Article Posted on : - Jun 19, 2010

JLTV driving on test track at Aberdeen Test Center, Maryland. Photo: US Army

ARLINGTON (BNS): The newly built government prototypes of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle are used by US Army for refining program requirements through rigorous ballistic, performance and reliability testing.

"It's all part of an effort to field a next-generation tactical vehicle that can hit speeds of 70mph, withstand roadside bombs and other threats, drive through off-road terrain and fly through the air beneath a CH-47 Chinook or CH-53 helicopter," service officials said in a US Army news release.

Army has selected three contractor teams for the current 27-month technology development phase.

BAE-Navistar, Lockheed-BAE and General Tactical Vehicles have delivered seven prototype vehicles each, engineered to reach an unprecedented blend of performance, payload and protection.

US Army has plans to buy 55,000 JLTVs and the Marines plan to buy 5,500 JLTVs. The full production delivery of the vehicle is slated for 2015.

"The JLTV Program is implementing the competitive prototyping policy for the Army. What we have in this technology development phase is three contractor teams to help us inform our requirements, as we get results from the testing, we will feed that back into our requirements, “Lt. Col. Wolfgang Peterman, JLTV product manager, said in the release.

The US Army-led program will put the vehicles through blast, mobility and performance testing at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland and reliability testing at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, as part of an effort to refine the requirements for the next phase of the competition, the Engineering and Manufacturing Development, or EMD phase.