Does the Mrap Meet the US Army's Needs as the Primary Method of Protecting Troops from the Ied Threat?

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) threat to the US Army and various methods used to counter this threat. The Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle (MRAP) is the current method. This paper will address the US Army's needs to defeat the IED threat as well as the capabilities and limitations of the MRAP. The Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, made the MRAP the top priority for the US military purchases, accelerating the procurement process that routinely takes ten years into nine months. This paper will answer the question: Does the MRAP meet the needs of the US Army to protect troops from IED threat? This will be answered by looking at the IED threat to determine requirements to protect troops. These requirements include protection, rapid fielding, and supportability. Non-MRAP countermeasures will be examined to determine if they meet these requirements. The MRAP will be analyzed to determine if the capabilities of the MRAP meet these requirements. This paper will examine facts that will show non-MRAP methods alone do not have the capacity to effectively protect troops from the IED threat.