Soldiers with the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart in Georgia received the first of its 500 JLTVs on Jan. 14.
A few days later, a photo surfaced on U.S. Army WTF! Moments showing what appeared to be one of the Raider Brigaide’s brand new vehicles on its side in the aftermath of a rollover, hood open and parts spilling onto the pavement.
That was from Task and Purpose.
The JLTV prototype competition started in 2008, and in 2012 there was another Engineering & Manufacturing Development competition between three vendors. By August 2013, JLTV models from Oshkosh, Lockheed, and AM General were available for testing.
After a year of testing, Oshkosh was selected as the winner ready to go into production. Now, this picture of an overturned JLTV may or may not be an indication that the JLTV is underperforming. Users claim it has a smooth ride, and we know that the JLTV was supposed to be the poster child of competitive developments and sustainment-focused design.
But we should still ask, what kind of testing did the JLTV prototypes get subjected to?
Well, the JLTV only went through Limited User Testing (LUT). It is defined by Army test policy to be:
Any type of RDTE funded user test conducted that does not address all of the effectiveness, suitability, and survivability issues and is therefore limited in comparison to an IOT [Initial Operational Test] that must address all effectiveness, suitability, and survivability issues. The Limited User Test (LUT) addresses a limited number of operational issues. The LUT may be conducted to provide a data source for system assessments in support of the LRIP decision (MS C) and for reviews conducted before IOT.
LUT does not address the full range of issues of Initial Operational Test & Evaluation, which is generally required before Low Rate Initial Production. DOT&E reports that the JLTV tested about half of the missions performed by the legacy Humvees. It is probably fair to assume that the missions tested were more mundane than those skipped.
We’ll see over the coming years how JLTV performs and what its cost turns out to be. In general, I appreciate the strategy the DOD took to procure the JLTV, but we can only hope that the services’ penchant to cut corners on testing did not adversely affect the Limited User Testing.
I’m almost two years late to the party when making this comment. The Army did do an IOT&E event for the JLTV. It was a Multi-service OT&E, or MOT&E that was done out at 29 Palms, CA early 2018. A USMC unit and an Army unit put the JLTV through it’s paces.