…Vehicle fleet.
"When the Defense Department began shipping a a new fleet of massive armored vehicles to Afghanistan in 2011, U.S. officials billed them as the Afghan National Army's solution for rapidly sending troops into dangerous situations to reinforce fellow soldiers. The Mobile Strike Force Vehicles are based on the aging M117 armored personnel carrier that has been used since Vietnam, but with beefed up armor to defend against rocket-propelled grenades and other threats.
Most of the 634 strike force vehicles built for the Afghan army are now in its hands, according to a new audit report released Tuesday by the U.S.'s top watchdog on Afghan reconstruction. But the long-term outlook for the $661.3 USD million fleet of vehicles in the fight against the Taliban remains in question, the report says, citing deterioration in the vehicles due to a lack of spare parts and the patchwork nature of maintenance training.
The report comes as the U.S. and other coalition countries continue to withdraw troops across the country, limiting their reach as their combat role in Afghanistan comes to an end. The U.S. withdrawal calls for about 9,800 American troops in Afghanistan by the end of this year, with an additional 4,000 troops from other coalition countries. That's down from a peak of more than 130,000 coalition troops in 2011.
The mobile strike vehicles were built by Textron Inc., of Providence, R.I. The report, by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction's (SIGAR) office, shows that Army officials reported that the company has performed well in providing the vehicles and the initial training to Afghan troops needed to use them. But Textron also is being paid as part of its contracts with the Defense Department to provide additional field training and maintenance, and it has not been able to do so because it is unable to reach the sites where the vehicles are kept, SIGAR found…"
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Amicalement
Armand
returns to show us how he painted 
