ARMY AL&T
Route Clearance an Urgent Need in Theater
As insurgencies took root in Iraq and Afghanistan, the use and lethality of mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) dramatically increased. Enemy employment tactics continue to evolve, and these explosive hazards have created an urgent need for RCVs, associated mine detection equipment, and other related capabilities to protect warfight- ers. PM AMS has always attempted to collaborate with other organiza- tions, such as the Joint IED Defeat Organization, Army PM IED Defeat/ Protect Force, and PM Countermine and EOD, while striving to field add- on capabilities.
In 2002, four Buffalo Mine Protected Clearance Vehicles were in opera- tion clearing Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. The vehicle’s success at clearing mines made it the logical choice when IEDs emerged as a threat in Iraq. The Army rushed its sparse route clearance equipment to Iraq early in the war. To manage the work required to build a new automotive fleet, Dennis Haag, former Deputy PM AMS, led the effort in early 2005 to create the office that eventually became PM AMS under the Program Executive Office Combat Support and Combat Service Support.
Developing RCVs for Modern Threats
With a small, handpicked team, Haag set to work on the daunting task of developing new vehicles to meet urgent needs for route clearance capabilities in the midst of fighting two wars. The team often worked 16 hours a day, 6–7 days a week, to deliver capabilities to deployed Soldiers needing route clearance capabilities.
In December 2005, the PM AMS team repeatedly traveled to Iraq to see the vehicles, ask Soldiers how they were using them during operations, and take notes of Soldier responses. The Soldiers quickly realized that the PM AMS team could deliver a vehicle tailored to their requirements and fed them a stream of useful suggestions. Copious notes taken by Haag and his team were used to develop vehicles procured to support urgent war require- ments and influenced POR vehicle requirements that were in development.
Significant Survivability Upgrades in Theater
The Panther is a command and control vehicle that is also designed to neutralize or defeat explosive hazards. (U.S. Army photo.)
46 JULY –SEPTEMBER 2010
PM AMS’ initial fleet contained only a handful of vehicles, so deploying every newly procured vehicle was a priority to meet the grow- ing theater need. As a result, PM AMS engineers designed, fabricated, and tested vehicle upgrade pro- totypes and rushed to equip the RCV fleet with crew sur- vivability upgrades. These included improved seats and seat belts, fire sup- pression systems, gunner platforms,
An Army Buffalo, a specialized mine-clearing/anti-IED vehicle, conducts a route clearance mission. (U.S. Army photo by SGT Teddy Wade, 55th Signal Co.)
gunner restraint systems, objective gunner protection kits, mine/IED rollers, rocket-propelled grenade and explosively formed penetrator protec- tion kits, transparent armor (glass), and remote weapon stations. They also integrated command, control, communications, computer, intelli- gence, surveillance, and reconnaissance upgrades, such as situational aware- ness cameras, light kits, driver’s vision enhancement, and Blue Force Tracker, to increase RCVs’ capabilities and effectiveness.
Sustainment in the Battlefield The RCV fleet and its subsystems are new pieces of equipment fielded to theater to support Operational Needs Statement (ONS) requirements. The Army’s logistics and sustainment infra- structure does not yet support the new equipment; therefore, to sustain the RCV fleet in theater, PM AMS cov- ers the support gap with a refined Contractor Logistic Support (CLS) concept. CLS provides logistics, train- ing, maintenance, and repair operations at a number of battlefield repair loca- tions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As requirements evolve, more Soldiers deploy to more locations, and the need for additional RCVs expands. This expansion, in concert with shifting
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