Web Page sponsored by MILLBROOK
Tel: +44 (0) 1525 408408
www.millbrook.co.uk/military
————————————————————————
25 Aug 16. Peruvian Army receives new Rheinmetall transport vehicles. The Peruvian Army’s 3rd Division received 20 new transport vehicles from Rheinmetall Man Military Vehicles (RMMV) on 24 August.
The division is headquartered in Arequipa and oversees the southern Peruvian regions of Moquegua, Puno, and Tacna.
The vehicles are part of a batch of 63 trucks that Peru received on 27 July. Peru has ordered 338 utility vehicles from RMMV for the army and navy. On 12 February IHS Jane’s reported the deal is worth in excess of EUR53m (USD60m). The 4×4 trucks given to the 3rd Division can transport 5-10 tonnes of cargo.
COMMENT
The vehicles will be an important component for future relief operations as Peru is prone to natural disasters, particularly earthquakes. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
25 Aug 16. JLTV Needs Bigger Gun, More Seats for Scout Mission: Maneuver Leaders. U.S. Army maneuver officials are fine with the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle serving as the service’s Light Reconnaissance Vehicle — as long as it carries two more soldiers and a cannon more potent than the pre-World War II .50-caliber machine gun.
The service soon will begin fielding the JLTV to replace a large portion of the service’s outdated Humvee fleet. Senior leaders have decided that the four-seat, armored vehicle will replace the Humvees used by scout platoons in light infantry units despite a multi-year push by maneuver leaders for a specialized Light Reconnaissance Vehicle.
Scouts need a vehicle designed specifically for their unit with enough firepower to destroy enemy recon formations, maneuver officials maintain.
Leaders from the Army Capabilities Integration Center and the Maneuver Center of Excellence are working with JLTV program officials to tweak the vehicle’s design so it’s more suited to reconnaissance units.
“It would have to carry six soldiers and a 30mm cannon,” Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, director of ARCIC and deputy commanding general of Futures at Training and Doctrine Command, told Military.com.
The Army awarded Oshkosh Corp. a $6.7bn contract last fall to build the first 17,000 production models of the JLTV. The Army and Marine Corps plan to buy a total of nearly 55,000 of the combat vehicles, including 49,100 for the Army and 5,500 for the Corps, to replace about a third of the Humvee fleets.
Gaps Exist
“The JLTV is a great vehicle. I mean it is a nice vehicle; it satisfies about 90 percent plus of what the Army wants extremely well,” said Col. William T. Nuckols Jr., director of Mounted Requirements at the Maneuver Center of Excellence, or MCOE, at Fort Benning, Georgia.
“From MCOE’s perspective, Gen. McMaster’s and ARCIC’s perspective, we are good with that, but there are some gaps that exist with the JLTV in a reconnaissance/scout platoon role,” Nuckols told Military.com in an interview.
Scout platoons operate out ahead of larger combat units and need more firepower to deal with chance contact with a larger enemy force, maneuver officials maintain.
“That is going to get addressed regardless,” Nuckols said. “We are working now on a medium cannon upgrade to the JLTV that will serve in that reconnaissance variant role.”
No decisions have been made, but the cannon will be “similar to what the Apache has right now,” the M230-LF 30mm cannon, Nuckols said.
“We may go a little bit smaller, but we obviously want something better than the 100-year-old .50 cal.,” Nuckols said. “As Gen. McMaster likes to say, ‘Currently when our scouts bump into the enemy … it’s a fair fight at best.’ And we don’t want a fair fight. Gen. McMaster likes to say, ‘We want smoking boots on the other end.’ ”
There is “general agreement” in the Army for that improvement, and there has been money applied to a program that would buy about 2,000 of these cannons by the “early-to-mid-20s,” Nucko