In operational tests by the Army and Marine Corps, the Oshkosh [OSK] Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) drove more than five times as far on average between failures as the Lockheed Martin [LMT] vehicle it beat for the $6.7 billion contract to replace the service’s Humvees.
Lockheed Martin is contesting that outcome in federal claims court, questioning among other aspects of JLTV source selection the merits of the vehicles’ reliability scores. The exact scores of each vehicle are redacted from available court documents, but the Pentagon’s chief weapon tester this week revealed specifics of JLTV limited user testing in its annual report.
Photo: Oshkosh Defense
Both the Army and Marines took the Lockheed Martin, Oshkosh and AM General JLTVs through limited user testing (LUT) in November 2014 at Fort Stewart, Ga., according to the 2015 report by the director of operation test and evaluation. The Army test unit completed three 96-hour operational scenarios with the vehicles and an up-armored Humvee (UAH) as a baseline. The Marine Corps unit completed a single 96-hour scenario “consistent with the JLTV operational … mission profile.”
“Oshkosh JLTVs had improved mission reliability over the UAH,” the report says. “AM General JLTVs had less mission reliability versus the UAH…Lockheed Martin JLTVs had less mission reliability versus the UAH.”
Reliability during the LUT was measured in mean miles between operational mission failure (MMBOMF). The JLTV has an operational requirement of 2,400 MMBOMF and the UAH performed an average 2,986 miles between failures that compromised the mission.
The Oshkosh vehicle racked up an MMBOMF score of 7,051 miles, five and a half times Lockheed Martin’s average of 1,271 miles and way beyond AM General’s JLTV, which drove an average 526 miles between operational failures, according to the DOT&E report.
The testing was similar, if not as extensive, as that performed on the vehicles during the engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase of the program. During EMD, the Army drove eight of each competitor’s JLTVs for 20,000 miles and counted the mean miles between hardware mission failure, or MMBHMF. The service’s requirement was for the JLTV to cover at least 3,800 miles before a major breakdown. The Army then assigned each company a “demonstrated” and “assessed” reliability of the vehicles using the EMD test data.
That score was then used to calculate each vehicle’s reliability, which in turn factored into each bid’s total estimated cost. Reliability scores were more heavily weighted in the evaluation, even though the Army said its requirements were assessed equally, Lockheed Martin alleges. Companies with higher reliability scores were favored because they could reduce the total cost estimate of their bid by proving their vehicle could save money over time with a higher operational availability rate.
In the LUT experiments, units equipped with the Lockheed Martin JLTV were unable to accomplish as many prescribed missions as those equipped with the other three vehicles, according to the DOT&E report.
“The JLTV [family of vehicles] provides enhanced protection and retains the up-armored [Humvee] capabilities necessary for Army and Marine units to accomplish tactical and combat missions,” the report said. “Platoons with the Oshkosh JLTVs accomplished 15 out of 24 missions, similar to the platoon equipped with the UAHs.”
Platoons driving the AM General JLTV completed 13 of those missions while Lockheed Martin’s vehicle was able to complete 12, the report said. For both Lockheed Martin and Oshkosh, most of the failed missions were attributed to combat losses, of which the AM General JLTV and Humvees suffered fewer.
In fact, even designed as a best-of-both-worlds hybrid of Humvee mobility and MRAP survivability, the DOT&E report lists several operational deficiencies of the JLTV in general.
While Marines can use the vehicle to perform aerial assault missions with a CH-53 heavy lift helicopter, the JLTV’s weight exceeds the external lift capacity of the Army’s CH-47 Chinook if the vehicles are outfitted with their heavier B-kit armor. For either service, the JLTV cannot carry more than one day’s worth of gear, and water, which excludes its use on extended missions without resupply.
“The JLTV suffered from poor command, control and communication equipment integration by the vendor,” the report said. Troops also complained that JLTV has large blind spots and their rear windows were too small to provide adequate visibility.
JLTV was primarily developed to protect its occupants from underbelly blasts better than thin-skinned Humvees. The vehicles demonstrated that capability in the DOT&E testing. Both Oshkosh and Lockheed Martin met the threshold force protection requirements by meeting or exceeding occupant protection of the MRAP all-terrain vehicle (M-ATV), also made by Oshkosh. Both also withstood blasts better than the UAH, the report said.
“Oshkosh implemented lessons learned from the M-ATV program into their JLTV prototypes to provide M-ATV levels of underbody protection on a lighter vehicle,” the report said. “Lockheed Martin’s prototype provided protection on par with the M-ATV. However, AM General’s prototype would require a significant redesign to meet threshold force protection requirements.”