The February 22 2001 issue of "Machine Design" has an article about the new
"COMBATT" vehicle or Commercial Based Tactical Truck. Geeeee, haven't we
been here before,? Wasn't it called "CUCV" Commercial Utility Cargo Vehicle
(or something to that effect). The article is written by a magazine staffer
who not only seems to have no knowledge of MV's but used press release info
from AM General, Ford, and Daimler.
I'm not trying to be to negative but this is like dejavu here. They say that
the "Hummer is 20 years old and so defense planners are looking for a
replacement. One of the more innovative approaches is to modify commercial
pickups to perform some missions now handled by Hummer." "In all, the
modified trucks would replace about 70% of the Army's 120,000 Hummers."
They claim they are going to save costs by taking advantage of high volume
commercial production.
The best part for us, other than saving the taxpayers money (or at least
give lip service to it) is that "An innovative and cost-saving twist to the
plan is that the Army would lease the beefed-up trucks from various auto
companies for three to four years, then they would be available for sale to
anyone wanting a bonfide off-road vehicle able to handle severe operating
conditions." We'll see if that part actually happens.
cheers,
je
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Apr 04 2001 - 08:10:47 PDT