Navistar Wins $151.9 Million Contract for MRAP Parts

Navistar reports that it has won a $151.9 million contract from the United States Marine Corps to supply spare parts for MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicles stationed in Iraq.

The Marines already operate 350 International MaxxPro vehicles in Iraq. This brings the total for parts and support up to $300 million, and if all of the vehicles on order are counted, the contracts total over $1.8 billion.

Navistar has a long history of building trucks and military equipment. It started off as International Harvester, and produced much of the nation's farm equipment. It has already delivered 700 of the MRAPs to the US military, and it should be able to produce as many as 500 per month by this February. It thus continues to be a heavy hitter in terms of production output.

The MRAP became increasingly important in Iraq when insurgents adapted their strategy to using roadside bombs to attack US forces. While the Humvee is a great vehicle, it was not designed to use heavy armor. They can be updated using armor kits, but an MRAP just has more protection and provides more survivability for soldiers inside. Many of the features that the Navistar vehicle uses to counter roadside blasts are secret.

What is not so secret is that Navistar is more capable than other companies of producing large numbers of vehicles, deploying them, and supporting them in Iraq or Afghanistan.

War is full of measures and counter-measures, so insurgents are changing their tactics again, in response to the durable MRAPs. They now are using charges designed to hit vehicles, not underneath, where the MRAP is very strong, but from the side, with a shaped charge, where there is theoretically less armor. However, Navistar does have a vehicle that could be used as a counter-measure to this threat, one that uses reactive armor.

Such armor has been around since the Cold War. When a shell or a blast hits the armor, the armor itself explodes outward, countering the force of the projectile. It might deflect it completely, or cause it to move just enough to one side or the other to dissipate its penetrating force, thus saving the lives of the soldiers in the vehicle.