Detecting NBC contaminants on the move: armed services and first responders upgrade their fleets of reconnaissance vehicles.

As the nation steps up its efforts to cope with the threat of nuclear, biological and chemical attacks, U.S. armed services and homeland security units are modernizing their fleets of vehicles designed to help detect the presence of toxic materials before they can harm combat troops, first responders or civilians.

* The Fox NBC reconnaissance vehicle--used by the Army and Marines since the Gulf War--is getting a makeover.

* Plans are being made to provide a lighter platform, more suitable to city streets, by adapting the Humvee and a version of the Army's Stryker light armored vehicle.

* Local emergency-response teams around the country are buying civilian trucks and vans and packing them with the latest NBC sensors and communications gear.

Altogether, the two services have 120 Foxes, which they have been upgrading gradually since 1996. General Dynamics land Systems, of Sterling Heights, Mich., has been installing enhanced chemical detection, global positioning and autonomous navigation systems.

The addition of a stand-off detector allows early warning of airborne contamination up to three miles from the vehicle, according to John G. Petty, director of GDLS's Fox program. Also included is a new automated sensor suite, which allows the vehicle's crew to be reduced from four to three, he said.

Thus far, 97 Foxes either already have been upgraded or are under contract to have the work done by 2004 said the Army's product manager for NBC reconnaissance systems, Lt. Col. Donald J. Burnett. Just last August, the company received a $26 million contract for 11 of them.

Since the terrorist attacks, the pace seems to be picking up, according to Petty. "We think that the Army now has an interest in completing the fleet," he said.

The Fox is a six-wheeled armored personnel carrier equipped to detect, identify and mark areas of nuclear or chemical contamination and report its presence immediately, Petty explained. But on its own, it cannot detect and report biological contamination--such as anthrax spores--he said. "The technology for that is just being developed."

The Fox, however, can gather samples of suspected biological contamination from as far away as five kilometers, Petty noted. Those samples then can be submitted to a laboratory for later analysis.

The 20-ton Fox can move quickly to investigate suspected contamination sites, Petty said. It is capable of 65 mph on the highway, and it can swim waterways at 6 mph.

Hazards are reduced by an air-conditioning system designed to keep out contaminants, Petty said. "Crew members can work in their shirt sleeves, without protective clothing," he said. "That's a pretty attractive option in a desert climate like Afghanistan or Iraq."

The United States has struggled to improve its defenses against chemical weapons since U.S. troops suffered heavy casualties during gas attacks in World War I, according to a 2001 report issued by the office of the secretary of defense. In the 1950s, it began developing a detection and warning system, and in the late 1970s, it fielded the first U.S. automatic chemical alarm, known as the M-8.

In 1984--about the time when Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran and its own Kurdish population--the Army began studying the idea of a mobile NBC reconnaissance system, the report explained. The service tested a German version, known as the Fuchs NBC reconnaissance vehicle. When the Persian Gulf War broke out, Germany donated 60 copies of the Fuchs to the United States.

The U.S. version--renamed the Fox--"was the most sophisticated, technically complex piece of chemical detection equipment that the United States used in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm," the report said,

The heart of the Fox system is the MM-1 Mobile Mass Spectrometer. It analyzes air or ground samples for the possible presence of liquid chemical warfare agents by drawing air through a sampler positioned on the outside of the vehicle to the MM-1 detection unit, which then studies the substance and displays the results on a video screen.

The Fox surveys for a list of chemical warfare agents most likely to be present, given the threat. The usual suspects include satin, soman, mustard, lewisite and cyclosarin.

The Fox, however, had its limitations during the war, the report said. It was designed to detect, sample and analyze liquid agents on the ground. While it could detect agents in the air, it did so at a slower pace. It might not do so "in time to prevent ... casualties among unprotected personnel," according to the report.

The vehicle also had difficulty distinguishing between chemical agents and airborne contaminants, such as diesel fumes, vehicle exhausts and smoke from burning oil wells. In addition, the Fox crews had received insufficient training to understand the vehicle's capabilities and limitations, the report said.

The result, the report noted, was a number of false alarms and complaints that the Foxes failed to protect some U.S. personnel from noxious fumes, resulting in so-called "Gulf War illnesses." A decade later, the Defense Department has nor been able to identify the cause of those illnesses.

Since the war, the Army has improved equipment and training for the Fox, officials said. Au M-21 remote sensing chemical agent alarm has been added to improve the vehicle's vapor detection, providing earlier warnings of airborne hazards. The Army now provides more than 38 hours of MM-1 training and a certifying exam for operators.

Meanwhile, the Marine Corps has been tagged to develop another vehicle, called the Joint Service Lightweight NBC Reconnaissance System. The prime contractor is TRW Tactical Systems Division, of Carson, Calif. This system will he a lighter, less expensive one that all of the services can use in non-combat situations, such as peace-keeping, force protection and homeland security, explained project leader Rudy Olsik, at Marine Corps Systems Command, in Quantico, Va.

"The lightweight system will be equipped a lot like the Fox, but it won't be armored," Olsik said. Instead of roaming battlefields, it will be used for such duties as protecting airfields, base perimeters and seaports, he said.

At present, two versions are in the works, one based on the Humvee and the other on the Stryker, Olsik said. Plans are to procure 47 Humvees and six Strykers this year for use in initial operational test and evaluation.

The Stryker version is scheduled to go to reconnaissance units of the Arm/s new initial combat brigade teams by 2005, Olsik said. The teams also will receive Foxes for use in combat, he said.

Some military units with homeland security responsibilities already are equipped and trained to deal with NBC events. Examples include the Marines' Chemical Biological Incidence Response Force, at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Indian Head, Md., and the Army National Guard's Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams. By the end of fiscal year 2003, 32 of those reams are scheduled to be certified as fully ready to respond to such attacks.

During an emergency, however, deploying these teams rake times, Peter L. Gorman, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers of New York, told a congressional hearing. Initially, the first to arrive at a disaster will be the emergency personnel from the nation's 36,000 local jurisdictions, he said.

"The reality is that these military reams, as capable as they are, could be hours away," he said. "Meanwhile, the firefighters are on the scene within minutes. Thus, it is viral that all first responders have access to monitoring devices and be provided with the proper training to use them accurately."

To meet this need, President Bush has proposed $3.5 billion in federal grants for stare and local first responders in 2003. These funds--a 1,000 percent increase over 2002--would go specifically for new equipment and training to improve responses to chemical and biological events, according to Joe M. Albaugh, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They also could used to help local governments develop comprehensive plans to prepare for and respond to terrorist attacks, he said.

Many state and local agencies cited a need far new emergency-response vehicles. Existing vehicles are often old and poorly equipped, officials said. One fire department in the stare of Washington, for example, told FEMA that it was using a 1975 converted bread truck to respond to hazardous material incidents.

Even with federal funding, military vehicles--such as the Fox-are considered too big and expensive for most civilian organizations, said Petty. "Our view is that the Fox is a bit of an overkill for domestic use," he said. "It certainly could be used to help protect big public events. The Marine CBIRF unit had two Foxes at the Atlanta Olympics."

Most fire departments, however, are opting to install NBC sensors and communications equipment into commercial trucks or vans, which "are a lot cheaper" than military vehicles, said Jim Flynn, marketing and sales manager for General Motors Defense.

General Motors, for example, markets a South African-made vehicle--called the Nyala--which is designed for use by police and fire department reams and sells for about $300,000, Flynn said. A military light-armored vehicle would go for perhaps three times that, he said, and a Fox would cost much more.

The Raytheon Company, in a briefing at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., unveiled a new command-and-communication for first responders that could be used for reconnaissance, according to Brian McKeon, vice president for command and control.

The full-size, four-wheel-drive vehicle "solves one of the most difficult problems at any disaster scene," McKeon said. "The first responder needs to communicate."

Too often, he said, the situation commander arrives on site with too little information or the wrong information and is unable to communicate with all of the emergency teams. After the attack on the Pentagon, for example, reams from 10 jurisdictions responded, trying to communicate with different technologies, on different radio frequencies, using four different spectrums, McKeon said.

"It didn't work ... It couldn't work," said Edward P. Plaugher, fire chief of Arlington, Va. In the end, he said, "we relied on communications technology perfected by ancient Greeks--carrying messages on foot." The Raytheon vehicle's communications suite includes:

* A satellite phone that can connect via 52 low-orbit satellites to land-based phone systems from anywhere in the world.

* Cellphone technology supporting three standard systems, Verizon, Cingular and AT&T.

* Software programmable radios that can handle the usual police, fire and military frequencies.

* Two wireless local area networks, one for voice and one for video.

A computer controls the entire system, allowing interoperability, McKeon said. "This means that a firefighter can talk to a police officer, using a different radio, as if they were using the same system."

While the vehicle does not include equipment to analyze NBC hazards, McKeon said, Raytheon is developing a number of handheld devices for this purpose. The company's lightweight, portable thermal-imaging cameras were used at the World Trade Center to help responders see through smoke and darkness and detect heat, he said.