M.A.S.H. for Vehicles

by Joe Katzman at September 3, 2003 7:17 AM

(a.k.a. "Life Imitates Command and Conquer") The U.S. Army has been experimenting with a mini factory that ships in containers, and can build spare parts near the battlefield:

"MPH is a 30,000-plus pound manufacturing center capable of producing more than 150 parts on the battlefield, including plastics, rubbers, metals and ceramics.... Officials expect to build a variety of machine and metallic elements for military vehicles, ranging from humvees and Bradley tanks to generator sets and trailers."

Trent Telenko has seen stuff in the trade papers about spares for Abrams tanks & Bradley IFV in particular being a headache in Iraq. He thinks the "Mobile Parts Hospital" being sent to Kuwait will be useful. I'm also curious to see what the troops will come up with as a result of having such manufacturing facilities so close. That's usually a good catalyst for unauthorized customizations, most of which will be worth learning from.

The whole MPH concept is very American on many levels. To really see the longer-term significance, however, you have to put this together with concepts like ship-based seabasing, pre-fab offshore bases derived from oil platform technologies, etc. Each piece becomes part of a greater whole that gives the USA more and more expeditionary flexibility to go where it wants, when it wants, and to bring what it needs along. For its own citizen-soldiers... or for others.

--- UPDATES ---

  • Flit comments, noting that the uses for this technology extend beyond the military.

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