With U.S. and allied military convoys under increasing attack in Afghanistan, the Army began work yesterday on a new test track at Harford County's Aberdeen Proving Ground that will be critical in developing high-speed unmanned, or robot, vehicles for convoy duty.
When the two-lane, 4.5-mile gravel track is finished next fall, the Army will be able to test up to 20 heavy-armored manned and unmanned vehicles traveling at maximum speeds for hours at a time, officials said.
The military's reliance on dangerous-road convoys in Afghanistan and elsewhere is fueling an urgent Pentagon demand for more high-speed armored vehicles and robot vehicles. Dozens of the new designs will be tested at Aberdeen, where the new track will be the U.S. Army's only high-speed test facility for tracked and wheeled vehicles weighing up to 119 tons and traveling at 65 miles per hour, officials said.
"We have a growing demand for unmanned, autonomous vehicles with a high-speed requirement," Col. John P. Rooney, commander of the U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center, said in an interview. Officials are eager to test different convoy configurations, such as having a long convoy of heavy trucks led by an unmanned vehicle "driven" by a soldier protected in an armored vehicle following behind.
The robot vehicles could also be useful as convoy outriders with remotely fired weapons.
The pressing need for better convoy protection was underscored yesterday just hours before Army officials held a rain-soaked ground-breaking ceremony at Aberdeen. On a stretch of road outside Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, insurgents struck a U.S. military convoy, killing a U.S. soldier and eight civilians and wounding 74 others, according to an Associated Press dispatch.
At least 75 percent of the food, fuel, ammunition and other critical supplies move to Afghanistan by road, in long truck convoys that snake over the mountains from Pakistan and rumble along the roads to American and allied bases and outposts. The country's high altitude, towering mountains and turbulent weather limit supply by air.
More than 400 U.S. military personnel have been killed in combat in Afghanistan since 2001, and 2,581 have been seriously wounded. Many of the casualties were suffered while driving in or protecting convoys, which have become a favored target for Taliban and other insurgents as well as bandits, U.S. officers said.
