Oops: Army can’t account for recalled helmets

[unhappycamper]

Army can’t account for recalled helmets
By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Tuesday, May 18, 2010

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Army has recalled 44,000 helmets because they failed ballistic tests, but it doesn’t know where the helmets are, officials said Monday.

“They could be on some soldier’s head in Iraq or Afghanistan. They could also be anywhere else in the world,” said Brig. Gen. Peter Fuller, head of Program Executive Office Soldier, the Army’s center for advanced equipment.

Only 20,000 of the helmets have been fielded by soldiers. Another 24,000 were issued to the the Navy and Air Force via the Defense Supply Center in Philadelphia. Officials from the other services could not immediately say how many of the helmets they had distributed.

The recall was prompted by a Justice Department investigation into the company ArmorSource, Fuller said.

Some soldiers in Afghanistan have already exchanged their helmets, said Mike Brown of the Army Staff. And PEO Soldier is working to get replacement helmets to more remote bases in Afghanistan, said Col. William Cole, project manager for soldier protection and individual equipment.



unhappycamper comment: It appears ArmorSource is privately owned (more than likely by a pub) so getting more info on the company is gonna be tough. Almost as tough as the DoD trying to find the 44,000 helmets that were recalled.

[greencharlie]

1. probably sold to some 3rd world country...

funds going into some Lt. Col's offshore account.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. If military procurement is what it was 30 years ago

they issued them to the Marines.

[flamin lib]

6. Ya' mean like they did with the old LAWS rockets? When they started

exploding in flight? Like maybe two or three feet into flight?

Yeah, the Marines got 'em.

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. That's what is so surprising about the whole Osprey thing -

sure, it may be unreliable crap, but it is NEW unreliable crap instead of second-hand unreliable crap.

[flamin lib]

11. Actually it's not unreliable anymore, it's a really good aircraft.

I was involved in engineering support throughout it's development while shortening deadlines. Costs skyrocketed because the Marines kept changing the specs. The final aircraft didn't even resemble the first rec, it carries more, goes faster and flies farther. They even rolled in the cost or resurrecting the M151 jeep from Vietnam days so it could carry a jeep, howitzer and crew.

There were three deadly flaws in the aircraft. First was passenger error. Seems Marines like to urinate off every they ride in. In doing so out the back door on a test flight two fell out at 300 knots. That showed up a second flaw: in extreme abrupt turns at high speeds it tends to go inverted and fly into the ground upside down. Then there was a vibration problem that fatigued and wore through hydraulic lines. They fixed that with re-routing the lines and adding inspection to pre/post flight checks. The really bad flaw was a software glitch. The prop pitch was controlled by the fly-by-wire computer which maintained a minimum rotor/prop rpm by adjusting pitch in the hover mode. If one engine fell below min RPM the computer reduced pitch on that engine making the aircraft invert and fly into the ground. They fixed that by linking the engines and now the worst case is the airplane will settle into the ground as if landing. So far only one has been lost in combat and that's a better record than the Blackhawk which is also an excellent aircraft. Don't know what the cause of failure was; enemy fire, system failure or pilot error.

[RaleighNCDUer]

12. Well, that's good to know. I was aware that when I heard about that

one going down recently, it was the first I'd heard of since they were in the shakedown phase.

Wasn't sure if it was just not being mentioned, or they finally got the bugs out.

[Vinca]

2. Try looking at the morgue.

[sakabatou]

3. *facepalm*

[malaise]

5. I've been trying to find out who owns them

but I'm betting they outsourced the helmet making.

[Rex]

7. Are they able to pay someone to mow the lawn yet?

It is amazing that our government expects us to be accurate to the penny on our taxes, but they get away with losing BILLIONS and never so much as a 'sorry' or 'hey we tried'. :eyes:

[damntexdem]

8. Oh, the helmets will be easily found.

Unfortunately, it will be by bullets.

Sweetheart defense-contractor deals kill.

[Ian David]

9. Maybe they've been ground into pieces to plug the oil spill? n/t

[ProgressiveProfessor]

13. If they are not serialized, they may never find them all

There should be a NSN designator that may include manufacturer...

[jmowreader]

14. NSNs don't include manufacturer information

IF the tags inside the helmets have the manufacturer's name on them, there's a slight possibility they'll find some of them. OTOH, the tag could just say DPSC Philadelphia (Defense Personnel Support Center) or the name of whatever minority/woman/disadvantaged person-owned business Armor Source set up as a front company, and then they'd be screwn.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

16. I thought sometimes there were dash numbers indicating variant or vendors

[SoCalDem]

15. They were sold to some unsuspecting buyer..somewhere else

Our defective stuff gets sold all the time..

[underpants]

17. "Always remember that your equipment was made by the lowest bidder"

which isn't actually true because the bids are rigged (especially in the Bush era)