GM Defense Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV)
WASHINGTON: General Motor’s three-year-old defense division made good on its first major Pentagon contract this morning, delivering the first four production-model Infantry Squad Vehicles to the Army just four months after the $214 million award. That’s a stunningly swift pace for a military procurement, even for a vehicle derived from a civilian truck, the Chevy Colorado ZR2. The 2.5-ton ISV is built with 90 percent off-the-shelf commercial parts, but is beefed up to carry nine fully equipped infantry and to be deployable by parachute.
GM Defense made some “drastic changes” to its initial ISV design based on soldiers’ feedback on two rounds of prototypes, Army project lead Steve Herrick says. “I respect GM for having soldiers call their baby ugly and making those changes to really get the right kit,” Herrick said during the webcast delivery ceremony today.
Three of the first four production-model Infantry Squad Vehicles on display
Next up comes intensive Army testing to confirm the vehicles are up to spec, Herrick said. Two of the first 27 ISVs were bought with RDTE funding (Research, Development, Test, & Evaluation) rather than procurement money, he explained, because those two will be used for air-drop testing and may not survive the process. They “may be disposable in case airdrop goes awry,” he said.
The ISV can also fit aboard the CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopter – it just takes five seconds to fold down part of the roll cage, a GM engineer explained – or be carried in a sling underneath the midsize UH-60 Black Hawk.
Why is the ability to transport ISVs on many kinds of aircraft so important? Because it’s designed to give high-speed off-road mobility to the 82nd Airborne and other light infantry units, which can rapidly deploy abroad by plane but on arrival must thereafter maneuver on foot. To reinforce these units – sometimes sarcastically known as “speed bumps” – against a high-tech Russian or Chinese threat, the Army is now buying not only ISVs for transport but a light tank, the Mobile Protected Firepower vehicle, and potentially an electric-powered scout, the Light Reconnaissance Vehicle.
These weapons are not expensive by Pentagon standards. For the Infantry Squad Vehicle, the current $214 million contract buys 649 operational trucks through the end of 2024. That’s enough to give 59 ISVs to 11 of the Army’s 33 Infantry Brigade Combat Teams.
Those light brigades can’t carry a lot of spare parts, fuel, or repair equipment without becoming much harder to deploy. So they need a vehicle not only light enough to deploy by aircraft but rugged, reliable and simple enough to keep running in brutal conditions with minimal maintenance.
The GM Infantry Squad Vehicle (center) and its civilian ZR2 counterparts (flanking)
That’s why GM offered a vehicle based on its Chevy Colorado ZR2, variants of which have participated in over 4,000 miles of long-range desert racing with no breakdowns, the company says. You can buy the baseline ZR2 as a civilian; you can even customize it by ordering the same ruggedized components GM developed for the racing and military models, like reinforced suspension, skid shields to protect the underbody, and steel versions of parts normally made from aluminum. (You hopefully can’t get the machineguns, secure digital radios, and other combat gear that real soldiers will attach to their trucks).
The Army started searching for an ISV – at the time known as the Ultra-Light Combat Vehicle – back in 2015, near the nadir of post-Iraq defense spending. The program proceeded by fits and starts until getting going in earnest again last fall, when it sped up dramatically. GM’s 120-day sprint from contract award to delivering the first four production-model vehicles was preceded by a 105-day sprint for the Army, which in just over three months tested and assessed competing vehicles, then picked a winner and wrote up a contract.
The first four vehicles were built at GM’s facility in Milford, Mich. but as production ramps up, GM Defense plans to build a dedicated factory for ISV in Concord, New Hampshire. The Army has said it might ultimately buy another 1,416 vehicles, for a total of 2,065 – enough to equip every infantry brigade.
GM Defense hopes the ISV will serve as a springboard to other Pentagon contracts. The company’s targets, president David Albritton said today, include other trucks such the 4×4 Joint Light Tactical Vehicle — an Oshkosh contract the Army wants to recompete — and supporting roles on heavier war machines like the Army’s Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle and the Marines’ Advanced Reconnaissance Vehicle.
Corrected Oct. 29. The original version of this story cited a GM Defense official who mistakenly said the dedicated factory for long-term ISV production would be in Morrisville, NC. The actual location is Concord, NH, as stated in the corrected version above.
