The Pentagon plans to shift Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles used for training by the Navy and Marine Corps to the Army in Afghanistan to address the immediate need for vehicles, Inside The Army has learned.
Because of the urgent need for blastproof trucks in the country, the Army is turning to the Cougars, the lighter Force Protection-built MRAPs proven able to operate in the difficult terrain.
Those shifted – which total roughly 200, primarily from the Marines – will be taken from training fleets in the US, a military official said.
The Pentagon is also dialling up the potential requirement for a new class of lighter MRAP vehicles, advising industry that it may buy as many as 10,000 of the new-class of trucks – twice as many as previous government estimates – in a high-speed procurement effort to support an urgent operational need in Afghanistan.