The Army and the Marine Corps recently showed off its long-awaited Joint Light Tactical Vehicle which the services plan to start replacing Humvees with in early 2019.
Program officials drove defense reporters around on a test track at Marine Corps Base, Quantico, Virginia to demonstrate the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle’s off-road capability.
There were no photos allowed while inside the vehicles. Once strapped into the JLTV’s five-point harness, the vehicles traversed an obstacle-packed course at speeds up to 35 mph.
The JLTVs climbed stone-laden, 40-degree grades with relative ease and descended down 60-degree grades with impressive control.
The ride was fairly comfortable despite the challenging terrain.
In early 2019, the Army will field 500 JLTVs to an infantry brigade combat team with the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, New York. At the same time, the Marine Corps will equip an infantry battalion with II MEF at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, with 69 JLTVs.
In August 2015, Oshkosh Corp. beat out Lockheed Martin Corp., the world's largest defense contractor, and AM General LLC, maker of the Humvee, for a $6.7 billion contract to build the first 17,000 JLTVs for the two services.
The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle program could be worth up to $30 billion, as the Army and Marine Corps plan to buy a total of nearly 55,000 of the combat vehicles. The Army plans to field more than 49,000 JLTVs. The Corps originally planned to buy 5,500 JLTVs, but Marine leaders are considering increasing the buy to 9,091 JLTVs, program officials said Wednesday.
Here’s a few JLTV photos from the demonstration.
