Navistar to repair and upgrade as many as 450 MRAP armored military vehicles and vetronics
WARREN, Mich., 25 May 2016. Armored combat vehicle experts at Navistar Defense LLC in Lisle, Ill., will rebuild and upgrade 250 mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) military vehicles and vetronics systems under terms of a $29.8 million contract modification announced Tuesday.
Officials of the Army Contracting Command in Warren, Mich., are asking Navistar to reset and upgrade an additional 250 MRAPs, with an option for an additional 200 vehicles.
MRAP is a wheeled armored personnel carrier with a V-shaped hull designed to deflect the energy from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) detonated from beneath the vehicle. It has room to carry six warfighters, including the drivers, and can carry 3,650 pounds of cargo, passengers, weapons, and fuel.
MRAP vehicles have had a variety of electronic subsystems, including rugged Gigabit Ethernet switches from Aeronix Inc. in Melbourne, Fla. and from Sixnet in Ballston Lake, N.Y.; the Falcon II AN/VRC-104 HF military radio from the Harris RF Communications segment in Rochester, N.Y.; smart display units (SDU) from General Dynamics Canada; and infrared night-vision driver’s vision enhancers (DVEs) from DRS Technologies and BAE Systems.
The diesel-powered MRAP can travel on and off road, has run-flat tire inserts, and is air transportable by the C-17 cargo jet. Its armor can protect occupants from rifle fire, as well as from a 30-pound explosive detonation underneath the vehicle from IEDs.
The vehicle has ballistic protection for the radiator, tires, battery compartment, fuel tanks, engine and transmission.
From 2007 until 2012, the Pentagon's MRAP program deployed more than 12,000 MRAPs in the Iraq War and War in Afghanistan, and some of these vehicles are being reset and upgraded, while others are being scrapped.
The Army's combat vehicle reset program is designed to reverse the effects of combat stress on equipment. It seeks to return military vehicles to optimal condition after they redeploy from a combat operation.
On this contract Navistar will do the work in West Point, Miss., and should be finished by May 2017. For more information contact Navistar Defense online at www.navistardefense.com, or the Army Contracting Command at www.army.mil/acc.
John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
