USSOCOM Ground Mobility

BY SCOTT R. GOURLEY

- USSOCOM 2018 Posture Statement

Along with increases in lethality and precision, U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) has placed significant focus on the mobility of its forces across ground, sea, and air domains. Command leadership has noted that the mobility focus assists in “rapidly positioning and focusing” special operations forces (SOF), resulting in enhanced options and effects.

The command’s ground mobility capabilities, which are encompassed within the Family of Special Operations Vehicles (FoSOV), provide many representative examples.

Speaking at a government/industry conference in February 2019, Logan Kittinger, FoSOV deputy program manager at SOCOM, provided a broad overview of the command’s current ground mobility capabilities and future needs.

“Today’s brief is not intended to leave you an expert on SOF mobility,” he began,

“but just to give you the once-over-theworld lay of the land of where we’re at in SOF mobility, where we’re going, and where we can use some help from industry.”

Kittinger explained that the FoSOV program office includes about two dozen individuals working to “field highly advanced and specialized ground mobility across the full spectrum of mobility.”

On an annual basis, he said that the office manages a budget of approximately $300 million, which is targeted at sustainment of more than 3,000 vehicles deployed worldwide.

“This true ‘family of the vehicles’ approach is really working on that blend of off-road mobility performance with protection and with mission payload,” he said. “Some folks refer to that as the ‘iron triangle.’ And one of our daily battles is figuring out that proper blend of performance, protection, and payload.”

The FoSOV portfolio features four vehicles – Ground Mobility Vehicle (GMV) 1.0, MRAP-ATV, MRAP RG-33A1, and MRAP RG-33 AUV – in the sustainment phase; three vehicles – GMV 1.1, Non-Standard Commercial Vehicle (NSCV), and Light Tactical All Terrain Vehicle (LTATV) - Diesel – in production; and three vehicles – V-22 Internally Transportable Vehicle (ITV), Purpose Built Non-Standard Commercial Vehicle, and Next-Generation Armored Ground Mobility System (AGMS) – in the “concept” stage.

Turning to the sustainment slice of the portfolio, Kittinger highlighted the GMV 1.0, which he described as “a modified service common Humvee” that has become “the longest running kind of workhorse vehicles for SOCOM.”

While previous fleet plans had envisioned a pure fleet replacement of all GMV 1.0s with GMV 1.1 platforms (see “Active Production”) he said that the 1.0 “will stick around in the SOCOM inventory for a number of years as well.

“Due to budget constraints, we won’t [receive] the full numbers of GMV 1.1s that we were targeting,” he added. “So you’ll see some mixed medium tactical mobility fleets with 1.0s and 1.1s for SOCOM. These vehicles are in active reset, so opportunities exist here to continue to insert technology, suspension upgrades, and payload improvement-type stuff for this vehicle.”

He continued, “The other vehicles in sustainment include three different variants of the MRAP fleet which remain in high demand. Those were very much service-common solutions, but by the time SOCOM got done with them, they became very unique SOF variants. A number of those [are] still in the inventory and I see them staying in the inventory for years to follow.”

Reiterating that the MRAP fleet “is not unique to SOCOM,” he said that the platforms, which are approximately at their first decade mark, provide “a life-saving and game-changing capability for SOCOM, something that we intend to have around for years.”

“Our focus is on continued sustainment and reset of this platform,” he said, “and we will also be moving into the planning of what the future MRAP for SOCOM is going to be.”

SOCOM’s three active prime contracts are the GMV 1.1, the NSCV, and the LTATV.

“GMV 1.1 is SOCOM’s biggest ground-up vehicle program,” Kittinger said. “We went this alone. It was a true SOF-unique solution based on the elimination of the JLTV [Joint Light Tactical Vehicle] variant that was going to meet our needs. So we ended up down that road.”

Noting that “a big driving factor” of the GMV 1.1 program was MH-47 internal transportability, he added, “We also have unique to this platform a center drive capability that provides enhanced driver situational awareness as well as added security from having two side passengers that can operate in the gunner positions.

“The current contract is with General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems and Flyer Defense. We are in full rate production on that vehicle, which also includes an Army-directed requirement to procure and field an Army variant, a modified version of our SOCOM variant, a nine-passenger-type vehicle that’s fielded to their infantry brigade combat teams. So that was a big one for SOCOM. The Army is also buying a number of vehicles for our USASOC [U.S. Army Special Operations Command] Special Forces components and helping to ensure that we’re getting the guys what they need,” he said.

He noted that 2018 witnessed the first deployments of the GMV 1.1s, which led to “some solid praise downrange with its improved off-road vehicle mobility as compared to the aging fleet that we’ve got downrange. There has been positive feedback there.”

Kittinger said that the program focus is now shifting toward capability upgrades on GMV 1.1, citing examples ranging from lightening the load through the use of lightweight armor to the implementation of some sort of hybrid electric propulsion design.

“We have dedicated funding in FY 20 and 21 for that [hybrid electric] capability,” he said. “At the moment, it’s very loosely defined. What does hybrid electric mean to SOCOM? And that’s what we really have to figure out with our operators. So, during the course of the rest of this fiscal year, we intend to start doing a case study or an analysis of alternatives to go through things like whether that means fully electric, a series hybrid, or some combination of something else. And we will explore the tradeoffs of each. We have got to do that with our operators to better inform their requirements, so we can execute those dollars in FY 20. So you’ll see us moving into that. Some of that may be ‘Fed Biz Opps’ opportunities. Some of that may be via industry collaboration events at our SOFWERX facility in Tampa. We’re still trying to define what that’s going to be.”

Another production system involves the Non-Standard Commercial Vehicle (NSCV). The NSCVs are provided by Battelle Memorial Institute at an annual rate of approximately 70 vehicles per year under a contract that runs through FY 23.

Kittinger said that initial emphasis on producing modified Toyota vehicle platforms was recently expanded to include a modified Ford design, adding, “We are AOR [area of responsibility] dependent on what vehicle types we [deploy], but obviously trying to blend in with the local populace.”

“This capability has been around in SOCOM for almost 15 years, probably starting in the mid-2000s,” he said. “It’s a heavily modified commercial vehicle enhanced with armor, electrical mods, SOF commo [communications] radio packages, and electronic countermeasure packages.”

He acknowledged that unique SOF demands on these platforms include “a very aggressive payload and a very aggressive off-road mission profile” that combine to drive a number of the platform modifications.

“We are continually looking for upgrades in this vehicle. … So we have opportunities for technology insertion into this,” he noted. “The No. 1 focus on this platform is lightening the load. By the time we’re done with these vehicles, they’re well over 10,000 pounds after we put four SOF operators and their kit and mission payload in there. That severely decreases and taxes the OEM [original equipment manufacturer] frame. So we’re looking for your help on lightweight armor solutions and then also any lightweight vehicle components that we’re using on these platforms.”

In addition to seeking industry support to lighten the vehicle, he pointed to the communications package as an area where SOCOM would like to seek cost reductions.

“We always struggle to maintain pace with SOF radios,” he said. “And SOF radios are going through a technology insertion themselves, which will drive new vehicle mounts, vehicle amplifiers, antenna packages, and whatnot to these vehicles. And I’ll tell you right now, our commo package in that vehicle almost makes up a third of the cost of the vehicle alone. So we’re looking for cost reduction efforts there to ensure that we can maximize our dollar across the board.”

He also pointed to the extreme SOF mission profiles for these vehicles as leading to an approximate three-year life for downrange operations and five-year life for home station training assets. “We’re looking for some kind of a black box-type data-logging capability that can help allow us to better understand the true life of the vehicle. Because I’ll tell you that, on an annual basis, we definitely have to replace vehicles that should not have been replaced. So we’re looking to better understand that life cycle: Tell us about the terrain; tell us about its true life; and allow us to more effectively execute dollars from life cycle replacement of these platforms.”

Kittinger said that SOCOM’s Light Tactical All Terrain Vehicles (LTATV) started several years ago in an effort to provide operators with “a highly flexible and easily transportable and reconnaissance type vehicle.

“Our first solution was a modified COTS [commercial off the shelf] vehicle from Kawasaki,” he explained. “But we did all of the government modifications ‘in house’ and kind of learned our lessons that we weren’t the best integrator and those platforms didn’t have the best life cycle.”

In response, SOCOM shifted to what he described as “one-stop shopping for a militarized OEM solution,” which is currently provided by Polaris Government & Defense, with its MRZR series platforms.

“The contract that we have with Polaris expires in FY 20, and we’ll be moving into an acquisition phase for a competitive full and open competition on that [follow-on LTATV],” he said. “The team is actively putting together that RFP [request for proposals]. We hosted an industry day back in November [2018] and had over 25 different industry partners come in interested in that capability.”

He added that a future system would likely target “increased capability on the platform” as well as “some hybrid electric options.”

Shifting to SOCOM’s “concept” vehicle designs, Kittinger described them as “in requirements refinement or operational evaluation.” The three major platform categories here are the V-22 Internally Transportable Vehicle (ITV), Purpose Built Non-Standard Commercial Vehicles, and Next Generation Armored Ground Mobility System (AGMS).

Acknowledging that SOCOM currently has a V-22 internally transportable vehicle in the form of its LTATV, Kittinger explained, “It’s still a COTS solution. It still has a short life cycle attached to it. So we’re looking at trying to go to a more durable, rugged platform that has some increased capabilities, increased payload, heavy weapons capability, and in some kind of V-22 60-inch [wide] window.

“The Marine Corps is doing efforts on that that we are monitoring and well connected into at the moment,” he added. “So we’re not really trying to drive the train on that. But we are monitoring and we’ll go from there.”

The concept of Purpose Built NSCVs transitions from the current approach of enhancing commercial vehicle platforms to meet SOF requirements to one that builds visually similar vehicles on a platform that is initially designed for SOF use.

Reiterating that current NSCVs are modified Toyotas and, more recently, Fords, he asserted, “They have a short life cycle attached to them once we put them in the SOF operator hands and deploy them worldwide.”

Under the Purpose Built NSCV concept, SOCOM is looking for a vehicle platform that could be sent through depot or industry reset to achieve a 10-year to 15-year life cycle.

“So, while my up-front cost may be more, over the life cycle of this vehicle the investment and sustainment costs will be significantly decreased,” Kittinger explained. “The other target of this is that we’re going to move away from the complex engine and vehicle electronics that exist on these Toyota platforms and continue to evolve. We also will get out of the cyclic nature of OEM model year changes that drive new designs and new testing and ultimately drive our costs and our schedule on an annual basis. ‘Purpose Built’ will help that. We will have a controlled baseline vehicle that has a drive line package that we can manage and control and understand its life cycle, and get out of that evolution that we’re currently in from Toyota kind of controlling what we do.”

He continued, “We’re looking for a flexible vehicle type that can change vehicle skins [that] allow it to change colors on a quick basis as well as also change from a vehicle type, maybe from a truck to an SUV or from one truck to another. This provides us mission flexibility when shifting in a vehicle from one AOR to another; I can still have it look like what it needs to look like in that AOR.”

As of this writing, SOCOM is receiving industry white papers on the Purpose Built concept, with the evaluation of those papers leading toward a proposal process that will likely award multiple Other Transaction Agreements (OTAs) for prototype platforms.

“We will put them in the test gauntlet, run through various tests – safety tests, performance tests – and then ultimately put them in our operators’ hands and do a little user evaluation over the course of FY 20,” he said. “A follow-on production contract is planned pending successful completion of the OTA [testing]. That would be in the FY 21 time frame.”

The Next Generation Armored Ground Mobility Vehicle concept answers a question that is seldom asked: What is the future for SOCOM heavy armor? One of the reasons for that is that SOCOM seldom talks about its current AGMS capabilities, which it has in the form of a small number of Pandur armored vehicles from General Dynamics.

Acknowledging that the February 2019 update marked “the first time we have briefed industry on this,” Kittinger explained, “We have a limited number of armored personnel carriers within the SOF inventory. They are also in their end of life here in the next five to 10 years, as will be the MRAPs. That’s all the heavy armor capability for SOCOM.

“We’re looking to see whether we can blend those two requirements together and kind of get a joint solution for SOF,” he said, adding, “A key driver is in MRAP type protection while still being able to fit in a C-130. And, while MATVs may fit in C-130s, it takes multiple to be able to travel around the battlefield.

“You will see us having all our operators doing an evaluation of the Pandur and the MATV later in the year, trying to figure out if they can find a way to blend the two requirements,” he said. “That’s the first answer that we need to have. And from there, we’ll either move on into two separate paths or we’ll move into a joint solution.

He noted that the current Next Generation AGMS concept development phase targets determining/finalizing AGMS replacement requirements “by FY 22,” with the program really kicking off in the FY 22 to FY 23 time frame “for some form of most likely an OTA prototype, since this really fits the bill of an OTA, with follow-on production.”

In addition to SOCOM’s program of record, the command is also monitoring the JLTV program. The U.S. Army began fielding its JLTVs in January 2019 and, as of this writing, the Marine Corps is scheduled to begin its fielding at the end of February. behind the wheel in some of these, start giving us that feedback on what capability this can provide for SOF. The services are already going to be fielding these. Our target right now is to limit the SOF mods so that this doesn’t become a unique variant like it did for MATV and MRAP. So you’ll see us really targeting commo and jammer type integration on this platform.”

Building on that theme, Kittinger pointed to a SOCOM and FoSOV acquisition philosophy that “targets service solutions or modified service solutions with SOF mods. And when those aren’t available, we will go it alone, attempting to do COTS, modified COTS, or other non-developmental item solutions. A key aspect of that involves technology insertion. As reflected in some of the platform descriptions provided above, FoSOV research and development efforts have traditionally been focused on incremental improvements to the vehicles.

“That has been due to the budget,” Kittinger stated. “But the [research and development] budget is increasing for us in our ground mobility office. So we need to start moving away from the incremental-only approach and start looking at game-changing technology and the insertion of that. That doesn’t always mean that SOCOM is going to be the one driving the train. We will rely heavily on our government labs – the DARPAs and our service counterpart research labs. … We’ve got the money to do so now to get it out in the hands of operators. And if it is ‘fail faster,’ that’s what we’ll do to try to get the feedback and move forward in the right direction.”

In terms of specific technology needs, he pointed to the repeating themes of lightweight armor and hybrid electric propulsion, as well as the exploration of autonomous capabilities.

In the case of autonomous operations, for example, he offered, “The LTATV is currently our first platform for autonomy. I’ll certainly say that SOCOM is not leading the charge on that, but really monitoring what our Army counterparts are doing. We believe this vehicle provides a capability with autonomy. It just is yet undefined by SOCOM. So I think we will continue to monitor all that. And as SOCOM is often the proving ground for some service-type solutions, we will look to leverage their capabilities to put out in our operators’ hands a little bit early to get some operational feedback and help define our requirements.”

The next step in that process will likely involve industry responses to a draft RFP slated for release in early 2019.

“We are seeking your feedback on the performance specs that are in there,” Kittinger said. “There’s a very loose definition of autonomy. We’re just really trying to ensure that we embed hooks into the vehicle to make it ‘autonomy ready’ when we’re ready to start deploying that capability.”

Along with industry feedback to things like draft RFPs and industry day events, he added, “We also have a SOFWERX facility in Tampa that allows industry to come in and connect with [program management] representatives as well as the operator representatives. So, on a lot of these capabilities, I see us employing their expertise and their manpower to set up events and learn what industry has to offer, as well as conceptually what CONOPS [concepts of operation] we can use to employ the technologies. The big thing with autonomy is that we can’t put it on paper, because we don’t have the CONOPS defined as to how it could improve mission effectiveness by doing X, Y, or Z. But you’ll see that in the future.”