Army releases draft requirements for Common Tactical Truck

By Ethan Sterenfeld / October 7, 2021 at 12:34 PM

The Army released its draft requirements Oct. 6 for the Common Tactical Truck, which is expected to replace the Palletized Load System, Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck and M915 line haul with a single platform.

There will be five variants of the CTT, according to the Abbreviated Specification document: load handling system, off-road tractor, on-road tractor, tanker and cargo bed variant with crane.

An announcement last month mentioned four variants. The new draft requirements include separate on- and off-road tractor variants, while the earlier announcement combined them.

The CTT should provide as much commonality between the variants as possible, including the powertrain, chassis and cab, according to the draft requirements. It should also share commonality with commercial vehicles, so that future commercial technological innovations could be added to the CTT.

A lack of commonality in the current fleet with commercial trucks has impeded the adoption of new technologies, according to the draft requirements.

“The Army fleet lags behind commercial industry in the digitization revolution and is not in a position to take advantage of the rapidly advancing fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning, autonomous operations, driver safety systems, and predictive maintenance, diagnostics, and prognostics,” the draft requirements state.

Drive-by-wire technology should be built into the CTT, according to the draft requirements. It should have modern safety features, such as lane-keeping and adaptive cruise control, and it should be “autonomy ready.”

An exportable power system for the CTT should be able to produce 20 kilowatts of power at 28 Volts, according to the draft requirements. Peak onboard power capacity will be 75 amps at 24 V to power the communications systems, but available power could be higher to allow for future technology upgrades.

The Army canceled the industry meetings about the CTT at the Association of the United States Army conference in Washington next week, according to the announcement of the draft specifications.

There will be an industry day and meetings between the Army and prime contractors on Oct. 20 in Warren, MI, according to the announcement.

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