By Ann Roosevelt

The Textron [TXT] Systems, Boeing [BA], SAIC [SAI] team considers its proposed parallel hybrid electric drive, center drive and innovative suspension will be key discriminators in the potential $40 billion competition for the Army-Marine corps Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV).

The JLTV is a family of vehicles with trailers to replace Army and Marine light tactical wheeled vehicles with contracts to come in early summer for the initial technology development phase.

The initial government commitment is for about $28 billion over the first eight years to get the first 60,000 vehicles fielded.

The Textron-led team also includes Ford [F], MillenWorks and Carlson Engineering. It is a team that combines “what we believe to be the best in the defense industry combined with unique commercial automotive design and development capability,” Robert Polutchko, director Advanced Solutions Center, Textron Systems, said in a May 19 briefing.

“We have the unique experience, the game changing technology and we have really worked to get the best balance for what [Army TACOM Lifecycle Command] is talking about in terms of their performance protection and payload challenges for this vehicle,” Polutchko said.

The team has placed the JLTV driver in the center. “This enhances not only the driver’s situational awareness, through improved sightlines, but by having a crew member on either side of the driver, it increases the situational awareness of all the people in the vehicle, he said.

The team chose parallel hybrid drive, not a part of the JLTV requirement, as the correct path forward. Using the hybrid and the stored energy in the batteries provides an “instant surge” capability for increased mobility and survivability, he said. It also enables silent watch where vehicles operate without running engine.

“By using parallel hybrid drive we’re actually able to have the vehicle do what we call “silent drive,” which we think over the short ranges in an urban environment would be tactically significant and a key capability in years to come,” he said.

Power on board also meets exportable power requirements and can grow.

The engine is a direct derivative of a Ford diesel engine that the automaker will begin producing in the near future that should “offer us great economy as we go forward,” Polutchko said.

From team member MillenWorks the JLTV design has a suspension that provides greater control and reduced vibration and decreases the possibility of a rollover, Polutchko said.

Additionally, the JLTV design includes a new lightweight armor system that will protect soldiers and Marines against ballistics and the IED threat.

Here, Jerry McElwee, vice president Advanced Systems at Boeing, said the team is leveraging work in providing additional armor to helicopter platforms to expand the level of protection.

A key theme is optimizing the design for cost-effective production, he said. This will be aided by a more than 90 percent commonality among variants.

The Textron team faces competition from other teams, including Northrop Grumman [NOC] and Oshkosh [OSK], Lockheed Martin [LMT] and BAE Systems, General Dynamics [GD] and AM General, BAE Systems and Navistar [NAVZ], and Force Protection [FRPT] and DRS Technologies [DRS].

The JLTV family of vehicles will be a military workhorse in its configurations and payloads.

“The real challenge, and we believe we have excelled in this area, is to rebalance this triangle to provide the protection for the Marines and the soldiers and at the same time allow this vehicle to be transportable and mobile enough to do the mission and carry the payloads required for that mission,” Polutchko said.

Team objectives included the need to design a new JLTV that meets the requirements at the lowest possible risk, putting them together in an innovative fashion.

“Our objective is to harness our ongoing military, automotive IR&D investments, we’ve reduced the risk in our approach to this vehicle, we bring forward an exceptional solution, unique power train, suspension, survivability concepts and a C4ISR roadmap that is going to allow this vehicle to be effective way off into the future.”

For example, Carlson Engineering, known for innovative pit stop solutions, took a look at what it takes to maintain a vehicle, and looked at a the procedures and techniques to do an in field engine replacement.

“Carlson did a demonstration taking a procedure which was four to six hours, and reducing it down to somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 minutes,” he said.

The team has proposed a vehicle that is inexpensive to manufacture but also easy and inexpensive to maintain in the field, the team said.

“I think it’s important to realize in order to meet the performance payload and protection requirements, one of the key elements in approaching the design is in managing the over all weight of the vehicle.”