Move out: marines step up efforts to modernize truck fleets.

• Author: Kennedy, Harold
• Position: MARINE CORPS PROGRAMS

The Marine Corps' initiative to restore and upgrade its aging and combat-battered fleets of tactical trucks--from relatively lightweight humvees to heavy-duty cargo haulers--appears to be picking up speed. In October, the Office of Naval Research plans to award contracts worth as much as $2.5 million for conceptual designs for a family of joint light tactical vehicles (JLTV) that the Marines and the Army would like to have to replace the thin-skinned, 20-year-old humvee.

The humvee--more formally known as the high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle, or HMMWV--is the agile, all-terrain military truck, made by AM General of South Bend, Ind., that the military services chose in the mid-1980s to supplant the World War II-era jeep.

The humvee, however, is reaching the end of its service life. Moreover, it was never designed to withstand roadside bombs. The services are rushing to provide armor protection, but the added weight diminishes the humvee's payload and mobility.

As envisioned, the JLTV will "address all of the shortcomings that have been identified in the humvee," said Lt. Col. Ben Garza, vehicle project manager at Marine Corps Systems Command in Quantico, Va. "This vehicle will provide increased force protection, survivability and improved capacity."

The JLTV will include five variants, Garza told National Defense:

* A six-passenger combat tactical vehicle to move mounted and armed troops swiftly around rough terrain.

* A reconnaissance platform to conduct long-range missions into enemy territory without being detected.

* A larger carrier able to handle to up to nine members of a light infantry squad.

* A command-and-control version to carry a unit commander, communications specialists and their equipment.

* A utility truck to transport everything from light weapons to casualties and supplies.

The JLTV would be designed with factory-built armor, but would accommodate additional protection that could be installed and removed in the field, as needed. Each of the variants would come with a compatible trailer and be able to tow up to 10,000 pounds both on roads and cross-country.

The Marines tentatively plan for the JLTV program to enter the system development and demonstration phase--when prototypes will be developed and testing begun--in 2008, Garza said. Fielding is not likely before 2012.

The JLTV is being developed separately from the Corps' planned internally transportable vehicle (ITV) and the reconnaissance, surveillance and...