Meet the badass JLTV, America's $400K Tactical Light Vehicle

The JLTV is a replacement for the Humvee. The Humvee was first fielded to the Marine Corps in 1984. It is 1970s technology. It has done a great job. It achieved its mission in the 70s, 80s, 90s and got us through the first couple years in OIF and OEF in the start of the 21st century. But the changing of the battlefield, the requirement to have armor capability with an engine that can basically carry the additional weight necessitated the need for a JLTV. The JLTV boasts a 340 horsepower Duramax engine dressed out by Gail Banks as well as an Allison 2500 series transmission. Allison is the primary vendor that feeds all our other tactical vehicles so there's a lot of commonality that the Marines will be able to identify quick and be able to fall in on. It also has an Armor B kit provided on 100% of the vehicles so it's ready to go into the fight. It also has a comm suite giving VRC 110 radio capability on 100% of the vehicles. It has electrical outlets, has USB ports, and has 12-volt power to attach other C4I capability as well as radios and a blue force tracker. The Humvee is an aluminum skin vehicle. It was not designed to be on the forward edge of the battle area. The JLTV has the capability to actually operate outside of a FOB in harm's way and give you the payload protection and performance that you need to accomplish the mission. We started training Marines last October and the reception has been very positive both in the capability of the JLTV to operate over land and on secondary and cross-country roads as well as the features. It restores payload, performance, and protection to the Marine Corps giving us back the payload that we lost when we started armoring up Humvees but it affords us the protection that we need to operate in a 21st century environment. The number one advantage is the protection. You are providing survivability to the Marines from a JLTV or from a vehicle that's been designed from the ground up. So you have ballistic protection, you have mine protection, you have IED protection. Backup cam. The JLTV has a 340-horsepower Duramax engine that's dressed out by Gale Banks. It gives it a capability to drive over 70 miles an hour, has over 300 miles of range per fuel tank. It has over 22 inches of wheel travel, which means when you drive over railroad ties or large rocks, the air-over-hydraulic suspension system reduces a lot of the shock and the vibration that the operator would feel. The first 5,500 JLTVs will begin delivery on 28 February and we will have the last of those fielded by 2023. All right, guys, this is, I'm sure, the moment that you've all been waiting for, the inside of the JLTV. The vehicle was designed with the soldier in mind. Everything from the camelback cutout to the way that the seat goes up and down to fit every soldier in the Army Reserves. One of my favorite features in the new JLTV is the digital display unit. It's a Windows-based system that gives the soldier total control over the vehicle. They're able to view temperatures, pressures, and the camera views for the front and the back backup cameras. Okay, guys, this is the new JLTV engine. It has a 6.6-liter turbo diesel that's capable of producing 340 foot-pounds of torque and 660 horsepower. If you guys look, we have the turbo right up in this area that helps the vehicle get up to the maximum speed that it can get up to, which is 76 miles an hour. As you can see, we have up-armored windows and doors on the exterior of the vehicle. They're capable of withstanding small-arms fire. And since all of the controls are on the inside of the vehicle due to the seals, the vehicle is capable of going through different operational statuses, from forwarding mode to operational status to tie-down, and it even drops into a loading status. The JLTV's also got extra functions on the back of the vehicle as well. It's got an installed rear backup camera that's going to assist with safety and ground guiding while you're in the motor pool. Speaking of safety, we also have a black box that's installed in the back of the vehicle that is going to record statistics and give the command analysis in case of accidents or rollovers. The JLTV also has an Allison 2500 special-purpose transmission that's installed on it. It runs a two-speed automatic to the drivetrain.