Joint Light Tactical Vehicle program


The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle 'program' was a U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps and Special Operations Command competition to select a vehicle to partially replace the Humvee fleet with a family of more survivable vehicles having a greater payload. Early studies for the JLTV program were approved in 2006. The JLTV program incorporates lessons learned from the earlier Future Tactical Truck Systems program and other associated efforts.
The JLTV program has evolved considerably throughout various development phases and milestones including required numbers and pricing. Variants are capable of performing armament carrier, utility, command and control, ambulance, reconnaissance and a variety of other tactical and logistic support roles. JLTV follows the U.S. Army's Long Term Armor Strategy with kits for two levels of armor protection. Oshkosh's L-ATV was selected as the winner of the JLTV program in August 2015 and awarded an initial production contract for up to 16,901 JLTVs. The U.S. Army approved the JLTV for full-rate production in June 2019.

Development

The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, which first entered service in 1985, was developed during the Cold War when improvised explosive devices and asymmetric warfare were not a major factor for military planners. The HMMWVs demonstrated vulnerability to IEDs, and the difficulties and costs experienced in satisfactorily up-armoring HMMWVs led to the development of a family of more survivable vehicles with greater payload and mobility. JLTV was originally reported as a one-for-one HMMWV replacement; however, U.S. Department of Defense officials now emphasize that JLTVs are not intended to replace all HMMWVs.
The JLTV publicly emerged in 2006. Early government documents note: "In response to an operational need and an aging fleet of light tactical wheeled vehicles, the joint services have developed a requirement for a new tactical wheeled vehicle platform that will provide increased force protection, survivability, and improved capacity over the current while balancing mobility and transportability requirements with total ownership costs." The joint service nature of the effort was assured through Congressional language in the Fiscal Year 2006 Authorization Act, which mandated that any future tactical wheeled vehicle program would be a joint program.
The Joint Chief of Staff's Joint Requirements Oversight Council approved the JLTV program in November 2006; this began a 13-month Concept Refinement phase which is a pre-systems acquisition process designed to further develop the initial concepts resident in the Initial Capabilities Document. The Concept Refinement phase also includes an Analysis of Alternatives. At the conclusion of the Concept Refinement phase in December 2007, the Joint Program Office JLTV project manager intended to transition the program directly into the engineering, manufacturing, and development phase.
As the milestone approached, it became clear that the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment John Young would not support the JLTV program entering into the acquisition process at that time. He denied the request and instructed the Army and the Marine Corps to develop a more vigorous Technology Development phase.
The DoD released a request for proposal for the TD phase of the JLTV program on 5 February 2008. Industry proposals were due 7 April. TD phase contract award was postponed in July 2008. The following companies and partnerships responded to the TD phase RFP:
In October 2008, the Pentagon narrowed the field of vendors to Lockheed Martin, General Tactical Vehicles and BAE Systems/Navistar. Each team was awarded contracts worth between $35.9 million and $45 million to begin the next phase of the program, which at the time was stated to be worth $20 billion or more. The Northrop Grumman/Oshkosh group contested the awards, but their protest was denied by the Government Accountability Office.
In June 2010, it was confirmed that all three contractors had delivered seven JLTV platforms for TD phase evaluation. The U.S. Army appeared to have reduced its support for the program at this time, omitting JLTV numbers from its tactical vehicle strategy published in June 2010. However, the U.S. Army clarified that JLTVs are slated to both replace and complement the Humvee.
JLTV's TD phase was completed in May 2011. In February 2011, the JLTV Program Office announced the award of the follow-on Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase contract would be delayed until January or February 2012 because the Army changed requirements for the JLTV, requiring it to have the same level of under-body protection as the Oshkosh M-ATV. Updated specifications for the program included reducing the payload options to the Combat Tactical Vehicle configuration, which would be a 4-seat vehicle with a 3,500 pound payload, and the Combat Support Vehicle, which would be a 2-seat vehicle with a 5,100-pound payload.

Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase

The draft RFP for the Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase was released in October 2011. It called for an average unit manufacturing cost between $230,000 and $270,000 across the JLTV family of vehicles. The cost target for the B-kit armor package remains at US$65,000. The EMD phase requirements created some trade space for industry by easing weight and mobility constraints. At this time JLTV was in danger of severe budget cuts and possible cancellation in the wake of spiraling costs, delays, and defense-wide budgetary cutbacks. It was also competing against the HMMWV Modernized Expanded Capacity Vehicle program, the draft RFP for which was released in August 2011.
In January 2012 the request for proposals for JLTV's EMD phase was released. Budget priorities for FY13 released on the same day included the termination of the HMMWV MECV program in order to focus vehicle modernization resources on the JLTV. Not all of the TD phase contract award teams remained in place for the EMD phase. By late March 2012, at least six teams had submitted responses to the EMD phase RFP, and following EMD phase contract awards in August 2012, in September Hardwire LLC disclosed itself as a previously unknown seventh bidder. The bidders were:
  • AM General offered the Blast-Resistant Vehicle – Off Road, a product based on its own R&D, and a design that leveraged some of AM General's then-recent experience with HMMWV MECV designs.
  • BAE Systems realigned its team for the EMD phase to include Ford and proposed a design that capitalized on earlier TD phase work with the Valanx.
  • GTV dropped its TD phase developed design and opted to offer a lowest risk solution, a further development of the in-production MOWAG Eagle.
  • Lockheed Martin opted to stay with its TD phase offering, albeit a version that according to the company was "hundreds of pounds lighter in weight."
  • Navistar, which broke away from BAE Systems for the EMD phase, offered a variant of its Saratoga light tactical vehicle, this unveiled in October 2011 as a middle-ground offering between the HMMWV and JLTV, the latter with its then current TD phase spec still technically in place.
  • Oshkosh proposed a variant of the company's L-ATV, unveiled in October 2011. L-ATV has developmental origins that trace back to Oshkosh/Northrop-Grumman's failed initial JLTV proposal.
  • Hardwire offered a proposal featuring a hybrid-electric drive train. Hardwire's armor has been employed on MRAP vehicles, and the company is known for developing a "blast chimney" that it designed to provide an outlet for energy released in an underbelly blast.
On 23 August 2012, the Army and Marine Corps selected the Lockheed Martin JLTV, the Oshkosh L-ATV, and the AM General BRV-O as the winners of the EMD phase of the competition. The three companies were awarded a contract to build 22 prototype vehicles in 27 months to be judged by the services. Losing bidder Navistar filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office over the evaluation criteria later that month; the company withdrew the protest in September 2012.
On 27 August 2013, the Army and Marine Corps announced that full-scale testing of JLTV prototypes would begin the following week. Each company delivered 22 vehicles and six trailers to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, and Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona. Previous testing had already put the vehicles through more than 400 ballistic and blast tests on armor testing samples, underbody blast testing, and more than 1,000 miles in shakedown testing. Soldiers from the Army Test and Evaluation Command and personnel from the Defense Department's Office of Test and Evaluation put the vehicles through realistic and rigorous field testing during 14 months of government performance testing. Testing was to be completed by FY 2015, with a production contract to be awarded to a single vendor for nearly 55,000 vehicles. In September 2013, full-pace, full-scope JLTV testing began at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Yuma Proving Ground, and Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.
On 1 October 2013, the Defense Department Inspector General launched a year-long audit of the JLTV program. It was one of about a dozen acquisition programs outlined in the FY 2014 "audit plan". The audit was to determine whether Army and Marine Corps officials were overseeing and managing the program effectively before low-rate production began. A June 2013 report by the Congressional Research Service estimates the program cost at $23 billion, or $400,000 per vehicle; military leaders contend the unit cost at $250,000.
The Army planned to issue a RFP to companies interested in bidding for production contracts in mid-November 2014 and to pick a winner possibly by July 2015. Discrepancies in unit cost have been attributed to different methods for analyzing cost. The Inspector General report concludes program officials "appropriately assessed the affordability" of the effort, and that average unit production cost remains stable at $250,000. All three vehicles completed limited user testing and production readiness reviews by mid-November 2014.
The Army released the final JLTV RFP for low rate initial production and full rate production in December 2014, clearing the way for AM General, Lockheed Martin, and Oshkosh Defense to submit their vehicle proposals. The Army gave competitors until 10 February 2015, to refine and submit their bids. The Army, on behalf of itself and the Marines, stated plans to select a winner and issue a single contract award in the late summer of 2015.
The winning contractor would build approximately 17,000 JLTVs for the Army and Marine Corps during three years of LRIP, followed by five years of FRP. The first Army unit would be equipped with JLTVs in FY2018, and the Army's complete acquisition of 49,099 JLTVs would be completed in 2040, with 2,200 JLTVs delivered each year between 2020 and 2036. The Marine Corps would begin acquiring their 5,500 JLTVs at the beginning of production and would be completed by FY 2022.
FY 2015 budget requests included 176 JLTV for the Army and 7 JLTV for the Marine Corps in various configurations. The total procurement cost of the JLTV program was quoted as US$30.04 billion and US$0.98 billion in research and development funds, giving a total estimated program cost of US$31.03 billion.