These things can cost up to a million a pop:
The first shipment of U.S. Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles arrived in Egypt Thursday.
The 762 armored vehicles were provided to the Egyptian military at no cost as part of the Pentagon’s Excess Defense Articles program, according to a statement from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.
Offer them to law enforcement and fire/rescue in places prone to hurricanes and flooding. Sell them on Ebay and give the proceeds to Fischer House. Do anything but give them for free to a country, half of whom’s citizens probably think of us as the Great Satan.
My guess is the contractor who makes them bought this decision through political contributions, so they can supply brand new ones at twice the cost.
Among the rest of the country, resources have no value, so nobody cares.
Someday that will change, but for now, onward to the Apocalypse.
[…] Signs Of Free Resources – MRAP Wastage […]
There’s more to the story, and the drivers are much more “K” than you think.
The US Military needed mine-resistant vehicles fast, after stupidly not learning the lessons of earlier wars and sending people out in flat-bottomed Hummer death traps. So they bought several different MRAP types from different contractors. That meant lots of extra maintenance & operation costs, but saving lives was the priority and parallel production was best for that.
With me so far?
Now the fight is done, and the US military will operate a smaller subset of fewer types, mostly from Oshkosh (M-ATV) and Navistar (MaxxPro). Saves money, easier training, better logistics. So they are giving lots of the rest away to police (high center of gravity means you avoid terrain that might shift on you, and exit isn’t easy – flooding would be a terrible use). And to other countries. Enthusiasm has been muted; these are used cars from a war zone, but many of the smaller NATO allies took the opportunity.
There is a new US program called JLTV, which aims to create mine-resistant vehicles that are easier to transport (critical for the Marines), and avoid some of the design issues with previous lumbering MRAPs. JLTV will replace some of the Hummers in stock with a tougher patrol vehicle for higher-threat situations, and will cost about as much as MRAPs did. Which is roughly twice what Hummers cost, for a heavier and more protected vehicle. Physics has its limits when dealing with things like mines. Physics means more cost. So they won’t be replacing the whole Hummer fleet with JLTVs.
Oshkosh won the JLTV competition with its L-ATV, which has many commonalities with their larger M-ATV MRAP that the Army is keeping as its mainstay. JLTV was a huge open competition that happened a few years ago, and the overlap probably helped Oshkosh win. The new vehicles should begin arriving soon.
I see this all as pretty K. After finally acknowledging the mistake, protect your guys at whatever cost (weird as this will seem to you, Joe Biden was one of the guys who really pushed the US military when they were resisting the obvious). Then slim down the drain on your resources by rationalizing down to fewer types. Then look for ways to take the rest and strengthen friendly governments. Then give yourself some better options for future conflicts, rather than assuming you’ll just take this “emergency wasteful” approach again if needed.
Fascinating backstory, and You’re right it isn’t as bad as it seemed at first blush, but I still wish they put it all on Ebay and gave the proceeds to Fisher House.
Interesting fact: Egypt still has strong Muslim Brotherhood ties.
Muslim Brotherhood is of the Shiite denomination.
Iran is of the Shiite denomination.
Obama’s daddy was supposedly a Shiite muslim (according to Al-Hiwar and 4Shbab networks).
Gadhafi was of Sunni Denomination.
Syria and Abbas are of Sunni Denomination.
Obama directly supported the muslim brotherhood’s Shiite “arab spring”.
Obama has sent Egypt Fighters and now armored vehicles for free.
Obama has made numerous (even treasonous) positive statements and actions towards Iran.
Obama has taken actions resulting in the overthrow and murder of Gadhafi.
Obama has taken actions directly opposing Syria and it’s leader, just short of war.
Shiite’s and Sunni sects of Islam have been in opposition and even open war with each other for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
The question then is, why does Obama continuously make policy decisions and actions and/or inaction or declaration of support which seem to result in positive outcomes to Shiite muslim groups, while making policy decisions and actions and/or actions which seem to regularly result in negative outcomes for Sunni muslim groups?
The Muslim Brotherhood is explicitly Sunni.
Another excellent observation on an obscure article. Where the MSM fails in the sheeple’s nightly news.
Here is another obscurity:
http://www.yorkdispatch.com/story/news/politics/2016/05/23/anti-israel-billboards-draw-lawmakers-ire/84775076/