MRAP Deadline

The deadline for MRAP contract submissions were due to today and if Wall Street has anything to say about, South Carolina's Force Protection will be the big winner, but that's not to say that Oshkosh Truck will not receive its fair share of orders.

Right now a congressional committee will hammer out an appropriations bill that passed the Senate today, complete with the Biden amendment that allocates $23.6 billion for additional MRAP purchases. The final MRAP orders will depend on how much of that sum survives the committee process.

MORE: I nearly forgot ... Part II of the Post's IED special report.

Secondly -- and I don't really know what to say about this -- the Manhattan Project cost roughly $2 billion in 1940's dollars (and about $20 billion in mid-1990's dollars), just to give you an idea of the scale of what DOD is working with here. Again, it's not really fair to compare the MRAP program with the with the Manhattan Project in terms of purpose, but we are rapidly getting to the point where we have no choice but speak of them in the same breath with regard to cost.

EVEN MORE: I have no idea how long it will take for the MRAP proposals to be vetted and approved, but in the meantime take solace in the fact that Oshkosh Truck won a rather large ($185,296,566 million) contract from the Army today to make more HEMTTs.