Keep on Truckin'

Written by Tom Marlowe

High operational tempos in Iraq and Afghanistan have pushed many military trucks beyond limits originally envisioned for them. But strong partnerships between military agencies like the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) and truck manufacturers have kept the vehicles well maintained and in the field.

More than 1,500 medium tactical vehicle replacement (MTVR) trucks in Iraq and Afghanistan have exceeded expectations in support of the U.S. Marine Corps, for example, through the diligence of its manufacturer, Oshkosh Corp.

The MTVRs have been in Afghanistan since the arrival of U.S. warfighters there after 9/11, and it has been performing remarkably well due to its TAK-4 independent suspension, Andy Hove, executive vice president and president of Oshkosh Defense, told . While many other vehicles find it difficult to navigate the tough terrain in Afghanistan, the commandant of the Marine Corps has singled out the MTVR for its outstanding performance in the mountainous region.

“Several of the MTVRs that we have equipped with the TAK-4 suspension have exceeded 70,000 operational miles in Afghanistan and have maintained readiness rates better than 92 percent,” Hove declared.

“They are not highlighting [what] the MTVR is doing in Afghanistan when they highlight the problems they are having with vehicles in Afghanistan. The MTVRs are holding up. They have seen [that] the TAK-4 independent suspension is a large reason for the cause and effect on that. Now we are under contract to provide more than 1,500 suspension systems to Force Protection on their Cougar [mine resistant ambush protected vehicle],” Hove said.

The Marines became interested in fielding the TAK-4 suspension to other vehicles because the MTVR performed so well for them. Oshkosh designed the vehicle for severe offroad missions, Hove noted, and it can travel 1.5–2.5 times faster than a straight-axle vehicle moving a similar payload.

The success of the MTVR follows in the footsteps of the company’s heavy expanded mobility tactical truck (HEMTT), which Oshkosh has produced for the U.S. military since the early 1980s. The HEMTTs have been top performers because Oshkosh places a priority on ruggedness and reliability from the very beginning of the design phase of the trucks, Hove stated.

“The reason they are doing well is because Oshkosh takes the life cycle management approach from the very start of our business. By contrast, we are not taking a commercial truck that we paint green and add a few military attributes and then hope it performs well in the long run. We design it from the very beginning to meet very severe duty requirements and assignments,” Hove revealed.

Oshkosh has thus specialized in producing trucks that operate in the most extreme environments and the toughest terrain and then endure those conditions for a long time.

Once fielded, Oshkosh learns from the experiences of its trucks and makes modifications to add new capabilities to the last baseline design of the truck, Hove said. An example of incorporating those lessons learned came from the long-term Army strategy to add armor to trucks. Oshkosh became the first manufacturer to build a truck cab to accept a range of add-on armor suites, Hove said.

“Oshkosh made its first delivery of a compliant cab on the HEMTT A4 in March. It was a very quick turnaround time on the design so the customer had a lot of flexibility in scaling the protection levels on the A4,” he commented.

The A4 is the current iteration of the HEMTT in production. While it is manufacturing A4s, Oshkosh also supports A2 HEMTTs, which is still popular with the Army, and it is starting design on the next generation of HEMTTs, which will go into production in three or four years.

The HEMTTs are used primarily in a logistics role, supplying fuel, ammunition, water, and other supplies to warfighters. The HEMTTs are popular for their durability and flexibility, inspiring the Army to outfit nine different variants of the truck for hauling different materials.

But Oshkosh has taken care to ensure the supply trucks do not themselves become a logistical burden to U.S. troops.

“We are always looking at how to make our vehicles more maintainable, more sustainable, going forward,” Hove remarked. “One of the big initiatives that we have is design work that we are doing with the Army on the HEMTT A3, which features Oshkosh’s ProPulse diesel/ electric technology. Not only will that system provide better fuel efficiency, but because of the way we do the packaging of the power plant system, it’s far easier to maintain. There are fewer moving parts; it’s more reliable; and it’s far easier to pull out and replace it in the field than a conventional power train.”

MAKING THE HMMWV HUM

AM General LLC manufactures the popular high mobility multi-purpose wheeled vehicles (HMMWVs), and it also supports their life cycle from blueprint to production to support for recap and reset programs.

Since the 1980s, AM General has designed the HMMWV to meet the Army’s requirements for durability, mobility and reliability. Since then, continuous improvements and modifications to meet the U.S. military’s evolving needs have transformed the original 1-1/4 payload truck into an armored expanded- capacity vehicle for payloads up to 5,100 pounds and a gross vehicle weight rating up to 13,100 pounds, said Army General Paul Kern (Ret.), president and chief operating officer of AM General.

“The modular armor developed for the contemporary HMMWV reinforces the vehicle’s flexibility,” Kern told MLF. “It can be augmented or removed to support more than a hundred military missions in a wide range of scenarios—from combat and special operations to homeland security and disaster response by National Guard and Reserve units. This in turn extends the useful life cycle of the vehicles.

“To meet the challenges of increased armor weight and related impacts on performance, payload, reliability and vehicle life cycle, AM General has worked closely with the military services to apply combat-theater experience and new technologies in the development of expanded capacity- and reliability-enhanced HMMWVs produced today,” he added.

That has resulted in improvements to HMMWVs that include a larger 6.5-liter turbocharged V8 diesel engine, a geared fan drive and new cool pack and shroud for better engine cooling, a rear differential cooler, new three-piece frame rails and cross-members, new shock absorbers, new 24-bolt wheels with increased load rating, enhanced corrosion resistance and others.

AM General has two specialized service centers that provide key support to life cycle management.

AM General’s integrated logistics support team provides global support for optimizing total life cycle performance, Kern noted. It specializes in maintenance planning, manpower, personnel and human factors, military packaging, interactive technical manuals, spare/repair-parts provisioning, new equipment fielding support, and training and design interface and integration.

The integrated logistics support team supports the HMMWV family of vehicles plus the U.S. military’s tactical trucks, bridging equipment, mine-detection vehicles, petroleum and water supply systems, and other equipment.

AM General’s Service Parts Logistics Operations (SPLO) provides critical services to warfighters—ranging from hands-on equipment training, driver training instruction, field service support, and supply chain management. SPLO sources, manages and delivers more than 35,000 parts for HMMWVs in service, Kern said. Technical support from the SPLO is made available via telephone and the Web but also at physical locations like Letterkenny Army Depot, Red River Army Depot, Yuma Proving Ground, Aberdeen Proving Ground, and more than a dozen locations in Southwest Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Latin America where AM General field service representatives are stationed.

Letterkenny and Red River Army Depots host HMMWV recap and reset programs, where AM General recently pioneered a “customer pay” program to ensure parts are received at assembly lines on time, with AM General shouldering responsibility for inventory and supply chain management, Kern reported.

The government customer pays when parts are delivered to the assembly line, without the earlier need for extensive stockpiling of parts. According to the Army, this has yielded cost savings of 6.6 to 8.7 percent per vehicle by reducing unneeded spare parts purchases and nearly eliminating production line interruptions. The Army is planning to expand the customer pay model to other depots.

For its logistics support of the HMMWV program, the Defense Logistics Agency honored AM General with the 2008 Outstanding Readiness Support Award in the large business category for outstanding support to ongoing U.S. military operations. The award recognized “extraordinary customer support, service and product provided directly in response to a crisis situation,” referring to AM General’s commitment to provide spare parts for the many model and mission variations of the vehicles operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and other deployed locations.

VERSATILE VARIANTS

BAE Systems manufactures the family of medium tactical vehicles (FMTVs), which provide the Army with tactical mobility and logistics support. The vehicles are built for challenging conditions, fulfilling off-road missions and withstanding temperature extremes from -50 degrees F to +120 degrees F.

BAE Systems’ family of medium tactical vehicles has set new worldwide tactical vehicle standards for capability, reliability, mobility and transportability, and continues to boast the highest percent availability of any vehicle in the U.S. Army tactical vehicle fleet.

In 2006 (the most recent year for which data is available), the FMTV vehicles had logged more than 378 million collectively since their introduction in 1988 with more than 53,000 vehicles fielded and an operational readiness rate of 93.8 percent, according to the U.S. Army Logistics Information Warehouse.

BAE Systems keeps the FMTV trucks moving with assistance from its Integrated Logistics Support (ILS) division. The ILS division offers a team of statisticians, information technologists, engineers, logisticians, technical writers and graphic illustrators to meet customer logistics support demands.

For example, the ILS division produced an advanced Interactive Electronic Technical Manual for use with the FMTV A1 and subsequent vehicles. The manual has the ability to plug directly into the vehicle via a J1939 databus and interactively work with the vehicle’s four separate electronic control modules.

The electronic manual supplies maintenance and service solutions but goes beyond a paper manual to isolate specific vehicle problems and identify solutions with the additional benefit of highlighting the tools and hardware to repair the problems. The manual then provides step-by-step instructions on the repairs.

BAE Systems produces more than 16 FMTV truck variants on two platforms: the 2.5-ton 4-by-4 light medium tactical vehicle (LMTV) and the 5- to 10-ton 6-by-6 medium tactical vehicle (MTV). FMTV variants include troop carriers, cargo carriers, vans, dump trucks, recovery vehicles, tractors and others. BAE Systems maintains a high degree of readiness among these variants while reducing costs through 85 percent parts commonality across the FMTV vehicles.

The versatility of the vehicle has led BAE Systems to develop new variants such as hybrid electric drives, 9-ton load handling systems, 10-ton dump trucks, the FMTV 8-by-8 Flex-Frame, and the Height Reducible Electronic Enclosure.

BAE Systems also tackles shared challenges facing the FMTV family, such as the need to provide armored protection. The company’s Low Signature Armored Cab (LSAC), introduced in 2003, protects crewmembers from assault rifle rounds, land mines and artillery fragments. Warfighters can drop in the LSAC cab as a replacement for the standard FMTV cab. Two people can replace the cab in about four hours, the company estimates. ♦

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