Joint Light Tactical Vehicle
Written by LESLIE SHAVER
GCT 2010 Volume: 1 Issue: 2 (August)
AS THE JLTV PROGRAM MOVES THROUGH THE TECHNOLOGY-DEVELOPMENT, ITS UNIQUE ADVANTAGES EMERGE.
Long before early 2008, when the Army released a request for proposal for a joint light tactical vehicle (JLTV) family of vehicles, a cadre of suppliers were ready. And, in many cases, they had already invested millions of dollars and loads of time into the experimental vehicle.
Why did they line up to build a vehicle that the military hadn’t even asked for yet? Simple: They saw a void. The HMMWV had evolved into an armored combat and scout vehicle, but wasn’t necessarily intended for that role. The military needed something that could offer protection against a new kind of weapon, while maintaining its mobility. And if the defense industry could provide that type of product, there was ample opportunity for new contracts.
So in late 2006, Sterling Heights, Mich.-based General Dynamics Land Systems and South Bend, Ind.-based AM General formed General Tactical Vehicles (GTV), a joint venture to win the JLTV contract. Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin was also active. When the company sent its first prototypes for testing earlier this year, it had already put 70,000 miles and five years of thought and design into its JLTV.
“About five years ago, we saw a need for this next generation vehicle and we started our own internal investments and focus on this,” said Steve Ramsey, vice president of ground systems for Lockheed. “We invested in our vehicle ahead of the requirements of the government.”
The decision to invest ahead of time paid off for Lockheed and two other participants—GTV, and a partnership between Arlington, Va.-based BAE Systems and Warrenville, Ill.-based Navistar. The Pentagon tapped those three contenders to provide JLTVs for a 27-month technology development phase of the JLTV program.
The three competitors have embarked on a technology development phase that will last 24 months at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland and Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona.
Now, the companies have an even better grasp of what their systems offer and what’s ahead. And as testing progresses, they’re focusing on providing vehicles that not only meet the military’s performance, payload and protection standards, but also offer comfortable transit and easy transportability.
THE QUEST FOR PERFORMANCE
In the past, the military relied on HMMWV for its primary troop transport, but the lessons in Iraq and Afghanistan with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) revealed that the battlefield landscape had changed. In that context, contractors began working on a family of more survivable vehicles and greater payload. To upgrade the HMMWV, the military had to make sacrifices. For instance, if it added armor to protect troops, it compromised speed.
“More armor means more weight, which degrades the performance of the vehicle,” Ramsey said. “It can’t go as fast or as far. At some time, it can’t carry as much because it’s carrying armor instead of payload. What’s needed is a next generation vehicle that can properly balance what’s called the iron triangle of payload, performance and protection at the same time. That’s what the JLTV program is all about.”
Ramsey says the JLTV’s ability to fulfill all three requirements of the iron triangle will provide unprecedented flexibility and performance. “In many of today’s vehicles, if they get too heavy, they can only go down the road,” he said. “The JLTV will offer the ability to get off road and become unpredictable in the ways in which it travels, which then presents a higher level of protection because you’re unpredictable.”
But to get to Ramsey’s vision of an unpredictable troop transport that isn’t confined to roads, the contractors and the government still need to do some work. “The iron triangle is not an easy dilemma to solve in terms of how you get the level of protection you need, while also maintaining the mobility and performance and payload that’s needed for today’s warfighter,” Ramsey said.
PROTECTION REQUIREMENTS
While all three aspects of the iron triangle are critically important in the development of the JLTV, representatives from the three companies working through the development of the JLTV inevitably mention protection first.
Protection usually starts with armor. The JLTV is required to have two armor kits. The armor kit is especially important to the companies in testing. “You can bring it down for peacekeeping operations, but you can scale it because of [the] environment you’re in,” said Deepak Bazaz, BAE’s JLTV program manager. “That scalable armor is very important to [the] JLTV approach.”
GTV offers similar protection, but also has multiple systems designed to mitigate the effects of blasts, which is another requirement for the vehicle. “We have state-of-the-art mine blast seats that are mounted in the crew capsule and they are not attached to the floor,” said Don Howe, GTV’s senior director. “That further protects the troops from any blasts on the bottom.”
Howe said the GTV offering also provides rollover protection and an optimized V-shaped hull. “We believe this gives the soldiers the requisite protection to survive the known mine blasts,” he said.
All of the competitors also tout their JLTV’s ability to adjust the vehicle’s height. Height adjustment provides a number of advantages, but one primary benefit is in troop safety. “It [the Lockheed JTV] can be raised to do things like fort streams and be in a higher position further off the ground to avoid blasts from IEDs,” Ramsey said.
Howe also sees the value in height adjustments. “It becomes especially critical from a survivability standpoint because it allows them to raise the vehicle up nine inches when they’re traveling through a dangerous area that might have landmine[s],” he explained. “With the height management system, it gives you additional clearance from the ground.”
PAYLOAD CONCERNS
In some cases, the payload part of the puzzle is set for the competitors. They must produce three categories of JLTVs. Payload Category A vehicles have a capacity of 3,500 pounds and a four-person capacity. Payload Category B vehicles have a payload capacity of 4,000 to 4,500 pounds and a six-person capacity. Payload Category C vehicle has a payload of 5,100 pounds, and can carry two people with a pickup truck bed.
But regardless of the weight and capacity, getting the JLTV into battle is also a key design feature. The military wants it to be transported into battle by CH-47 and CH-53 helicopters, and the C-130 aircraft. That means the companies competing in the development phase must always remain cognizant of weight. “The key to that transportability is making it light at the same time that you’re making it well-protected,” Ramsey said. “It’s easy to throw armor on the vehicle so it would be wellprotected, but would it be light?”
Height adjustability, while critically important in force protection, is something the JLTV developers are finding provides a significant advantage in transport. Like its competitors from BAE and GLTV, Lockheed’s model provides adjustable height options. “[The Lockheed JLTV] has those capabilities [adjustable height requirements] to make it flexible and transported by the U.S. government so they can get it to the fight and the place in the fight where it’s needed,” Ramsey said.
It also needs to be transportable by ship. “[The adjustable height] allows you to lower the vehicle down so that you can get it inside the ships, and you can get in the lowest storage area required by contract for the marine transport to support the Marine Corps.”
THE FUTURE
As the JLTV program continues through its technology development phase, the military is learning what the JLTV will and won’t be able to do. “They’re getting feedback on the requirements and driving risk out of the program going forward,” Ramsey said. “When they publish the next version of specs, they have something that they’re confident that the industry could meet.”
But the government isn’t the only one doing testing. The competitors continue to put their JLTVs through the paces as well. “We have facility vehicles that we’re running test miles on as well,” Howe said. “We’re not leaving all the testing up to the government. We’re testing out durability and certain subsystem performance items. Now, we’re not only getting ready for next phase, but also inserting technologies into them and gathering test data that we will use in the future when we bid the next phase.”
That next phase, of course, is the engineering manufacturing and development phase. Finally, it will move into the production phase, which published reports say could happen in fiscal year 2013. Once these JLTVs do hit the battlefield, these companies are confident that they’ll fill a needed void.
“As our troops have continued to face the threat of the IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan, it highlights the need for this,” Ramsey said. “What’s great about the vehicle is that it will be a globally flexible vehicle that can perform well in Afghanistan or Iraq or in other places—wherever our troops may need it.” ♦
The Contenders
Right now, three companies are engaged in the technology development phase for the military’s joint light tactical vehicle. Here’s a look at those three contenders and what they claim to bring to the table:
General Tactical Vehicles (GTV): General Dynamics Land Systems and AM General formed GTV to pursue the JLTV contract. The partnership makes sense. General Dynamics specializes in the heavy and medium vehicle combat market, while AM General has been deeply involved in the light tactical wheeled vehicle market.
“Our approach has been heavily focused on a mature system-engineering process to lead us in the design and development of the JLTV systems,” said Don Howe, GTV’s senior director. “Our design takes the warfighter and puts the warfighter at the center of our efforts.”
Howe said the GTV offering also has advantage in parts commonality, with 95 percent commonality between the all three of GTV’s categories of JLTVs. “We have a common vehicle or base platform across our family of vehicles,” he said. “We have the same base, whether it’s A, B or C variant. This allows us to make changes to the vehicle to increase protection on a vehicle very easily.”
Lockheed Martin: For some, Lockheed may be the surprise entry into the JLTV competition. Traditionally, the company hasn’t been as involved in the ground wheeled vehicle space. But Steve Ramsey, vice president of ground systems for Lockheed, said the company saw an opportunity to bring its expertise to the protection, payload and performance divide.
Ramsey also contends that Lockheed is ahead of the game because of the 70,000 miles the company has already put into testing its JLTV. “The versions that we delivered were in a much lower risk position than they otherwise would have been,” he said. “We have a higher level of maturity in our design going forward.”
Ramsey also touts his JLTV’s reduced total cost of ownership over the life cycle of the vehicle through its fuel efficiency and maintainability. “We have a level of diagnostics that are available to make the vehicles much easier to maintain and more cost effective and to maintain.”
BAE Systems and Navistar: Like Lockheed, BAE touts both its own testing process and its focus on the iron triangle.
“What we like about our system is that we used a rigorous engineering approach to make our decisions,” said Deepak Bazaz, BAE’s JLTV program manager. “We really optimized across the balance of payload, protection and performance. We didn’t focus on one particular area.”
BAE also learned a lot through its own testing. For instance, the earlier levels of testing helped BAE get a better feel for maintenance that led to tweaks of the engine compartment. “If you were to buy a car, there are certain areas where you don’t want that oil dipstick,” Bazaz said. “If you build it and evaluate it and you learn about packaging and maintainability and just some basic performances, maybe you relocate it.” ♦