Took 4 Years to Field, but 4 days to Damage
Photo from Army WTF moments.
The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) is what the Army hopes to replace the Humvee with. Advertisement articles for this vehicle, in Army related magazines, paraded it as adept in operating in rough environments. None of these advertisement articles involved the JLTV operating under Soldier experience and judgement.
As with anything that’s built and tested, it must be fielded.
Four days into training and familiarization on the JLTV, Soldiers successfully rolled one. The Soldier that rolled the JLTV had previous experience driving Humvees and MRAPs. The JLTV handles a little differently though.
Soldiers that have driven and ridden these vehicles rave on how smooth the ride is. More from Task and Purpose:
Even better: the JLTV involved in the rollover doesn’t even belong to the 1st ABCT. According to Bogart, it’s a loaner vehicle from Oshkosh sent to Fort Stewart along with the ABCT’s current fleet of 8-10 JLTVs explicitly for master drivers and senior NCOs to get a feel for it.
“They handle differently than the Humvee, and they handle differently than the MRAP,” Bogart said. “There’s a level of finding our comfort zones in driving because it’s not something we’ve ever handled before.”
The above Soldiers were lucky.
On a more serious note, two Soldiers were killed, and a few others were injured during a training event at Fort Bliss, Texas. As was mentioned on this site numerous times, training for war can also be dangerous and lead to death.
More from Army Times:
A vehicle accident during training at Fort Bliss, Texas, killed two soldiers on Tuesday, the 1st Armored Division confirmed on Wednesday.
Some soldiers were also injured during the incident, 1st Armored Division spokeswoman Maj. Allie Payne told Army Times, but the exact number and their conditions were not yet available.
An investigation is ongoing. You can read the details on the JLTV incident at Task and Purpose and get the details on the accident at the Army Times.
Category: Army News
This happened almost 10 years ago about 10 miles from where I live…
https://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/reporter_flips_lockheed_martin.html
JLTV= ten gallons of shit in a 5 gallon bucket.
“Army related magazines, paraded it as adept in operating in rough environments. None of these advertisement articles involved the JLTV operating under Soldier experience and judgement.”
Next time let the combat vets provide input and thier experience when designing anything that must be used extensively in combat…..not to knock engineers, but eggheads do not know dick about how thier designs will actually be used and abused by the troops……the boots on the ground will routinely do things to the equipment that the design engineers could not imagine in thier worst nightmares.
Good points Doc. Reminds me of an idiot I have been watching on Facebook recently who thinks the M1 Abrams is a piece of junk while the Leopard 2 is better (he called it European quality and he’s either Danish or German). The only opinion I will take on that issue as a civilian on the side lines is someone with actual experience, not some simpleton on the internet who most likely has not served a single day in the military.
Also when was the last time anyone was afraid of the fucking Danish Army?
Here’s a great article on the shitty Leopard 2 tank once it found actual combat in Syria.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-leopard-2-was-considered-one-the-worlds-best-tanks-until-24971
Figured you might enjoy something to beat that Euro Wienie dick over the head with.
He’s an idiot who thinks his shit don’t stink. He’s probably not going to listen anyway (he’s a troll more than likely who’s looking for attention), so I’m not going to bother. Reminds me of a New Zealander named Paul Darrall who was making fun of the Purple Heart when he’s too ignorant to realize that the United Kingdom, Canada, and France (who has two equivalents, one for the military and the other for civilians) also have their own versions of it.
The Leopard, particularly the older models like the A2, are junk boxes. I saw a video the other day of Syrian Kurds taking Turkish Leopards apart with old Sagger type missiles. Typical of some old European to be snotty and superior in their attitude. Too bad they have contributed very little to humanity over the last 100 years or so, other than to serve as starters of wars or to be occupied a lot and we then have to liberate them.
I was Navy Aircrew for 17 years, now I’m a mission system test engineer at NAVAIR. Believe me, I craft my test plans with as much operational relevance as possible. I find lots of problems missed by contractor testing because of it, and write up Deficiency Reports on what I uncover. I can, and have, stopped test on multi-million dollar programs until an issue I found was fixed.
This engineer knows exactly how the system will be used in the fleet, and I’m always thinking “How will this affect the end user?” because I was one.
Rollovers are caused by poor leadership, bad CRM, and lack of PT belts.
Tighten your shot group, 1st AD!
All joking aside, speedy recovery to those injured.
Training is dangerous but better here than over there, I guess.
Ditto re: recovery of those injured!!!!
It looks top-heavy. Center of gravity too high to make sharp turns?
Just a question: if this is a light vehicle, how is being ‘light’ an advantage?
It can most likely travel faster, easier to transport, and probably has better gas mileage (potentially). Though the light part can be more of a disadvantage as well depending on the situation. This is just me guessing, however.
Better fuel mileage? I doubt it, the ones I’ve seen have bigger engines than the Humvees and an uparmored one of those gets MAYBE 8 MPG going downhill with a tailwind!
That was just me guessing. I was using the concept for regular cars, I didn’t take into account the size of the engine..
Ex-PH2,here is some info you might find informative from a test drive done by CHRISTIAN SEABAUGH from Motor Trend magazine done back in 2017.
I have a couple or so Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV) drive down the country road I live on a weekly basis. The drivers do what they call “exercising” them.
https://www.motortrend.com/news/oshkosh-jltv-first-drive/
I once thought that nobody could fuck up a vehicle quite like a Soldier can. Then I went to work for CBP.
That goes for any item of equipment. Snuffy can do things that the engineers never imagined. And, this is also in a good way. I’ve seen commo sgts get radio systems to do amazing things that the engineers never thought of.
I broke a tactical radio that contractors were trying to get the CG of Electronics Command to buy. They passed it around the room and everyone was orgasmic. When it came to me I twisted the antenna off like Snuffy would do if he were in a foxhole cold and wet. The CG laughed his ass off and the meeting ended.
As to vehicles, we killed/hurt a lot of soldiers when the M151 was introduced.
I was the driver of a M151 with one other trooper heading to San Isidro Air Base to pick up some medical supplies when we ran into a bunch of the local Constitutionalist blocking the street, I made a hard U turn and beat feet and dammed near rolled that MF.
I had a young troop actually break a sledgehammer. Not the handle. Cracked the head from the face all the way back to the handle. I let him keep it as a souvenir, the supply SGT wrote it off as a field loss.
Oh man. Ain’t that the truth.
That being said. If I had to drive to Hell and could pick a vehicle, it would be a 2007-2014 Chevy Tahoe.
Not just vehicles. I knew a guy who blew up an M-14 firing blanks. Pretty spectacular. I myself jammed the operating rod on one running into a tree whilst frolicking in the woods. Also jammed the hinge bolt on a FAL rifle at some training exercise. I asked the SF Sgt. if I could play with it and he said yes, so I field stripped it, somehow jammed it in the ‘broken’ (like a shotgun) position, and left the SF weapons Sgt. with a frustrated look on his face as he tried to fix it. Had another guy in my platoon who claimed to have broken an M88 ARV, which was why he was transferred to an Inf. unit.
“Issue a legionnaire three lead anchors and within a week he’ll have lost one, broken the second, and traded the third for wine.”
— some Centurion, somewhen.
Wait until a couple of LCpls get ahold of one.
I bet one of the instructors told them there was no way to roll one over…
Never tell Joe that…
4 days before they wrecked one? What took them so long?
2 days classroom instruction followed by 1 day hands-on familiarization in the motorpool would be my guess. (smile)
“Light” my butt. The B model was dropped from development because it couldn’t be made light enough to be lifted by a freaking CH-47 (max weight spec was 15,639 lbs and the B model couldn’t meet that).
It appears that this “light” vehicle is nearly 2x as heavy as a basic HMMWV.
There is a capsule that has five different kits for the HMMWV that has the engineering of an MRAP which turns it into the Survivable Combate Tactical Vehicle. I also believe it’s lighter than the JLTV and cheaper (it’s lighter than many MRAPs). I know the Ukraine has ordered some to replace for their HMMWVs as has Columbia.
Actually don’t quote me on it being lighter.
The only figure I could find for weight said it weighed 7 tons. One source said its payload was 5000 lbs; in other words its an armored deuce-and-a-half. Not what I would call light, either. And with a top speed of ~70 mph I can see how it could have rolled pretty easily.
Isn’t this vehicle, like the Humvee before it, supposed to be a replacement for the M151, which weighed ~2000 lbs.?
If I remember correctly, the HMWWV replaced the CUCV series vehicles (can’t remember their M#####-series). The CUCV in turn had replaced both the M151 and M880-series vehicles; the latter (M880-series) were substantially larger (and heavier) than the M151 and could carry larger payloads.
FWIW: 7 tons is 14,000 lbs. Assuming that’s curb weight, that kinda explains why the B configuration (~3,500lb payload; I’m pretty sure 5,000lb payload was the C configuration) couldn’t meet the CH47 sling-load spec weight of 15,639lbs. (smile)
I always assumed those civilian vehicles were for administrative/rear-area use instead of more expensive tactical vehicles. I never saw one outside the US, except for the AF. It doesn’t make much sense to replace a civilian style truck for use mostly on paved roads with a more expensive Humvee or JLTV.
Speedy recovery to the injured troops.
God’s Peace and His Comfort to the Ft Bliss troopers families. That blank check is subject to be cashed at any time.
I think I saw some of these new designs on low boys heading west up I16 yesterday. Couldn’t make up my mind what they were until I saw the pictures in these linkies. Three were undamaged but muddy, one was in what looked to be pieces. Maybe they were sending them back to the plant to see what made them tip over. /s/ Usually, this time of year, if something painted desert camo is on I 16, it is rolling east, toward Ft. Stewart/Savannah.
” to see what made them tip over”
Perhaps the combination of a 70 mph. top speed and a young and bullet-proof soldier.
Looks top heavy with an extended ass.
Short wheelbase. It’s gonna roll.
The video shows it in the front right wheel.
And if they were trying to design it just like MRAPs (especially MAXXPROs), well, mission accomplished!
Long, long ago, the Army adopted a small utility vehicle known as the Jeep. The Jeep was compact, rugged, light enough to drop by parachute or ride down in a glider, able to traverse godawful terrain, and cheap enough to buy by the tens of thousands. Anybody could drive it. Anybody could fix it. When needed, it could be up-armored without much difficulty. It could be armed with a variety of light and heavy weapons. It could be modified to suit a vast spectrum of environments and needs. It had four seats, but ten guys could ride on it provided the driver wasn’t a complete idiot. It wasn’t perfect—nothing ever is—but it seemed to be damn well good enough for forty years.
Not seeing it here.
I have a ’55 CJ3B (military version would be M606) that runs like a top!
I have a 1947 Willys CJ2A, lots of fun to putt around in, my pipe dream Jeep is an old M38!
Word!
Looks like history repeats itself. Harkins back to my pre-Dustoff days with the Big Red One when we had an even bigger POS…the infamous Gamma Goat..
That fucker was just wrong…on every level.
It still haunted me even after I started flying with MEDEVAC. My first mission was a Gamma Goat rollover.
Wait – you were wrong. That’s a Czech Army (CSLA) vehicle…
The Army forgot about the most important step in vehicle / equipment development:
“Private, go try this out.”
If the private comes back with your “unbreakable” equipment broken, go back to the drawing board and start again.
It is my understanding that Soldiers and Marines are the only creatures on this Earth more naturally adept at breaking things than firefighters, and that’s saying something.
I once saw a duce n 1/2 driving like hell down the road at Ft. Lewis, had a tow bar dragging behind it attached to a jeep front bumper throwing sparks. Never did see the rest of the jeep.
To be a fly on the wall for that explanation…
It’s like when tech companies release software for beta testing, you give it to the guys that are going to be using it so they can try and break it, it’s the same for video games to equipment. Gotta give it to the troopies to see how fast and hard they can break it.
Yo Joe! No physical object, no matter how solid or extensively designed, can withstand the power of the troop.
Top heavy, ya think?
Center of Gravity looks to be close to the roof line of the HMMV. Not good. What were they thinking,anyway??????
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
It looks like it’s starting to roll over just sittin there.
“Master drivers”
Hope they got allstate accident forgiveness.
That thing is definitely a far cry from a Mighty Mite or a Mule.
Fort Bliss and their vehicles.. probably happened in same 88M training location.
No seat belts or rollover protection, either.