{"id":192903,"date":"2009-02-07T06:10:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-07T11:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/02\/07\/more-adventures-in-the-incompetence-of-the-iron-triangle\/"},"modified":"2009-02-07T06:10:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-07T11:10:00","slug":"more-adventures-in-the-incompetence-of-the-iron-triangle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/02\/07\/more-adventures-in-the-incompetence-of-the-iron-triangle\/","title":{"rendered":"More Adventures in the Incompetence of the Iron Triangle"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this case, it’s the Marine Corps, who have found a disaster besides the EFV, the Growler<\/a>, which is basically a stunted version of the Jeep Cherokee designed to fit in the cargo bay of the V-22 Osprey.<\/p>\n

It’s supposed to serve for basic transportation, and to tow a trailer for a mortar.
As Paul McLeary notes<\/span><\/a>, “Well take a look at the vehicle and tell me if you<\/span> would want to tool around IED alley in Afghanistan in this thing.” (Emphasis Original<\/span>)<\/p>\n

In addition to being dangerously exposed in combat areas, it’s cost has skyrocketed:<\/p>\n

The inspector general report said that the average cost of a single Growler has risen 120 percent, from about $94,000 when the contract was awarded in 2004 to $209,000 in 2008. The unit cost for the vehicle with mortar and ammunition trailer has grown 86 percent, from $579,000 to $1,078,000.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It turns out that part of this has been the Marines adding features, “air suspension … a new cooling system, power steering and power brakes, along with a beefed-up General Motors engine…,” of which only the air suspension would be considered crucial to the mission (it allows the vehicle to squat to fit in the Osprey).<\/p>\n

Note that this contract was awarded in 2004, when it was clear that a thin skinned vehicle would not be acceptable in current conflicts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this case, it’s the Marine Corps, who have found a disaster besides the EFV, the Growler, which is basically a stunted version of the Jeep Cherokee designed to fit in the cargo bay of the V-22 Osprey. It’s supposed to serve for basic transportation, and to tow a trailer for a mortar.As Paul McLeary …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[970,1008,982],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-defense-procurement","category-stupid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192903"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192903\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}