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DoD won’t buy MRAP II, sources say

When the Pentagon places its final orders for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, it will buy first-generation 14- to 24-ton MRAPs with extra armor, not the 30-ton MRAP IIs, DoD and Marine Corps officials said.

The Army has been testing candidates for a planned order of MRAP IIs, the requirements for which were set after the appearance in Iraq of extra-powerful roadside bombs called explosively formed penetrators.

Candidates for the MRAP II order began undergoing blast and mobility tests at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., six months ago. The main contenders are a beefed-up version of BAE Systems’ RG 33, Blackwater’s Grizzly, Ideal Innovations, Oshkosh Truck and Ceradyne’s Bull, and a bulked-up version of Navistar’s MaxxPro.

Officially, Pentagon and Army officials will not make a decision between MRAPs and MRAP IIs until summer’s end, after the arrival of a field commanders’ report on MRAP.

During a Marine Corps program review in Quantico, Va., the last week of June, Blackwater officials learned that their Grizzly was out of the running, said an industry official involved in the process.

Blackwater had been hoping to discuss minor changes to the amount of armor protection in the forward area of the vehicle, the source said.

Instead, they were told that their vehicle had been disqualified because of its limited armor on the forward area — an amount of armor the Marines had already tested and approved, the source said.

“Even after we complained and said that [their actions] they would cause an automatic protest they told us, basically, ‘Go ahead and protest. We’re canceling the program anyway,’” the source said.

Marine Corps officials could not comment before press time.

So far, the U.S. military has taken delivery of 10,000 MRAPs; several thousand more are due by summer’s end.