GTV moves forward on JLTV

September 4, 2007
Defense Daily Network
by Ann Roosevelt

The General Tactical Vehicles (GTV) joint venture of General Dynamics [GD] and AM General continues to move ahead planning for the Army and Marine Corps Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program.

Joint venture engineers last week held an internal design review for their potential JLTV design as the two companies prepare for a potential late fall release of the request for proposals (RFP) with requirements for the vehicle, officials said.

"It's not exactly starting with a blank sheet of paper," David Heebner, president of General Dynamics Land Systems, said in an Aug. 29 interview with Defense Daily. "We have a fairly strong understanding of where we think Department of Defense is going with this. So we're working on our anticipated needs right now, what we think the technologies can deliver today and in the foreseeable future."

James Armour, president and CEO of AM General, said, "Primarily what we're doing now is jointly researching what technology is available. What can physically be done and what's the best way to do it. We believe we have a pretty fair understanding of what the ultimate requirements are going to be and so we're working in the preliminary stage in that direction. We really can't afford to sit back and wait until the requirements come out because then the program is such a short time phase, you need to be working in advance. We're confident everyone else is also.

Heebner said the joint venture is looking across the board at what they think DoD's expectations are, and the government has been providing some data, though requirements have not been formalized.

"We're anxious to get to that initial bottom line so that we can make full commitment with the technologies we know about to meet the needs that can be identified," Heebner said.

Before forming the joint venture, each company received a study contract from the government on different aspects of the program, to see the breadth of technologies available in the family of vehicles. The government is using the studies to put together JLTV requirements.

DoD envisions JLTV as a family of vehicles depending on battle space function and payload category. It was thought the RFP would be released in June, but as the threats multiplied in the war on terrorism, the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle to protect deployed troops from the devastating effects of improvised explosive devices and other threats came to the fore.

At this point, the Pentagon's No. 1 acquisition priority is the MRAP. However, the Army still plans to move forward with a Humvee replacement, a service spokesman said last week. The Army is the JLTV lead service, with a Joint Program Office in Warren, Mich., and offices at Quantico, Va.

DoD early on projected a need for some 40,000 JLTV in the first increment, though the figures are not final nor approved.

GTV is likely to face a lively competition for the JLTV program, to include a Lockheed Martin [LMT]-BAE SYSTEMS team. The joint venture was announced early this year (Defense Daily, Jan 4).

Considering the JLTV, Heebner said, the nuance is that "in the past we've generally developed our spectrum of utility vehicles in a tactical context, not a combat context. But, as we've seen, certainly in Afghanistan and Iraq and other places as well there is a need to move that class of vehicles up into the combat vehicle, which means to make them more protected with the same or better performance and payload capabilities."

Today and into the future the vehicles must be capable of operating in any environment across the full spectrum of conflict.

The two companies consider the joint venture a good fit. AM General, with a corporate lineage including the Jeep of World War II, is a major tactical vehicle manufacturer. General Dynamics, a major combat vehicle manufacturer.

"Put together the experience and knowledge base that comes from the two companies, you have every right to expect a real synergy in the context of what you can pull together in a vehicle that meets the DoD needs now and in the future," Heebner said.

Armour said, "we at AM General being the incumbent light tactical supplier, had choices." Other companies had approached it to form a joint venture for JLTV. But it was "a very easy choice" join General Dynamics.

"The more we get to know each other the more it's obvious the cultures of our respective companies are very similar," Armour said. "Our teams are working extremely well together. It's getting difficult to tell when you're in a room with a lot of people which ones are GDLS and which ones are AM General." Heebner added: "It's a sympathetic detonation."

The context for the joint venture is the capability to take requirements, systems engineer and integrate, develop, produce and support the vehicle, Heebner said. "In our relationship, we see no gaps."

With a plethora of vehicles on the world market, all require certain performance, payload and protection.

"The key to the JLTV--the military expects it to represent a quantum advance over the Humvee, and that's our joint objective, is to create a vehicle to do that," Armour said. "One of the things that AM General brings to this partnership, is who knows the capability of the Humvee better than us, and who knows the requirement. We understand what the vehicle was designed to do. So that helps in kind of a shorthand way if you will of getting our joint engineering team focused on delivering on the three Ps [payload, performance, protection].

Heebner said the joint venture has a lot of potential for innovation, significant vision and the ability to integrate the best capabilities available to meet the performance, payload and protection requirements.

"In our case, I believe we'll not only do that where we'll meet or exceed all the threshold requirements for that, but we'll provide a P3I (pre-planned product improvement) as we learn more in the future about what our needs are we'll have built into this system the opportunity for growth potential that we'll continue to adapt to the changing threat requirements," he said.

 

General Tactical Vehicles is a joint venture of General Dynamics Land Systems & AM General.

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