Frag Out! Magazine

THE ORIGIN AND PROCESS OF THE JLTV PROGRAM In 1985, the AM General launched produc- tion of HMMWV vehicles for the US Army. On that time, the planners claimed that the new vehicle, which replaced the simple and popular 4x4 M151 MUTT jeep and the distin- guishing, as well as expensive in maintenance, semi-am- phibious 6x6 M561 Gama Goats, shall be used for at least 30 years. Those forecasts could not consider the fact that, due to unfavorable political and military circumstances, the US armed forces will be forced to use HMMWV, in less than 20 years as patrol vehicles (usually hastily armored) during an asymmetric conflict that was getting worse. The additional armor of the Humvee drastically limited their parameters and, to make matters worse, it appeared that such modified vehicles (including those with dedicat- ed armor) were most often not able to efficiently protect their crews and passangers against the basic weapons of the asymmetric enemy – IEDs. That is why the Americans had to quickly introduce a series of heavy anti-mine MRAP vehicles (later on complemented with M-ATVs which were better tailrted to operate in difficult terrain conditions). Regardless those activities, military decision-makers decided that there was also a necessity to design a new, lightweight tactical vehicle as a successor of a large part of the HMMWVs, which would combine two main (and difficult to balance, due to obvious reasons) features – high off-road mobility and a proper degree of resistance to mines (it must be noted that at the beginning of the JLTV program, the requirement of a high anti-mine resistance of the vehicle was not that significant; it has changed in the subsequent stage of the program), as well as would be more reliable than Humvee vehicles. The JLTV program formally began in November 2006, when the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) initiated a 13-month initial con- cept stage, in which the basic ideas were set. Originally, it was planned to have three main variants of JLTVs of loading capacity of, respectively, 1.6 t, 1.8-2 t and 2.3 t (the so-called A, B and C category). The first planned variant (Battlespace Awareness) of the JLTV vehicle would be the general-purpose vehicle (JLTV-A-GP) that would be able to transport up to four soldiers. Another planned variant (Force Application) would include a vehicle in command and control (JLTV-B-C2OTM), reconnaissance, support and ambulance variants, which would be able to trans- port up to six soldiers. The last variant (Focused Logistics) would be shelter carrier/utility and ambulance vehicle with crew of of two soldiers. Vehicles were to have a large share of the same components. Apart from designing vehicles, the JLTV program also planned creation of sin- gle-axial towed trailers. Initially, the total demand of the respective US Armed Forces for JLTV vehicles was esti- mated for 60,000 units. www.fragoutmag.com

• Cover