MULE unneeded in BCT restructure, Army says - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

MULE unneeded in BCT restructure, Army says

Remember that unmanned, pack-mule vehicle the Army was building to carry rucksacks, water, ammo and other heavy gear for combat troops? Forget about seeing it on a battlefield near you.

The Multifunction Utility Logistics Equipment vehicle, known as the MULE, was among the unmanned toys that survived from the now-defunct Future Combat Systems program.

The Army canceled FCS after Defense Secretary Robert Gates decided to kill the Manned Ground Vehicles portion of the massive modernization program in the fiscal 2010 defense budget.

The Class 4 unmanned aerial vehicle known as the Fire Scout also has been canceled.

The Army killed the MULE-Transport and MULE-Countermine vehicles in December because the two concepts were no longer needed in the new Brigade Combat Team Modernization structure, said Paul Mehney, spokesman for Program Executive Office Integration

Task Force 120, a working group led by Training and Doctrine Command’s Army Capabilities Integration Center tasked to create a new strategy for modernizing Army BCTs, decided that the capabilities both vehicles would have provided “were no longer a requirement based on lessons learned from theater,” Mehney said.

However, the Armed Robotic Vehicle - Assault -Light, a version of the MULE armed with an M240 machine gun and Javelin missiles, is still in development, Mehney said. Testing is scheduled for fall 2011.

The Army decided to kill the Firescout, a UAV designed to support the FCS program with a robust airborne sensor package, in favor of building the sensor capability into current UAVs, Mehney said.

The dollar amounts to be recouped from the two programs were not available at press time.

— Matthew Cox