Challenges remain as JLTV competition heats up.

• Author: Beidel, Eric
• Position: Military Trucks

More than any other program, the Army and Marine Corps' effort to create a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle epitomizes the challenges the military laces with its trucks. Leaders have proclaimed a theme of efficiency from maintenance to acquisition across the fleet. With JLTV, the services want to create a truck that does a little bit of everything without breaking the bank.

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But none of the contractors that the Pentagon selected to design prototypes of the new vehicle has delivered one that meets all of the needs of the Army and the Marine Corps, officials said.

Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems and an AM General-General Dynamics Land Systems consortium called General Tactical Vehicles produced 21 trucks for the technology development phase of the program. Tests on these vehicles are nearing completion, but none of them will be carried into the next phase, said Mark McCoy, the Army's product manager for JLTV.

Every prototype design was between a few hundred and 1,000 pounds too heavy, he said at the National Defense Industrial Association's Tactical Wheeled Vehicle conference in February.

The weight issue and a growing focus on cost have subcontractors lining up to help remove weight from vehicle designs through the use of alloys and other composite materials. Potential prime contractors also are gearing up for the engineering and manufacturing development phase of the program, which will be open to any bidder, not just the three teams that have built the prototypes.

One of the largest manufacturers of military trucks, Oshkosh, which had been eliminated from the first phase of JLTV, is looking to jump back in.

"This is a great opportunity to get back into the competition," said Oshkosh spokesman Pat Davidson, citing the company's work on the mine-resist ant all-terrain vehicle, or M-ATV. "There's a reason we won that competition, and we're going to bring the same mindset and off-roading technologies to the JLTV competition."

Oshkosh has built a light combat tactical vehicle demonstrator to test and evaluate a new lightweight suspension and diesel-electric engine. Two of the vehicles recently completed a 1,000-mile off-road race in Mexico. At the time of the race they weighed about 16,000 pounds, slightly more than military officials are seeking for a transport weight of the JLTV.

The Army intends for JLTV to replace a portion of its Humvee fleet. One of the program's main objectives has been to balance the infamous "iron...