The Army recently ordered 177 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected All-Terrain Vehicles with additional underbody armor kits from Oshkosh Defense to address the number of vehicles that have been damaged in the Afghan theater, according to the MRAP program office/.../Dakota Wood, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said the M-ATV's armor order trend indicated that forces in Afghanistan continued to encounter improvised explosive devices that were getting more and more deadly. "I'm not surprised to hear that M-ATV's are needing supplemental armor," he wrote. "Military officials have been talking about the expected uptick in violence as the 'Spring fighting season' develops. U.S. forces would seem to be experiencing an increased level of IED attacks, with these attacks matching or exceeding the original capabilities of the M-ATVs sent over in the first wave or two."
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