By Emelie Rutherford
Government auditors are calling on the Pentagon to consider current mine-resistant vehicles when crafting a strategy for future Humvee replacements.
Defense-industry observers questioned in recent years whether the effort to quickly build Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs) and their all-terrain variants (M- ATVs) for deployed troops would conflict with the longer-term Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV) program to replace the Army and Marine Corps’ Humvees.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO), in a newly released report dated November 2010, raises this issue in light of a forthcoming Department of Defense (DoD)-wide tactical-wheeled vehicle (TWV) strategy.
“To the extent this strategy captures the knowledge gained by the (military) services, the strategy can reconcile the aggregate affordability and other implications of the various tactical wheeled vehicle programs with the competing demands of the department,” the GAO report says. “For example, at this point, the service strategies consider MRAP vehicles to be additive to the force structure, not offsetting quantities of (Humvees) HMMWVs or JLTVs. Any potential offsets between the MRAP vehicles and JLTVs, to the extent they are supported by cost-benefit analyses, could save both acquisition and support costs.”
Thus, the GAO recommends the Pentagon include in the tactical-wheeled vehicle strategy “a cost-benefit analysis that could minimize the collective acquisition and support costs of the various TWV programs, and reduce the risk of unplanned overlap or duplication.”
David Ahern, the director of portfolio systems acquisition at the Pentagon, said in a Nov. 2 letter to the GAO that DoD agrees with this and other related recommendations in the GAO’s report.
The GAO conducted the study at the request of the heads of two House Armed Services Committee subpanels, for Seapower and for Air and Land Forces. The auditors analyzed, from November 2009 to November 2010, the ongoing acquisition of M-ATVs and technology-development work on JLTVs.
The auditors concluded the M-ATV program has been a success, delivering “well-performing” vehicles ahead of schedule at an estimated cost of $12.5 billion. No major issues have been identified in testing and early fielding, the GAO found. Fielding of the M-ATVs is expected to end next month.
For the JLTV program, the GAO lists challenges, including determining whether the vehicle can yield the needed performance and reliability and still be light enough for helicopter transport.
“Difficult tradeoffs in requirements may be necessary,” the report says.
At this point, the auditors say, the JLTV effort is “a well-structured program with desirable features like a competitive technology development phase.”
Three contractor teams built prototype JLTVs: the General Tactical Vehicles (GTV) team of General Dynamics [GD] and AM General; BAE Systems-Navistar Defense LLC, an affiliate of Navistar International Corp. [NAV]; and Lockheed Martin [LMT]-BAE.
The JLTV’s engineering and manufacturing development phase is slated to begin next fall, if Pentagon officials give the program approval to proceed.
“That is the point where JLTV should clearly demonstrate that its projected requirements can be met with available resources,” the GAO says.