From: paul carrier (paulc@teleport.com)
Date: Fri Jun 20 2003 - 06:49:19 PDT
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Military Vehicles Mailing List [mailto:mil-veh@mil-veh.org]On
> Behalf Of Doc Scheffler
> Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2003 3:27 PM
> To: Military Vehicles Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [MV] Mule vs Gator
>
>
> I've been reading the comments both pro and con and indifferent.
>
> Here's my 2 cents worth.
>
> The Gator costs the Army $12,000 a piece. You can buy new MUTTS
> (growlers)
> for less than $7K and that's retail.
>
> I had a Gator in Afghanistan. It was good for getting around the
> compound -
> unless I had lots of stuff, or heavy stuff, or needed to go faster than 15
> MPH. Of course it's a diesel, so that makes it popular.
>
It's only rated for 1500lbs.
Post uses one for light hauling and yard duty
> Off the shelf purchases sound like a nice idea. In practice, the new
> government credit card for purchases has been a disaster, with
> abuse heaped upon abuse.
>
Prosecute the abuse.
> One of the reasons why it takes a little longer to field something in the
> military is that we don't just field the vehicle. We field the entire
> support structure to include repair parts, manuals, special repair tools,
> etc.
>
True, but too many times the requirments keep changing and the supplier
can't ever get a firm target, driving the end cost even higher.
> I can't tell you how many times units who buy lots of off the shelf stuff
> (like SOF) cried and moaned because they couldn't get stuff fixed when it
> broke. Heck, the dumps in Afghanistan are full of stuff that we
> threw away
> because it couldn't get fixed.
>
You just needed someone to work the system. Repair parts could have been
gotten out to you, if the loggies would think outside the box a little.
> While there are abuses in the system, I'd rather pay $35K for
> something that
> lasts 20 years, than have to spend $10K every year for the same thing.
>
Getting DOD/Dept of the Army to recognize the need is the challange.
Perhaps the current optempo will spur them on to accept that the Light
Infantry needs more than just boot's to get around...
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