Army, marines mull over options to modernize truck fleets.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Vehicle Market

The Defense Department has been on a truck-buying spree for the past several years, and the demand will remain high for some time. In the next two years, the tab for new tactical wheeled vehicles could reach $18 billion.

But truck manufacturers don't expect the good times to last too much longer. They predict tighter budgets for new vehicles, and pressures on the military services to keep their older trucks and fix them up, rather than buying replacements.

Senior officials have hinted that the Pentagon may be reluctant to fund expensive new truck programs given the tens of billions of dollars that already have been spent on armored tactical vehicles for the current conflicts.

Congress has asked the biggest military track buyers--the Army and the Marine Corps--to put forth a long-term plan for how they will modernize then' fleets of more than 300,000 tactical wheeled vehicles. Neither service has yet nailed down such plans. One reason is uncertainly about future budgets. They also are afraid of committing funds to vehicles that may not meet their needs years from now.

They are still smarting from the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan, where both services were sent to fight with trucks that lacked adequate protection against roadside bombs and rockets. Before the wars, trucks were regarded as mere transportation. Now, they are treated as combat vehicles, which means they must be heavily armored and ruggedized for off-road use.

"The pressing conundrum for the military is how to avoid the mistakes of the past and buy trucks that will still be useful decades from now, regardless of what conflicts might arise.

The perfect truck for the Pentagon would be light and agile, but have sufficient ballistic protection, burn less fuel and cost far below the nearly $1 million price tag of the mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) V-shape vehicles that have become indispensable in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Such dream vehicles don't yet exist, although truck manufacturers vow that much of what the Pentagon wants is achievable, assuming it commits to a long-term program with steady funding.

"I think the critical thing is doing research and development early," said R. Andrew Hove, executive vice president and president of the defense division of Oshkosh Corp., a manufacturer of tactical military trucks in Oshkosh, Wis.

"We have different materials, different energy and power sources that we can utilize in vehicle design going forward, so that we can build vehicles that are more adaptable and more flexible in the future," he said in an interview. The military will need vehicles that are "scalable up and down, to different levels of threat," he said.

Defense contractors traditionally have been accustomed to drawn-out programs that allow them to spend years and significant amounts of money designing and testing prototypes. Such projects run counter to the philosophy espoused by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who directed the Pentagon's acquisition bureaucracy to focus on winning today's wars and to deliver relevant equipment, quickly

When it comes to trucks, the Army is "implementing Gates' strategy of balancing for today's fight," said Chris Chambers, general manager and vice president of BAE Systems' Sealy, Texas, operations. The company makes the Army's family of medium tactical vehicles (FMTV).

"We see a concentration on enhancing current fleets and creating a bridge to future requirements," said Chambers. "It's that balance the Army is trying to strike."

The commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James Conway, has been vocal in recent months about the difficulties of acquiring trucks that meet marines' immediate ground-combat demands but also are functional in amphibious deployments that would require trucks to be moved by ships, helicopters and hovercraft.

For the Afghanistan war, the Defense Department is purchasing thousands of so-called "all terrain MRAPs" or M-ATVs. But some marines don't particularly care for them because they're not maneuverable in parts of that country's rough terrain, Conway said. "Our...