AUSA: I’ve covered the Army since 1997 and detailed its acquisition disasters from Crusader to Comanche to Future Combat System to — oh, let’s not get depressed and stop there — and I could not imagine the Big Green Machine putting a contract together for a new vehicle in nine months, let alone issuing a contract and getting a brand new vehicle delivered two weeks before AUSA in that time.
The Army’s Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (fondly known as TARDEC) has done heaps of innovative and intriguing research and development over the years, but the Army has rarely succeeded in harnessing that innovation and turning it into a product. This time, no one can naysay TARDEC’s achievement. Of course, a great deal of the credit goes to General Motors for cobbling together all the bits and pieces from its research, working with TARDEC and ensuring it built a vehicle.
Is the Army noticing? Well, while we were filming, Gen. Daniel Allyn, Army vice chief of staff, walked up for a tour. Allyn had visited TARDEC in July, presumably hearing that the vehicle was being built.
Among the really cool things the vehicle should be able to do: it generates a peak of 50kW of electricity, more than enough to power combat lasers already available. It could also power a field hospital or something like a command center. The vehicle takes only three minutes to refuel, using a very simple nozzle not unlike the ones you use at the gas station. The tanks containing the hydrogen can withstand a .50 cal round, according to the folks at GM. The vehicle is extremely quiet and generates two gallons of purified water an hour while it operates.
We don’t know yet know how well the Chevrolet Colorado-based fuel cell electric vehicle will work, how reliable it will be or whether the Army’s creaky requirements and acquisition system believes it should have a place in the pantheon of Army vehicles. But the Army and GM can at least celebrate their ability, in the era of the Rapid Capabilities Office and Diux, to turn out something that appears very useful, possesses new capabilities and should be able to be built in a relatively short time in large numbers. I understand the Army’s RCO has already discussed this vehicle.
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