Push for 'Commonality' Propels Heavy Tactical Truck Program.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.

The U.S. Army is expected to move forward with a series of improvement programs for its fleet of heavy logistics trucks, used to haul ammunition and other supplies. The upgrades are needed, officials said, to expedite the deliveries of supplies to soldiers in combat zones, and also to make the fleet less costly to maintain.

The vehicle upgrades will follow two separate tracks, these officials said. One project, known as recapitalization, will overhaul older trucks at an Army depot. Separately, the Army also plans to award a so-called family of heavy tactical vehicles contract for the purchase of new and remanufactured units from Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Truck Corporation.

Three types of vehicles today form the mainstay of the Army's heavy truck fleet. One is the 10-ton, heavy expanded mobility tactical truck (HEMTT). There are 13,000 in the Army. The palletized loading system (PLS) is a newer, larger vehicle with a load-handling system that can haul 16.5 tons. The Army has fielded about 3,000 PLS. The third system is the heavy equipment transporter system (HETS), which can haul a 70-ton Abrams tank. The Army has neatly 2,000 HETS. All three vehicles are manufactured by Oshkosh.

The heavy vehicle inventory also includes 1,800 trailers and 16,000 flat-racks, as well as 2,100 tactical bridges. Battlefield supplies are loaded on the flat-racks, which are removable 8x20-foot cargo beds. HEMTT variants include a fuel tanker, a wrecker and a cargo truck. The newest version, called the HEMTT-LHS (load handling system) is a HEMTT chassis with the same cargo handling arm as the PLS.

In fiscal year 2001, the Army allocated $258 million for procurement of heavy tactical wheeled vehicles.

At press time, the Army's program office for heavy tactical vehicles, headed by James Sutton, was in the midst of negotiations with Oshkosh. A contract is expected to be signed in January 2001. It will be a sole-source, five-year contract, Sutton said in an interview. The plan is to buy a combination of new and remanufactured HEMTT, PLS and HETS vehicles.

Sutton declined to provide specific numbers on the contract, pending a final agreement with Oshkosh. The company's vice president for defense programs, John Stoddart, also was unable to provide details. But he told National Defense that he expects that 60 percent of the work will be on new trucks and 40 percent on remanufactured ones.

The contract is sole-source, Sutton explained, because the Army decided that there...