer designates 

a unit fitness trainer, unit commanders delegate authority to non-commissioned officers (NCOs) as the primary trainers of enlisted Soldiers, crews, and small teams. 

This new doctrine designates the NCOs as the primary trainers for Physical Readiness Training in units. 

With regard to nutrition, the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine has developed a new, light-weight, small volume ration that can be eaten onthe-move without any preparation. Their Military Nutrition Division worked with 

the ration developer to define the optimal amounts of different nutrients needed to 

sustain physical performance and prevent excess loss of lean mass during extended 

combat missions. The result of this collaborative effort is the ‘‘Nutritionally Optimized’’ First Strike Ration that is currently available for use in Theater. 

Finally, the Army considers our weight standards as outlined in Army Weight 

Program policy (Army Regulation 600–9, 27 November 2006) to be sufficient. The 

weight table and measurement techniques outlined in this regulation were carefully 

evaluated by the US Army Research Institute for Environmental Medicine and a 

team of nutritionists, healthcare professionals and fitness experts. 

Ms. GIFFORDS. The MRAPs that we have rushed to the field in Iraq are too large 

and too heavy for Afghanistan and are not ideal for domestic missions at the National Guard level. What will be done with MRAPs once our forces leave Iraq? 

General LENNOX. The Army is committed to keeping MRAP in the Force Structure. There are plans to integrate up to 1,400 MRAP into Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Route Clearance organizations. Additionally, the Army is exploring the 

operational feasibility of placing them in other organizations, including Sustainment 

Brigades, Maneuver Enhancement Brigades, Army Prepositioned Stocks and Training Sets. 

Ms. GIFFORDS. What plans are in place or being developed to transition our UpArmored Humvees back to the United States or directly to Afghanistan as forces 

drawdown in Iraq? 

General LENNOX. The Army’s current validated Theater operational requirement 

for UAH is 19,645. This requirement is currently being re-evaluated based on possible reductions of forces in Iraq and the pending force structure decisions for Afghanistan. The Army will not be able to finalize its requirements until these decisions are made. 

As requirements in Iraq are reduced, Theater will fill all requirements in Afghanistan first, and then begin moving UAH back to the United States to fill MTOE requirements and training sets, thereby supporting readiness for future operations. 
92 

Ms. GIFFORDS. Given the substantially improved survivability of MRAP-like vehicles and the potential for future enemies to utilize similar asymmetric means, how 

are you incorporating successes of these vehicle designs into FCS? 

General LENNOX. Operational feedback and lessons learned inform our design 

process. While FCS Manned Ground Vehicles (MGV) are designed to provide protection against a broader range of direct-fire threats than MRAP-like vehicles, the FCS 

program is exploring concepts for protecting MGVs based on the same principles 

that enable MRAP-like vehicles to protect our Soldiers against Improvised Explosive 

Devices (IED). FCS is assessing the feasibility of incorporating principles such as 

increased ground clearance to reduce the effects of evolving threats. Other exploratory efforts include potentially developing a Mine Kit similar to the MRAP-like ‘‘V’’- 

shaped hull. 

FCS MGVs will use advanced armor technologies to achieve significant ballistic 

protection for hemispherical and under-vehicle threats. Lightweight, ceramic-based 

composites provide performance protection up to medium caliber for hemispherical 

threats. Additional under-vehicle protection is gained through an anti-tank (AT) 

mine kit that provides significant capability against AT mines. 

FCS MGVs are designed to accept future upgrades of ballistic armor to take advantage of increased performance at lower weights. The common modular approach 

to all MGV designs allows for easy removal and replacement of the armor skin as 

future armor technologies evolve to meet the changing threat. The Army, through 

the Army Research and Development Command (RDECOM), continues to develop, 

mature and provide improved armor solutions to the FCS program that not only 

provide increased performance but will continue to target reducing weight. 

Ms. GIFFORDS. Are the Army and Marine Corps closely coordinating efforts to design future combat vehicles? If not, why not? 

General LENNOX. Yes, the Program Executive Officer Land Systems (PEO LS) 

USMC is working closely with the Army on two future combat vehicle programs – 

Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) and Marine Personnel Carrier (MPC). With respect to JLTV, the U.S. Army is the lead service with a Joint Program Office at 

TACOM (Michigan) under the leadership of the Program Executive Office for Combat Support/Combat Service Support (PEO CSS) and has an additional Program Office under the leadership of the PEO LS USMC at Quantico, Virginia. The MPC 

Program Office is pursuing a joint effort with the Army to include Stryker in the 

revised MPC Analysis of Alternatives (AoA). 

Due to the cancellation of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) Expeditionary Family of Fighting Vehicles (MEFFV) program and the decision(s) to continue use of USMC Tanks and Light Armored Vehicles (LAVs) for the foreseeable 

future, the Marine Corps is no longer an active participant in the Army’s FCS MGV 

development program. However, the Marine Corps continues to closely monitor the 

FCS program. Recent areas of focus include MGV armor capabilities geared toward 

IED mitigation/survivability for the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) and the 

Active Protection System for use in the USMC LAV and EFV. USMC coordinates 

future vehicle S&T with the Army RDECOM and Office of Naval Research (ONR). 

PEO LS has also established a Marine Corps Integration Capability Cell with the 

Army’s FCS program at Fort Bliss, Texas. 

Ms. GIFFORDS. Given that we entered this war with little to no armored vehicles 

for our servicemembers who perform vital support and logistics functions, what are 

your plans for hardening future logistics and combat support vehicles? 

General LENNOX. TRADOC and PEO CS&CSS developed the Long Term Armor 

Strategy (LTAS) that was approved by the Army Requirements and Resourcing 

Board (AR2B) to enhance current Tactical Vehicle Platforms with an integrated 

armor capability through an A-cab, B-kit format. This concept allows peacetime operation in a lighter A-cab solution, with a capability to rapidly apply armor protection (B-kit) when required. To date, PM Tactical Vehicles has integrated this capability in the Up-armored HMMWV (UAH), Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles 

(FMTV) and Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT). The PM is currently developing solutions for the Palletized Loading System (PLS), Line Haul 

Tractor and Heavy Equipment Transporter. 

TRADOC is currently developing the Long Term Protection Strategy (LTPS) for 

Tactical Vehicles which includes updating the Army’s LTAS. The objective of the 

LTPS is to enhance the survivability of TWV occupants by synchronizing a variety 

of complementary Force protection and Survivability initiatives in support of current operations, Army Transformation and future modernization capabilities by optimizing strategies for procurement, deployment, recapitalization and sustainment. 

This strategy will provide recommended quantities of B-kits that should be maintained to ensure the Army has sufficient armor capabilities on-hand to support Tactical Vehicles deployment. 
93 

Ms. GIFFORDS. What help does the Army need to expedite the update of the 

Counter-IED Jamming systems in theater? 

General LENNOX. The Army is executing a strategy to keep their current fleet of 

jammers relevant to meet a constantly evolving threat. The current upgrade is the 

Duke V3. It is the most advanced Counter Remote Improvised Explosive Device 

Electronic Warfare (CREW) system available and provides increased protection 

against current threats and is software programmable to defeat future threats. Continued Congressional support for Counter-IED funding will allow the Army to adequately meet the OIF requirement and lean forward in supporting OEF. For the future, the Army will invest in long term Electronic Warfare capability that incorporates the counter IED (CREW) mission as a subset of a much more comprehensive 

and integrated Electronic Warfare system addressing the totality of Army Electronic 

Warfare requirements. 

Ms. GIFFORDS. Given the weight of individual body armor systems and associated 

equipment, what is being done to treat muscular or skeletal injuries associated with 

carrying these loads for extended periods? 

General BROGAN. The Marine Corps has not experienced a significant increase in 

musculoskeletal injuries. The average tour length for Marines deployed to a combat 

zone is seven months, versus the Army’s average tour length of 12–15 months. Our 

units form prior to beginning the Pre-Deployment Training Program (PTP). With 

very few exceptions, the entire unit completes PTP together. During PTP the Marines are conditioned, hardened and prepared for the rigors of the combat environment. Combined with our culture of high physical conditioning, we are not experiencing a significant increase in musculoskeletal injuries. 

Hospital Corpsmen attached to Marine units provide the first echelon of care for 

an injured Marine. Corpsmen are trained to rapidly respond and treat front-line casualties, and the treatment and management of musculoskeletal injuries makes up 

a large portion of their curriculum. 

Ms. GIFFORDS. What changes have you made to your fitness and nutrition programs to better train servicemembers for carrying their current combat loads? Are 

your current fitness tests and weight standards sufficient? What type of fitness 

trainers do you have at company and battalion levels to train your servicemembers 

for the rigors of combat? 

General BROGAN. A comprehensive review of USMC fitness programs began in 

Nov 2006. Key outputs of this review resulted in the following changes to Physical 

Training (PT) programs in Entry Level Training (ELT) and in guidelines for commanders in designing unit PT programs: Greater emphasis on anaerobic (short 

burst) capacity, de-emphasis of long distance running, increase in body movement 

skills (agility) and increase in progressive load bearing capacity. These changes are 

reflected in PT application, testing, and also in education of Marine leaders in the 

Training and Education continuum. Nutrition education begins in boot camp conducted by Semper Fit and continues in the T&E continuum as well. 

Pre-deployment physical training is sufficient to meet the demands of combat. Improvements to fitness programs have enhanced the already high physical fitness 

readiness of Marines. 

In May 2008, the Command of the Marine Corps (CMC) approved the Combat Fitness Test (CFT) which was implemented in Oct 2008. Designed to be a complement 

to the semi-annual Physical Fitness Test (PFT), CFT events are: Movement to Contact (880 yd run), Ammo Lift (repetitive overhead lift of a 30 lb ammo can for two 

minutes), and Maneuver Under Fire. The last event is a 300 yard shuttle run which 

includes sprints, numerous changes of direction, a fireman’s carry, buddy drag, 

ammo can carries and a simulated grenade throw. The CFT has helped shape 

USMC fitness programs, which will serve to enhance combat-related conditioning. 

USMC Height/Weight standards are in accordance with DoD guidelines. Maximum body fat allowances graduate slightly by age and are the lowest within DoD 

guidelines. 

There are no dedicated fitness trainers at the company and battalion levels. However, the Marine Corps has recently implemented a Combat Conditioning Specialist 

(CCS) program to assist commanders in designing and implementing their unit PT 

programs. Included in the CCS curriculum are classes on basic exercise physiology, 

injury prevention, etc. and contemporary strength and conditioning methods. In addition, commander’s also have access to Semper Fit personal trainers at major bases 

who also provide detailed expertise in designing effective PT programs. 

Ms. GIFFORDS. The MRAPs that we have rushed to the field in Iraq are too large 

and too heavy for Afghanistan. What will be done with MRAPs once our forces leave 

Iraq? 

General BROGAN. There are more than 1,800 MRAP vehicles in Afghanistan, at 

the request of operational commanders. Certain variants, such as the RG–31 
94 

MaxxPro Dash and Cougar variant have performed well. As the focus shifted from 

Iraq to Afghanistan, the Joint Program Office has procured more than 2,000 vehicles to meet theater-specific requirements in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). 

Speaking only for the Marine Corps, a portion of the fleet will go to operational 

forces: route clearing teams, explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) teams, and combat 

engineering organizations; a portion will go to geographic pre-positioning, and a portion will likely be made available for our maritime pre-positioning force. Currently, 

the Marine Corps does not intend to leave vehicles in Iraq. 

Ms. GIFFORDS. What plans are in place or being developed to transition our UpArmored Humvees back to the United States or directly to Afghanistan as forces 

drawdown in Iraq? 

General BROGAN. Transition of up armored HMMWVs back to CONUS will depend upon the state of the individual vehicle and will be made on a case-by-case 

basis prior to re-embarkation. Equipment determined to be cost-effective to repair 

will be returned to CONUS and reset at government depot facilities. Equipment determined not cost effective to repair will be made available for foreign military sales 

or the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service (DRMS). 

Ms. GIFFORDS. Given the substantially improved survivability of MRAP-like vehicles and the potential for future enemies to utilize similar asymmetric means, how 

are you incorporating successes of these vehicle designs into the Marine Expeditionary Family of Fighting Vehicles? 

General BROGAN. There is no Marine Expeditionary Family of Fighting Vehicles 

program. The Marine Corps’ HMMWV and MTVR fleet has already been up-armored. Armor kits are available for our heavy tactical vehicle fleet, which consists 

of the LVS/LVSR. The Marine Corps has ongoing programs to upgrade the LAV and 

Tank fleets to address current and projected mission requirements. 

Ms. GIFFORDS. Are the Army and Marine Corps closely coordinating efforts to design future combat vehicles? If not, why not? 

General BROGAN. Yes, the Marine Corps is working closely with the Army on future combat vehicle programs—JLTV. The JLTV program is Army lead with Marine 

Corps participation. 

Ms. GIFFORDS. Given that we entered this war with little to no armored vehicles 

for our servicemembers who perform vital support and logistics functions, what are 

your plans for hardening future logistics and combat support vehicles? 

General BROGAN. The Marine Corps is currently engaged in a study to determine 

future armoring requirements as well as a proposed strategy to meet the required 

capabilities of the future tactical wheeled vehicle fleet. The study will address issues 

including protection scalability, vehicle weight, square and cube, and expeditionary 

deployability. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. TSONGAS 

Ms. TSONGAS. Please provide budgetary details since 2004 for all funding for body 

armor S&T, R&D and where (program element) it resides. 

General FULLER. The budgetary details for R&D are provided, by Fiscal Year 

(FY): FY 2004, Program Element 0603747A (Soldier Support and Survivability) with 

a Program Amount of $1,029,639; FY 2005, Program Element 0603747A (Soldier 

Support and Survivability), with Program Amount of $1,869,509; FY 2005, Program 

Element 0604713A (Combat Feeding, Clothing and Equipment), with a Program 

Amount of $1,588,935; FY 2006, Program Element 0603827A (Soldier Systems—Advanced Development), with a Program Amount of $791,000.00; FY 2006, Program 

Element 0604601A (Infantry Support Weapons), with a Program Amount of 

$3,472,410; FY 2007, Program Element 0604601A (Infantry Support Weapons), with 

a Program Amount of $4,381,345; FY 2007, Program Element 0603827A (Soldier 

Systems—Advanced Development), with Program Amount of $530,000; FY 2008, 

Program Element 0603827A (Soldier Systems—Advanced Development), with a Program Amount of $1,562,019; FY 2008, Program Element 0604601A (Infantry Support Weapons), with a Program Amount of $2,185,499; FY 2009, Program Element 

0603827A (Soldier Systems—Advanced Development), with a Program Amount of 

$1,505,000 and FY 2009 to date, Program Element 0604601A (Infantry Support 

Weapons), with a Program Amount of $2,659,163. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Please provide budgetary details since 2004 for all funding for body 

armor S&T, R&D and where (program element) it resides. 

General BROGAN. The body armor R&D is funded by PE 0206623M Marine Corps 

Ground Combat/Supporting Arms Systems in the Research, Development, Test & 

Evaluation, Navy budget. The funding contained in the President’s Budget for R&D 

in support of body armor is as follows: 
95 

FY04: 1.0M 

FY05: 1.0M 

FY06: 2.7M 

FY07: 4.4M 

FY08: 5.6M 

FY09: 7.0M 

This funding was requested for the exploration of new commercial technologies 

that can be inserted into current body armor to reduce weight, increase survivability, lethality, and mobility. Both torso and head/neck ballistic studies will be 

conducted to assess blunt trauma/shock forces on the body and how ballistic materials/designs can afford the most protection while reducing weight. Modeling and 

simulation initiatives will baseline current equipment and enable configuration/compatibility management of new equipment. Specific R&D efforts for body armor include but are not limited to the following efforts: 

• Next generation equipment design 

• Combat casualty trend analysis and headborne integration efforts 

• Headborne injury trend and analysis, helmet sensor data collection and analysis 

• Prototyping skills, Computer Aided Design (CAD) pattern development, and 

sizing/fit standardization for body armor components 

Additionally, the following federal/government entities provide S&T support via 

funding, program management, or program execution: 

• Office of Naval Research (ONR) 

• Naval Research Lab (NRL) 

• USMC Small Business Innovative Research Office (SBIR) 

• U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development & Engineering (NSRDE) 

• Marine Corps Warfighting Lab (MCWL) 

Ms. TSONGAS. Snipers pose a serious threat to our armed forces because of their 

precision and elusiveness. NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, which 

leads coalition forces in Afghanistan, said last month that coalition deaths have 

risen sharply over the last several months, mainly due to the increase in the 

Taliban’s marksmen. There are proven technologies that can detect a threat’s location, and allow our soldiers and Marines to take preventive action that would undoubtedly save American lives. Last year’s Supplemental included $400 million for 

items such as Vanguards vehicles, Boomerangs, Decoy Boomerangs, and Sniper Defeat Fixed Site systems. Could you discuss the Army’s plans for spending these 

funds and its overall intentions for fully funding sniper detection and protection systems? Will the Army’s budget include additional funding for sniper defeat systems? 

General LENNOX and General FULLER. The Army has invested nearly $447M in 

FY08 Other Procurement, Army (OPA) funding to purchase various Sniper Defeat 

equipment in response to an urgent need from units deployed to Iraq/Afghanistan 

($400M was appropriated in the December 2007 Supplemental and nearly $47M in 

the July 2008 Supplemental). In addition to Vanguards, Boomerangs, and Decoy 

Boomerangs, the Army is in the process of fielding the Soldier Wearable Acoustic 

Targeting Systems (SWATS), Handheld Thermal Imagers, Binoculars, Nets/Veils, 

and 3x magnifiers for the Close Combat Optic. This year, the Army has allocated 

over $52 million in Operations and Maintenance, Army (OMA) funding for the 

sustainment of the aforementioned equipment and will continue sustaining these 

items for the foreseeable future. 

The Army has responded to every validated urgent need for Sniper Defeat equipment from deployed units and will continue to do so through the Senior Budget Requirements and Program Board (BRP). Furthermore, the Army has decided to transition two Sniper Defeat technologies into formal acquisition programs. The Army 

recently approved a requirement for a Gunshot Detection System (GSD) and approval for an Individual Gunshot Detector (IGD) is pending. These Army plans to 

compete these programs for funding during the development of the FY12–17 Program Objective Memorandum (POM). 

The Army’s Sniper Defeat Integrated Capabilities Development Team (ICDT) continues to monitor the enemy sniper threat and emerging technologies to counter 

that threat. The Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group (AWG) and the Rapid Equipping Force (REF) are members of the Sniper Defeat ICDT and assist in developing 

and bringing promising new Sniper Defeat technology into the Army. Should new 

Sniper Defeat technology prove viable, deployed units may document the capability 

required with an Operational Needs Statement (ONS) and request the equipment 

through the BRP process. Once fielded, the Army continues to assess select Sniper 
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Defeat technology via the Capabilities Development for Rapid Transition (CDRT) 

process. Based on user feedback from operational assessments, the CDRT council 

makes recommendations to senior Army leadership on whether the technology 

should remain in theater as a niche item, terminate, or transition into a formal acquisition program of record. 

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