Joint Light Tactical Vehicle Information

The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) is a United States military (specifically U.S. Army, USSOCOM, and U.S. Marine Corps) program to part-replace the Humvee with a family of more survivable vehicles with greater payload. The JLTV program was approved in 2006 to begin early studies.

The JLTV program incorporates lessons learned from the earlier and now halted Future Tactical Truck Systems (FTTS) program and other associated efforts. JLTV has evolved throughout various development phases and milestones but variants are capable of performing armament carrier, utility, command and control (shelter), ambulance, reconnaissance and a variety of other tactical and logistic support roles. JLTV complies with the US Armys Long Term Armor Strategy (LTAS). The JLTV program (including numbers required and pricing) evolved considerably as the program developed.

Oshkoshs 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.

The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV), which first entered service in 1985, was developed during the Cold War when improvised explosive devices (IEDs) 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, US DOD officials now emphasize that JLTVs are not intended to replace all HMMWVs.

The JLTV publicly emerged in 2006. Early government documents noted: "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 [Up-armored Humvee] 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 (FY06) Authorization Act, which mandated that any future tactical wheeled vehicle program would be a joint program.

The Joint Chief of Staffs Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) 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 (ICD). The Concept Refinement phase also includes an Analysis of Alternatives (AoA). At the conclusion of the Concept Refinement phase in December 2007, the Joint Program Office (JPO) JLTV Project Manager (PM) intended to transition the program directly into the Engineering, Manufacturing, and Development (EMD) phase. However, as the calendar date for the milestone approached, it became clear that the Milestone Decision Authority (MDA), Defense Acquisition Executive (DAE), 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 (TD) phase.

The US DOD released a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the TD phase of the JLTV program on 5 February 2008. Industry proposals were due no later than 7 April. TD phase contract award was postponed in July 2008.

The following companies and partnerships responded to the TD phase RFP:

On 28 October 2008, the Pentagon narrowed the field of vendors to Lockheed Martin, General Tactical Vehicles and BAE Systems/Navistar. Each team were 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 on 17 February 2009.

Australia signed an agreement in February 2009 to fund nine of the first 30 JLTV prototypes. While a final decision has yet to be made, the Australian Government is now pursuing the Hawkei, a domestically developed vehicle through Thales-Australia. India became interested in the program in 2009, but is currently pursuing an indigenous solution. Israel and the UK have also expressed interest in the program.

On 1 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.

JLTVs TD phase lasted 27 months and in May 2011 it was completed. 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 Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected All-Terrain Vehicle (M-ATV).

Upon exiting the TD phase CDD version 3.3 was published. By the time CDD version 3.3 was published, payload options had been reduced to only two. CDD version 3.3 dropped payload verbiage and replaced it with variants. From that point on there were only two required variants; The Combat Tactical Vehicle (CTV) 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 Category B variant was eliminated because it proved to be too heavy to meet the required weight of approximately 15,639 pounds to make it transportable by Army CH-47F and Marine Corps CH-53K helicopters. The Combat Support Vehicle (CSV), which would replace the previous Category C configuration, would be a 2-seat vehicle with a 5,100 pound payload. The two variants that appeared in CDD version 3.3 now had requirements for configurations. Configuration refers to the different types of mission packages that will be installed into each of the two variants. CDD version 3.3 required six configurations.

The draft Request for Proposals (RFP) for JLTVs EMD phase was released on 2 October 2011. This 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. EMD phase requirements also 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 full cancellation in the wake of spiraling costs, delays and defense-wide budgetary cutbacks; it was also competing against the HMMWV Modernized Expanded Capacity Vehicle (MECV) program, the draft RfP for which was released on 11 August 2011. On 26 January 2012 the Request for Proposals for JLTVs EMD phase was released. Budget priorities for FY13 released on the same day included the termination of the HMMWV MECV Recap program in order to focus vehicle modernization resources on JLTV.

Not all of the TD phase contract award teamings remained in place for JLTVs Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase. By late March 2012 (bids due 27 March), it was clear that at least six teams had submitted responses to the EMD phase RFP, and following EMD phase contract awards on 23 August 2012, in September Hardwire LLC disclosed itself as a previously unknown seventh bidder. The bidders were:

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 Engineering and Manufacturing Development (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 (GAO) over the evaluation criteria on 31 August 2012; the company withdrew the protest on 4 September 2012.

On 26 June 2013, Lockheed Martin completed the last of 22 JLTVs produced for the EMD phase. On 8 August 2013, Oshkosh delivered its first L-ATV JLTV prototype to the Army for government testing following a successful vehicle inspection by the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA). The four-door multi-purpose variant and two-door utility variant were provided for evaluations. On 14 August 2013, both AM General and Lockheed delivered their 22 vehicles to the Army and Marine Corps to participate in a 14-month government evaluation and testing process.

On 27 August 2013, the Army and Marine Corps announced that full-scale testing of JLTV prototypes would begin the following week, with all three vendors having had 66 vehicles delivered. 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 Departments Office of Test and Evaluation would 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. On 3 September 2013, full-pace, full-scope JLTV testing began at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Yuma Proving Ground, and Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.

Testing of the JLTV was temporarily halted in early October during the two-week U.S. Government shutdown of 2013. Civilian workers were furloughed and test sites were closed within hours. Work restarted immediately when the shutdown ended, though one site remained closed until 22 October. The Army and Marine Corps have vowed commitment to buying nearly 55,000 JLTVs even in the face of sequestration cuts. This level of support was given while major acquisition programs like the Ground Combat Vehicle were in danger of cuts (and eventually cancelled), which potentially meant the Army was favoring replacing Humvees more than the M2 Bradley. Army leaders worried that the Marines priority with the Amphibious Combat Vehicle program could cause them to back out of JLTV procurement. However, the Marines said procurement plans for the two efforts did not overlap and should not conflict with each other.

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