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Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV)

Program History

Dr. Bruce Jette, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, approved the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program's transition into Full-Rate Production 20 June 2019. The approval follows an Army decision in December 2018 to begin fielding the new platform with the Army's 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Georgia, in April. The 1-3 ID became the Army's first unit equipped with JLTVs in April 2019, after receiving more than 300 vehicles. Fieldings to the Ordnance School, Fort Lee, Virginia, the 84th Training Command, Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, the Marine Corps' School of Infantry-West at Camp Pendleton, California, as well as the School of Infantry-East, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, have also been completed.

The long term objective of the JLTV for the US Marine Corps was to equip the MAGTF's combat arms, combat support, and combat service support forces with a high level of scalable protection, improved sustainment, and net-ready maneuver platforms that were strategically and operationally transportable, and tactical mobile across all terrain.

The JLTV family would include multiple Mission Role Variants (MRVs) sharing common major components for a high degree of materiel interoperability across the services. Those MRVs include the Long Range Surveillance (LRS) Variant for reconnaissance forces, the Combat Tactical Vehicle (CTV) and the Utility Variant (UVL), each in multiple configurations tailored for unique mission tasks. Planned as an evolutionary environmentally friendly acquisition program, improved force protection and fuel efficiency goals were established.

The initial production of JLTVs would provide the MAGTF Commander a family of tactical wheeled vehicles capable of providing combat forces protected, sustained, and netted mobility in irregular warfare operations and enhancing its contribution to the integrated Joint Task Force (JTF).

The Marine Corps established an initial increment of 5500 vehicles with an Initial Operations Capability of 2012. Future increments were planned to expand both the number of mission tasks JLTV would support, and the capability of each vehicle, achieved through technology insertion goals correlated to technology maturity and readiness levels. The JLTV Initial Capabilities Document received Joint Requirements Oversight Council approval in late 2006. The Capability Development Document was scheduled for Joint Staff review in March 2007, with a Milestone B decision expected in November 2007.

JLTV underwent intense examination by acquisition decision makers and Congress. JLTV was one of the first programs to fully implement the Office of the Secretary of Defense's September 2007 Competitive Prototyping policy, which called for 2 or more competing teams producing prototypes through Milestone B, with the goal of reducing risk and synchronizing requirements.

By 2008, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) Family of Vehicles (FoV) was described as a joint pre-MDAP program currently for the Army and Marine Corps. The JLTV goal was a family of vehicles with companion trailers capable of performing multiple mission roles that would be designed to provide protected, sustained, networked mobility for personnel and payloads across the full Range of Military Operations (ROMO). JLTV objectives included increased protection and performance over the current fleet, minimizing ownership costs by maximizing commonality, fuel efficiency and other means, and maintaining effective competition throughout the lifecycle.

The JLTV FoV had been greatly expanded to include a total of ten (10) sub-configurations (and companion trailers) in three payload categories. However in the System Design and Development phase it was noted that a single vehicle and/or trailer could potentially fulfill the requirements for multiple sub-configurations. Commonality of components, maintenance procedures, training, etc between vehicles and trailers was expected to be inherent in FoV solutions within and across Payload Categories to minimize FoV total ownership cost. Unique service requirements were minimized.

In October 2008, the US Army announced the selection of 3 Technology Development contracts for the JLTV FoV. The contracts were awarded under the full and open competition process. The three companies that were awarded contracts were BAE Systems Land and Armament Systems, General Tactical Vehicles, and Lockheed Martin Systems Integration. General Tactical Vehicles was a joint venture between General Dynamics Land Systems and AM General. BAE Systems Land and Armament Systems developed their JLTV candidate in cooperation with Navistar Defense and Arvin Meritor. Navistar Defense offered the vehicle commercially for sale as the Valanx.

During the 27 month Technology Development phase armor coupons, ballistic hulls, vehicles and trailers were to undergo a series of performance and reliability tests to better understand the technical challenges, demonstrate mature technologies, and finalize the JLTV requirements. Upon the completion of the Technology Development phase, the Services anticipated conducting another full and open competition with award of 2 contracts for the Engineering, Manufacturing and Development phase, with full production and fielding anticipated to begin in FY13.

Further development of the vehicle designs and of the program requirements continued through 2009 and into 2010. As of February 2010, vehicles and trailers were expected to be delivered in April 2010 for testing by the US military. The Engineering Manufacturing and Development (EMD) requirements were expected to be shared through draft PD requirements as they evolved. It was anticipated that Engineering Manufacturing and Development phase request for proposals would be released in the third quarter of 2011. It was hoped that following a Milestone C decision in 2013, the Army and the Marines would be able to proceed with plans to purchase 55,000 and 5,500 JLTVs respectiely. Full production was slated for 2015.

As of February 2011, the 3 prototype vehicles were undergoing testing at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Yuma Test Center, and in Australia. Delays forced the elimination of some performance requirements, which delayed RAM tests. Existing force protection requirements, which were to incorporate scalable armor using the Long Term Armor Strategy (LTAS) approach, appeared achievable. The JLTV candidates were also required to be designed with an open architecture to integrate future technologies as they became available.

The EMD phase had also condensed the initial three categories into 2 categories that could make use of multiple mission packages to expand their capabilities. The Combat Tactical Vehicle configuration, which would replace the previous Category A and Category B configurations, would be a 4-seat vehicle with a 3,500 pound payload. The Combat Support Vehicle, which would replace the previous Category C configuration, would be a 2-seat vehicle with a 5,100 pound payload. The Combat Tactical Vehicle configuration for the JLTV should not be confused with the vehicle program of the same name initiated by the USMC in 2005. A proposed 6-passenger configuration had been eliminated in the EMD phase by February 2011, and the development of an ambulance configuration had been pushed into planned development for the JLTV Increment II. The Army was to be responsible for 100 percent of development costs for Battle Command on the Move (BCOTM) and Recon variants.

As of 2011, the participants in the JLTV program were the US Army, USMC, and Australian Defense Forces. The Navy was said to have expressed an interest in the program, as it would require no additional unique vehicle configurations. The US Navy was at the time considering a requirement for approximately 400-500 Combat Tactical Vehicles and approximately 150-200 Combat Support Vehicles, with a requirement for associated trailers to be determined.

The JLTV program was stated to be much different in the EMD phase than it had been in the Technology Development phase. As a result the EMD phase was extended in 2011 from its planned 24 months to 48 months. It was expected that JLTV production would start in the first quarter of FY16 instead of the fourth quarter of FY13 as expected at the beginning of the EMD phase.

In a Government Accountability Office report on ground-based vehicles published on 26 October 2011, it was said that based on the technology development results, the services concluded that the original JLTV requirements were not achievable and its cost would be too high. For example, the services found that JLTV could not achieve both protection levels and transportability, with weight being the issue. As a result, the services adjusted the JLTV transportability requirement to a more achievable level and the Army and Marine Corps decided that they would rely on HMWWVs for other missions initially intended for JLTV.

According to the GAO report, the Army had chosen to proceed with even higher protection levels than planned earlier for JLTV, equal to the M-ATV, raising questions about whether or not the M-ATV might be more suitable for certain missions. The Marine Corps, however, would continue with the original protection level, similar to the MRAP family of vehicles except for the underbody protection. The USMC planned to conduct more off-road operations to avoid mines and roadside bombs. JLTV protection requirements were also affected by the fact that the services had found that development of lightweight, yet robust armor had not proceeded as rapidly as hoped and production costs for these new technologies are significantly higher than for traditional armor.

The GAO report further stated that the services had established an average procurement cost target of $350,000 per vehicle for the JLTV. It was unclear whether this would include costs to fit mission equipment. A key component of the average procurement cost was the average manufacturing unit cost, which included the cost of labor, materials, and overhead to produce and assemble the product. Achieving the average procurement cost target of $350,000 would require an average manufacturing unit cost of $250,000 to $275,000. The GAO cited a technology development projection of a fully armored JLTV where the average procurement cost exceeded $600,000, but the JLTV program office estimated that, by implementing requirements trades and the cost savings from those trades, industry could meet the average manufacturing unit cost and average procurement cost targets.

The GAO report noted that as the services moved to implement new strategise regarding both the JLTV and HMMWV programs, they had identified a point in fiscal year 2015 where a decision would be made on whether to pursue JLTV only or both programs. By then, the technology and cost risks of both efforts should be better understood.

On 26 January 2012, the Department of Defense announced in a report on defense spending priorities that it had decided to terminated upgrades to the HMMWV family and focus modernization resources on the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle program. There had been significant discussion about curtailing the HMMWV modernization programs beginning in the fall of 2011.

In March 2012, it was reported that six bids had been submitted to TACOM's Life Cycle Management Command for the EMD phase. The bids reflected a number of shifts since the technology demonstration phase. Lockheed Martin put forward their JLTV design from the technology demonstration phase. AM General and General Dynamics submitted their joint design, the JLTV Eagle, but AM General also submitted their own separate design, the Blast-Resistant Vehicle – Off Road (BRV-O). BAE Systems Land and Armament Systems ended their partnership with Navistar Defense, instead choosing to use a Ford engine to power their Valanx vehicle, which they submitted. Navistar Defense submitted a new vehicle, sold commercially as the Saratoga. The remaining bid came from Oshkosh Defense, which submitted their Light Combat Tactical All-Terrain Vehicle (L-ATV), derived from their M-ATV.

On 22 August 2012, the US Army announced the selection of 3 Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) firm-fixed contracts, approximately totaling $185 million dollars, for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) family of vehicles. Though JLTV was a joint Army and US Marine Corps program, the Army was designated as the lead service, running the Joint Program Office - JLTV. The 3 companies awarded under the full and open competition process were AM General, LLC of South Bend, Indiana; Lockheed Martin Corporation of Grand Prairie, Texas; and Oshkosh Corporation of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The selected vehicles were the AM General BRV-O, Lockheed Martin JLTV, and Oshkosh Defense L-ATV respectively.

These awards were incrementally funded, firm-fixed price contracts for a 27 month period of performance. The full values of these awards included both the base contract effort (capped at $65 million) and an evaluated, unexercised Level of Effort (LOE) option price. Approximately $99.5 million was obligated for the 3 contractors for this action, with initial funding of approximately $28 - 36 million for each contractor. The balance of the funding, up to full base contract amount, was to be provided in FY13 and FY14 as of 22 August 2012. The contract awards followed the Department of Defense's formal approval of the JLTV program to enter the EMD phase. The EMD phase for the JLTV program was scheduled as of 22 August 2012 to last 33 months. EMD Contracts included delivery of 22 full-up prototypes (to be delivered starting 12 months after contract award) and contractor support to the comprehensive 14 month Government test program (blast, automotive, user evaluation).

On 31 August 2012, the JLTV program was put on hold following a formal protest by Navistar Defense, which had not been among the bidders awarded engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) contracts on 22 August 2012. Navistar Defense said it had concerns about the selection process and had requested and review by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). On 4 September 2012, Navistar Defense announced that it was withdrawing its protest after examining the results of the competition more closely.

As of mid-2013, the next milestone for the JLTV program was in mid-August 2013, when each competitor would turn over 22 JLTV prototypes for testing. Those 66 vehicles would undergo 14 months of rigorous testing in a variety of battlefield scenarios conducted by soldiers and Marines. Testing areas included Yuma Proving Grounds, Arizona; Redstone Test Center, Alabama; and Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Additionally, both the Marine Corps and the Army would conduct helicopter trials of the vehicles at various locations, and there would be ship-to-shore testing conducted at Little Creek, Virginia. Reliability, availability and maintainability, called RAM testing, would determine the winner. RAM testing included the "iron triangle of performance: evaluations of performance, protection and payload. The vehicles would also be evaluated for transportability, mobility, expeditionary capability, network-readiness, and affordability.

As of June 2013, it was expected that in early fiscal year 2015, following user testing, the JLTV requirements document would be revalidated to ensure the original requirements were still pertinent. After that, a winner would be chosen.