"The Army will increasingly deploy and fight in urban terrain" in the future, Kern said... ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, November 17, 2000 10:38 PM Subject: For Home Or Abroad? [STOPNATO.ORG.UK] STOP NATO: NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK U.S. Army unveils new wheeled armored vehicles November 17, 2000 Web posted at: 2:26 PM EST (1926 GMT) WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The U.S. Army Friday introduced its new family of speedy wheeled combat vehicles but said it had no intention of scrapping 5,000 heavy tanks in the thrust toward a lighter, more mobile 21st century force. The 2,131 eight-wheeled armored vehicles, to be built jointly over eight years by General Motors Corp and General Dynamics Corp. for up to $3.98 billion, will get to hotspots more quickly and fight better in urban areas, the Army said. But Lt. Gen. Paul Kern told reporters the award of a contract Thursday for the first such new armored vehicles bought by the Army in 20 years did not mean that the service's heavy but lethal M-1A1 and M-1A2 tanks would be scrapped. "It (the new vehicle) is a step towards getting out of the Cold War mentatility," Kern said at a Pentagon press conference. But he said tanks would remain a major part of the Army's heavy fighting force for years to come. "The question is not whether or not that (tank) is a capable weapon, but how many" will be kept in the force in years ahead, Kern told reporters. The combat vehicles are one-third of the weight of the big tanks, giving the Army the ability to fly them more easily to far-flung battlefields with new fighting units. The award followed a decision to equip the first of the Army's new and highly mobile modern brigades, which is now being formed and trained at Fort Lewis in Washington state, with the eight-wheel vehicles. The six brigades, which will be designed to get to any hot spot in the world within four days of being called, will rely chiefly on the wheeled armored vehicles instead of the Army's potent but very heavy tanks. The M-1A2, designed originally to fight Soviet forces and used with devastating effect against Iraqi forces in the 1991 Gulf War, weighs nearly 70 tons and can be carried only by the U.S. military's giant C-5 transport plane. The lighter armored vehicle, which weighs less than 20 tons, can be flown on the smaller and more common U.S. C-130 military transport. But Kern conceded that the plan to equip the brigades with the new vehicles, which can withstand bullets more powerful than those fired by a 50-caliber machine gun, had already fallen behind schedule and the first units were not expected to be delivered until 2002 at the earliest. The initial contracts awarded to the joint venture are for $61.7 million in research, development, test and evaluation and another $580 million for an initial 360 production vehicles, the Army said. If all options are exercised as expected, the total value of the contract will be just under $4 billion through 2008. The contract covers eight variants of the vehicle, including a basic infantry carrier that holds a nine-man squad and a two-man crew, a heavy-gun version, reconnaissance, chemical-biological detection, medical support and other types. In addition to the addressing the problem of transport weight, the lighter vehicle can be used on smaller roads and bridges, which can often be a major problem for heavy tanks. "The Army will increasingly deploy and fight in urban terrain" in the future, Kern said. ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to effectively manage your Accounts Receivables? Need to maximize cash flow? Now, you can with Freeworks' FREE ONLINE ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE MANAGER! Create invoices, track receivables, review account statements and much more! http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/Freeworks
