Ted Maciuba is the Acting Chief of Mounted Requirements for the US Army’s Manoeuvre Centre of Excellence in Fort Knox, Kentucky. He will be just one of the many experts on our speaker panel throughout Defence IQ\’s Armoured Vehicle event series. Visit www.internationalarmouredvehicles.com.

1. Armoured Vehicles Europe 2010: Ted Maciuba, US Army
Ted Maciuba is the Acting Chief of Mounted Requirements for the US Army’s Manoeuvre
Centre of Excellence in Fort Knox, Kentucky. He will be just one of the many experts on our
speaker panel at this September’s conference in Krakow, Poland.
Defence IQ: Good morning, Ted. How are you?
Ted Maciuba: Good. A beautiful day in Kentucky. It’s 90-some degrees here today, so I
think it’s appropriate that we’re talking on a gorgeous summer day.
Defence IQ: Well, great to hear and sorry to keep you on the phone rather than let you get
out and about, but thanks very much for speaking with us. Sir, would you care to just lead us
in with a brief overview of your own background and the actual role of the MCOE?
Ted Maciuba: Okay. I am the Director of Mounted Requirements… in fact, I’m actually the
Acting Director, because the former director retired and the newest director has not been
named. We are responsible for the Mounted Requirements for the Tactical Ground
Manoeuvre Force. So within my portfolio, I have things like the Abrams Tank, the Bradley
Infantry Fighting Vehicle, the Stryker family of vehicles, the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected
family of vehicles, and we are doing the requirements for the new Ground Combat Vehicle…
Infantry Fighting Vehicle right now. What we really do is go out, determine what the state of
technology is, what the threat will be, and based on that, we determine the required
capabilities of not only our current platforms, but also platforms in the future.
Defence IQ: Excellent. So without getting too specific with any programme in particular,
what are some of the recent developments that we’re seeing in today’s era of combat vehicle
modernisation, and where would you say the key challenge is, just from your perspective?
Ted Maciuba: I would say that right now, we’re really focusing on force protection and
survivability. And force protection in terms of protecting the crew, and survivability in terms of
allowing the vehicle to continue on to do its mission. We are attempting, I think, to keep our
capabilities pretty well constant and trying to reduce weight and increase energy efficiency, so
I think those are the major trends as we go forward.
Defence IQ: Very good. And staying on a general level, what new or innovative concepts for
ground manoeuvre are we seeing in present day operations and what lessons would you say
have been learnt in recent years – or even months – in this field?
Ted Maciuba: I think that much of our force right now was built for Cold War operations, and
I think what we have learnt in Iraq and Afghanistan is that some of the ideas that we had, not
only in the Cold War, but also through the future combat system, which as you probably
know, was… the main ground vehicle portion of that was terminated in April of last year… we
have learnt the lessons from some of the mistakes that were done with the future combat
system, and we’ve incorporated those into not only the ground combat vehicle as we go
forward, but also the updates that we’re doing to the current platforms, such as Abrams and
Stryker and Bradley.
Defence IQ: I see. And Ted, how much can you perhaps enlighten us on the formation of
the Stryker Brigade Combat Team? Can I ask why it was decided to essentially merge the
light infantry with the heavy armour infantry, and what would be the benefits to such an
approach?
Ted Maciuba: Well, the Stryker Brigade Combat Team was initially called the Medium
Armoured Vehicle, actually with the interim combat teams that included the Medium

2. Armoured Vehicle back in 1999. The Chief of Staff of the Army at that time, General
Shinseki, wanted something in between the light forces that we had and the heavy forces that
we had, and he was looking for something that was more deployable, he was looking for
something that would fit on to a C130 – our tactical aviation assets within the US military –
and what happened was, as we went through the assessments of the different types of
vehicles, the decision was made to go with the Stryker formation. The Stryker was really built
around the infantry squad. It… the Stryker infantry carrier… and again, I want to make the
distinction between an infantry carrier and an infantry fighting vehicle…the carrier was there
to move the infantry squad about the battlefield with a certain level of protection so that they
could dismount and do their mission at that time, and then the rest of the vehicles within the
Stryker family of vehicles was based on that specific chassis and then different mission
equipment packages were put on board to do things like infantry support.
As an example, the mobile gun system that was developed was there as an infantry support
weapon, not as a small tank. The reconnaissance and surveillance vehicle was there to
provide the eyes and ears for the Brigade Combat Team commander so that he could
properly manoeuvre his infantry forces to a position of advantage. So the Stryker Brigade
Combat Team was kind of the medium weight force, as we went forward into the future. Now,
one of the interesting things about the ideas that we had back in 1999 was the idea that there
was a trident going forward, and the top bar of the trident was the objective force – the force
that we were trying to get towards. The middle was called the legacy force, and those… the
objective force and the legacy force would eventually join out into the future, and then the
interim force was that medium weight force that the Stryker was a part of, was the lower bar,
and that was supposed to terminate. And what we have found is that the Strykers are doing
so well on the battlefield and, you know, some of the ideas that you have initially just don’t
come to fruition and we will see Strykers in the force for the foreseeable future.
Defence IQ: That’s very interesting. Thank you. Just back on the topic of recent
developments, as it’s obviously something we’re keen to stay abreast of, where are the areas
of progress that you’ve seen or, again, hope to see soon in regards to materiel requirements?
What’s the key focus here from the perspective of the US Army, and as far as you can tell,
does this differ from the key concerns of the international community?
Ted Maciuba: One thing that I’ve been able to do in my international conferences is talk to
different militaries and different industries across the world, and I think pretty much we are
seeing the same types of issues for a smaller Baltic state as you find for the United States.
It’s the cost and the capabilities of armoured vehicles and, as you probably realise, the cost of
an armoured vehicle is a significant portion of the budget of a ground force. What we need to
do, I think, is to try to get cheaper combat vehicles with greater capabilities, and that is a very
difficult thing to do. As I talk to industry, I’m able to see the information or the technology that
they have, and then what I try to do is develop my user requirements based on that
technology and the direction that technology is going. What I like to do is talk about the fact
that if you want to see where ground vehicles are going to go in the future, you need to look
towards space and aviation. If you see things like innovative power supplies that, at this
point, are too expensive for ground vehicles, but are working in space or aviation platforms,
we can say that in the future, as our engineering and manufacturing capabilities increase, that
should drive down the cost of those kinds of things.
As an example, one of the things that I’m responsible for is a programme called Mounted
Soldier System. We are looking for an integrated helmet for combat vehicle crewman that will
give you a heads up display for battle command, for sensor input. We’re looking for cordless
communications and we’re looking for ballistic type protection. If you look at some of the
technology that is being developed across the world for the aviation realm – and I think about
the helmets that are being developed for the top end fighters… the F35 is an example…
those helmets have the kinds of things that we want, but the cost is significantly greater than
we can justify for a ground combat vehicle crew. As that technology matures, as it becomes
ruggedised… and we all know that surviving in the vibration, shock and mud of ground
combat does things to technology that it was never meant to do… as we’re able to ruggedise
those kinds of things, we’re able to give those kinds of capabilities to our, to our soldiers, and
we should be able to do it at an affordable price, and I think that’s one thing, that we need to

3. be resource informed as we try to do those kinds of things. You can have the best technology
and the best capability, but if you can’t afford it, then it does you no good at the tactical
combat level.
Defence IQ: Absolutely. We, of course, are very eager to hear how those technologies will
progress in the future. Ted, first of all, I’d like to obviously thank you for your time today. It’s
been really great to get your point of view on things, and of course, wish you all the best with
your ongoing work over at Fort Knox. Before we end the show, I just want to ask if you could
tell us perhaps which aspects or briefs on our European Armoured Vehicle event are you
most looking forward to, and why do you feel it’s important for yourself and for others in this
field to be a part of this forum?
Ted Maciuba: One of the things that I’ve been doing is attending these conferences now for
the last year and a half as we try to re-establish some of our linkage with the rest of the world.
The Manoeuvre Centre of Excellence, as a new organisation standing up, is now a single
point of contact for tactical ground manoeuvre within the United States Army. When I go to a
conference, especially as I start moving away from conferences that might be in London or
Paris and move eastward, I think you start to see a different clientele or group that attend
those kinds of conferences, and I am interested in seeing what their thoughts are on
armoured vehicles in terms of requirements and technology. I think there will be a different
group of industry partners that will also be there, and the fact that a company might be based
in Slovakia, or the Czech Republic, or Poland, or one of the Baltic states, it does not mean
that it is not technology that I am interested in to try to find out what the future holds. I have
the ability to take the information that I gain at these kinds of conferences and go back and
discuss that with the US Army Research, Development and Engineering Command
(RDECOM), who are our technological experts, who can then work with those kinds of
companies to get better capabilities into US Army platforms. We’re also able to work with the
programme manager then, who actually builds our next generation of vehicles or updates the
ones that we have right now, and again, the whole idea is to get the best possible capability
into the hands of our soldiers in the future.
Defence IQ: Great stuff. Thank you very much, Ted. We appreciate it. I’ll let you get back
to the Kentucky summer for now, but we’ll see you in September, and have a great day.
Ted Maciuba: Very good, thank you.
To be a part of this year’s Armoured Vehicle Europe 2010 Conference being held between
September 2-3 at the Targi w Krakowie Exhibition Centre, Poland, you can email
enquire@defenceiq.com, or call us on +44 (0) 207 368 9300. Alternatively you can visit our
website at www.armouredcehicleseurope.com where you can also keep up to date with
further news, free downloads and information.
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