Rolling ahead: move over MRAP: new light tactical vehicles are coming.

• Author: Jean, Grace V.
• Position: Tactical Vehicles

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MONTEREY, Calif. -- There are narrow alleyways and small streets in Fallujah, Iraq, through which most military trucks cannot travel.

Even the formidable mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicle--rushed to the battlefield to protect troops from roadside bombs--has difficulties driving in the urban terrain. To cross small bridges, troops must dismount from the vehicle while the driver sticks his foot out the door to "walk" the multi-ton truck across the way, says Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, deputy commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command.

The scenario may sound like the punch line of a joke, but it is no laughing matter to Defense Department officials speaking here at NDIA's tactical wheeled vehicles conference. They point to this boots-on-the-ground situation as one of the salient reasons for continuing to buy humvees--the military's longtime workhorse--while developing its next-generation replacement, the joint light tactical vehicle.

"The reason JLTV is so important to us is because it gives an expeditionary capability back to the Army and the Marine Corps," says Brig. Gen. John Bartley, the Army's program executive officer for combat support and combat services support.

That mobility is becoming paramount, as the Army and Marine Corps look beyond the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan to anticipate future operations, officials say. The services assert that vehicles suited for urban warfare will continue to be a necessity, and for that reason, the attractiveness of trucks with the agility to navigate city streets--and handle roadside bombs--is growing.

Plagued with aging fleets of combat-worn humvees, the ground forces want to buy as many as 50,000 of the joint light tactical vehicles and have them in operation by the mid-2010s.

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The Army and Marine Corps issued a solicitation for bids in February and they expect to award a minimum of two contracts for a 27-month technology development phase. Competitors will design and build prototypes during the initial 15 months. In the year following, the vehicles will be tested against a flurry of military standards.

"We will take one of those overall systems and we will blow it up," says Bartley. Besides the live fire testing, the services plan to put 20,000 miles on the vehicles, load them onto Navy ships and sling them under the bellies of helicopters to evaluate them on factors of reliability, protection and transportability.

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