Joint Hearing of the Seapower Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee/Air Land Forces Subcommittee of House Armed Services Committee - MRAP Vehicle Program

Interview

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REP. JOE WILSON (R-SC): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank all of you for being here today.

I'm so interested in the MRAP program. And I'm interested as a member of Congress. I'm a veteran myself. But I'm particularly interested in that I have four sons serving in the military. One served for a year in Iraq. Another is on his way to Iraq. And so I'm interested for our troops.

And so much of the feelings that I have are to provide the best equipment we can to protect our troops. And what you're doing is so important. And I want to thank you for your efforts.

In particular, I've had the opportunity, thanks to Congressman Abercrombie, to recently be in Iraq and Afghanistan. My National Guard unit is in Afghanistan.

I've -- in my visits eight times to Iraq, four times to Afghanistan, as he was talking about talking with persons in theater to find out how successful and how helpful the equipment that our young servicemen and women have, it's just really heartwarming. And so you're making such a difference.

Also, Captain Hoover, I want to thank you. I've had the opportunity to visit SPAWAR. You have excellent personnel. They are so enthusiastic. And of course, I am a bit partial. The chairman has had two daughters go to the College of Charleston.

I had the extraordinary opportunity to be born in Charleston. So I'm very pleased about what you all are doing.

As we look ahead, I'm very interested in finding out what is the planning for a long-term sustainment for the MRAP program? And any of you could answer that.

MR. YOUNG: Congressman, I think unfortunately, none of us are exactly the right person to answer that question. The service chiefs have indicated, and the -- Secretary Gates has asked them to think about that very issue: How will you long-term integrate MRAPs in the force structure?

And I think those deliberations have not concluded yet. In general, the chiefs have indicated these are heavy and large vehicles. And for some of their operational concepts, very expeditionary, very mobile, they don't fit well. They fit very well, obviously, for the circumstance we're in Iraq.

So some of the vehicles, the service chiefs have indicated, will be stored for a period of time. We might not need as many as we are buying for the Iraq situation if we're successful in continuing to stabilize Iraq and the force mission changes there.

But those decisions are being deliberated on and made as we talk. And Secretary Gates (has something to do with it ?). I can't give you much more commentary than what I offered.

REP. WILSON: And Mr. Abercrombie touched on this, too. And that is, when do you require another influx of funds in order to preclude a possible production break in the MRAP program?

MR. YOUNG: The funds that I understand are in the fiscal year 2008 Defense Appropriations Conference Report that's before, I believe, the Congress today even, give us what we need for fiscal year 2008, which is really, to be candid, awesome and incredible.

I mean, in a mater of months here, the Congress has provided $22 billion to buy these vehicles. It's far and away the biggest program activity, you know, in a space of time in the department. So the Congress has been extraordinarily helpful on this program.

REP. WILSON: And again, what -- I know I'm very supportive of what this can mean to protect our troops.

A final question I have: Are you experiencing any supply problems at the sub-tier supply base?

MR. YOUNG: (To Mr. Greenwalt.) Why don't I give you a chance?

MR. GREENWALT: There are -- in April and then just recently a few months back, I tasked the Defense Contract Management Agency to look for potential bottlenecks. And they've identified a number of them. But the most recent report is that these problems are manageable and that we are able to work our way through them.

But there are potential chokepoints in steel, in tires, and in rear axles and a few subcomponents. But again, these problems are being worked through on a daily basis.

And because the MRAP program is a DX-rated, which is essentially the MRAP program obtains priority to all of these components and materials; we're not seeing the supply disruptions that could have occurred.

So I think we're doing a -- it's a tremendous job that's going on out there by the vendors and by government personnel. And we're -- got our hands on it.

REP. WILSON: And again, I want to thank you as a veteran, thank you as a member of a military family. We want the best for our troops to protect our troops.

And thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

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REP. WILSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I regret I had to run off to another meeting, but wanted to come back. And I particularly wanted to come back, Mr. Chairman, because I appreciate the private sector how they've really come to play such an effort to protect our troops.

And I have actually visited the facilities, BAE. I'm really grateful. I was present, Mr. Chairman, at the 25th anniversary of the BAE existence, and it's adjacent to the district I represent in Aiken; wonderful people, dedicated, working there. And then Force Protection, I feel like I was with them when they were born. And so I've had the privilege of even going ahead of the chairman to drive one of the Cougars and Buffalos. And it's hard to get ahead of Chairman Taylor, but I was. And -- but we appreciate so much, and General Dynamics, and all of what you are doing to protect our troops and provide for protection.

There's been discussion about the monthly production contracts and working with SPAWARs and how to avoid the end-of-the-month congestion. Is there any way to move toward weekly production contracts or even daily? And any of you could answer; that would be good.

MR. MCGILTON: I'd be glad to answer that. Earlier in the meeting, we provided the statistics to show how much of an improvement there had been to get away from the (hockey stuck ?) production and delivery.

Last month, we -- by the middle of the month, we'd delivered half of our vehicles, exactly what we should have done.

We are -- in Force Protection, we're moving in the direction of doing weekly and even daily production schedules. It's fraught with a lot of risk when you do that because on any given day, if anything goes wrong, it's going to be a really bad day and there's going to be a lot of visibility relative to what went wrong on that day. That's not necessarily a bad thing. All of us in manufacturing understand that every day when you go in, it's a street fight. The number of variables that can work against you, any one of them can stop the entire system.

So we're willing to do it, that's the direction we're working in, but just the act of going to a monthly or I'm sorry a daily production schedule won't solve the problems that are created. You've got to modify the processes that make it possible to do a daily production schedule. But that's exactly what we're doing. That's what all of us are trying to do. There's nothing that would make us happier than every day when we go in, everything happens on autopilot. It just isn't the case when you're bringing in new technology with as many variables as we have as fast as we have to bring them together.

So any resistance to doing it is not founded in a resistance to do it, it's that we may not in every case have our entire supply base in a state that they can operate that way and there are varying processes. You don't make steel by the day; you make steel by the heat. And so somebody's going to deliver you 10,000 pounds of steel, and that's all got to be processed. And so it's the -- it's kind of a Catch-22. Some things come to you in big bulks and you've got to manage them, and sometimes the bulks don't show up.

But it's -- there certainly isn't any resistance to doing it from our side, but there certainly is a lot of difficulty in doing it. We're not a mature industry, and that's why it's difficult to set up the daily consistent process. If we were building Hondas or Camrys and we had five years to design the processes and get the supply chain in place, it'd be a snap. It's not that we're unaware that that's a better way to run a business, it's the time in order to get the stability necessary to let your business operate that way has not been afforded to any of us. The war didn't wait for us to do it.

REP. WILSON: And Mr. McGilton, you itemized the different vehicles that have been provided --

MR. MCGILTON: Yes, sir.

REP. WILSON: -- to American forces, Iraqi forces, allied coalition forces, the different types of vehicles. And I know it would be, I think, I know it would be reassuring to persons who have young people serving overseas: Can you tell us how the performance of your vehicles have been that have been deployed?

MR. MCGILTON: I have certain restrictions placed on me about discussions of the performance of the vehicles. I think everybody in this room can understand why.

Our belief and understanding is that within our vehicles, when properly used, properly deployed and the people properly belted in, the survivability rate is amazingly high. I can't get any more precision than that. It's amazingly high. We are very proud of our record of survivability, and we won't compromise in that measurement of interest in any way, shape or form.

The second thing I'll say relative to the performance of the vehicle, thus far we've been able to enjoy a 95 percent vehicle readiness rate. That's extremely important because these vehicles are only valuable when they're available. The design of our vehicles allows the vehicle to experience a blast, to sacrifice the external components, a truck comes and picks up the capsule, but we protect the engine, the transmission, the transfer case and the important driveline items. We take it back to the motor pool and then the field service reps from our company and those of our associates restore that vehicle and put the vehicle back into service. Very few of our vehicles have been taken completely out of service. So the total cost to operate a ballistic capsule type design is significantly less than any other style of vehicle because it's reusable.

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