Thursday, July 07, 2016

Modest Proposal. Dump the Growler and adopt MRZR 2's!



Full disclosure.

I'm not a fan of the SPMAGTF-CR.  I think that the formation is too light to fight and win, is costly, provides limited capacity and promotes unnecessary wear and tear on our aircraft.

Having said that, the Marine Corps seems wedded to the idea so its time to make it better.

One way would be to dump the Growler and adopt MRZR's.


The MRZR's are being adopted by not only SOCOM but also US Army Airborne.  They have a few modifications to make them suitable for military use but at their core they're off the shelf vehicles that can do everything the Growler can only better.

This is so simple an idea that it should be done today.   Simply piggy back off Army buys and even bring some of their instructors over to teach our teachers or give them travel pay, put them on temporary duty and have them do a tour of Marine bases giving off road driving and maintenance courses.

The Marine Corps was the leader with the internally carried vehicle going back to before the Vietnam war.  The Mini Mite (pic to the right) was basically a cut down jeep.

We tried to do it again with the Growler.  Unfortunately we failed and the vehicle is substandard (in my opinion).  Its easily fixed and now that we're seeing the Army adopt our original idea, there is no reason for us to reinvent the wheel when they lucked upon a better solution.  Besides.  The drama over the selection of the Growler needs to be washed from Marine Corps history.  Its time to reclaim our heritage of doing more with less and not relying on gold plated solutions to basic problems.

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