Frag Out! Magazine

up with creation of the demonstrators of the project. Then, it was planned to conduct an open tender for the engineer- ing and production stage (Engineering, Manufacturing and Development, EMD), which was to lead to prototype vehicles. ENGINEERING, MANUFACTURING AND DEVELOPMENTThe development stage of the JLTV program ended in May 2011 when odified tactical and technical requirements for JLTV vehicles were formed– a significantly strong focus was put on high resistance against IEDs and mines on par with M-ATV vehicles. The idea of three preferred main variants of JLTV vehicles was withdrawn and the program focused on two variants. The first one was the CTV (Combat Tactical Vehicle) replacing the previous A and B variants, capable of transporting four soldiers with a loading capacity of 1.5 t. The B variant of the vehicles was cancelled due to exceeding the weight of 7 t, which made it impossible to transport the vehicles with CH-47F Chinook and CH-53K Super Stallion helicop- ters. The second variant of the JLTV vehicles would be the CSV (Combat Support Vehicle) replacing the previous C variant, capable of transporting two soldiers and having a 2.3 t payload. The expected demand for JLTV vehicles was reduced to 55,400 units (49,909 vehicles for the US Army and 5,500 for the UMSC).The finalization of the de- velopment stage of the JLTV program occurred in a peri- od in which the future of the program was uncertain due the budget cuts. An alternative (faster and cheaper) solu- tion for the JLTV program that was generating higher and higher costs (the general cost of the purchase of vehicles alone as a part of the planned demand was estimated for at least $31 billion) was the deep modernization of Humvees that would be conducted as HMMWV MECV (Modernized Expanded Capability Vehicle) program. Its purpose was to elaborate a set of solutions that would allow a signif- icant improvement of mine resistance. Ideas for achiev- ing this goal were focused on applying in the upgrade ve- hicles, a cabin-citadel with a V-shaped base profile and placing a so-called SBC (Structural Blast Chimney) in the crew compartment, i.e. a pipe, made of composite armor, with a square cross section, the function of which would be to release the blast wave formed during an explosion under the vehicle. However, the HMMWV MECV program www.fragoutmag.com

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