First production MSFVs shipped to Afghan National Army

PORT CHARLESTON, S.C. (Nov. 14, 2011) — The U.S. Army took anoth­er sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward in the strate­gic with­draw­al of com­bat forces from Afghanistan last week with the ship­ment of the first 18 pro­duc­tion Mobile Strike Force Vehi­cles to theater. 

These 18 vehi­cles are the first of 281 Mobile Strike Force Vehi­cles, or MSFVs, that will be pro­vid­ed to the Afghan Nation­al Army, or ANA, to enable a Quick Reac­tion Force, or QRF, capa­bil­i­ty. This capa­bil­i­ty will be crit­i­cal once U.S. forces begin their drawdown. 

“The MSFV pro­vides each QRF Kan­dak [Bat­tal­ion], with a rapid­ly deploy­able, high­ly mobile armored capa­bil­i­ty that can quick­ly maneu­ver in an all ter­rain envi­ron­ment, while con­cur­rent­ly pro­vid­ing the ANA with suf­fi­cient fire­pow­er to con­duct a wide vari­ety of oper­a­tional mis­sions over an extend­ed range and dis­tance,” said Capt. Joseph Den­ning, with­in the Prod­uct Man­ag­er for Armored Secu­ri­ty Vehi­cle, or PdM ASV, office.

The MSFV is a mod­i­fied and updat­ed ver­sion of a Tex­tron Marine and Land Sys­tems vehi­cle plat­form design that has over four decades of proven per­for­mance. The mod­i­fi­ca­tions on the MSFV allow for addi­tion­al pro­tec­tion while still uti­liz­ing com­mer­cial-off-the-shelf parts. 

The MSFV fam­i­ly con­sists of three vari­ants, each designed to meet a spe­cif­ic com­bat role and to meet and enhance the ANA QRF capa­bil­i­ty. The three vari­ants include an Armored Per­son­nel Car­ri­er with Gunner’s Pro­tec­tive Kit, an Armored Per­son­nel Car­ri­er with Tur­ret, and an Armored Ambulance.

“MSFV is the def­i­n­i­tion of a rapid field­ing ini­tia­tive,” said Col. William Boruff, Project Man­ag­er for Joint Com­bat Sup­port Sys­tems, or PM JCSS. “We have gone from receiv­ing a the­ater defined require­ment to award­ing a con­tract and com­plet­ing the Army Acqui­si­tion process, result­ing in deliv­ery of the first Low Rate Ini­tial Pro­duc­tion, or LRIP, vehi­cles off the pro­duc­tion line in just 14 months.” 

Cur­rent­ly PdM ASV is work­ing in con­junc­tion with the Com­bined Secu­ri­ty Train­ing Com­mand — Afghanistan to pro­vide a com­plete field­ing, train­ing, and long term sus­tain­ment pro­gram to stand up sev­en new­ly orga­nized ANA bat­tal­ion sized units known as “Kan­daks” by the end of 2013. 

“This rapid field­ing ini­tia­tive will pro­vide the ANA with a new­ly devel­oped QRF capa­bil­i­ty that sup­ports the U.S. strate­gic with­draw­al by turn­ing over the secu­ri­ty of each Kandak’s oper­a­tional area to a trained and equipped ANA unit,” added Boruff. 

The MSFV pro­gram is man­aged by the Army’s PdM ASV which falls under the lead­er­ship of PM JCSS with­in the Pro­gram Exec­u­tive Office for Com­bat Sup­port and Com­bat Ser­vice Support.