Soldier Armed Joint EOD Rapid Response Vehicle (JERRV) by Scott R
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Soldier Armed Joint EOD Rapid Response Vehicle (JERRV) By Scott R. Gourley Charles Dease, Project Manager As- Joint service Army/Marine Corps sured Mobility Systems. Before 2003- contract for 122 vehicles in May 2005. lmost two years before the initial 04, “the Army didn’t have any V- “The Cougar JERRV, for Joint ser- Amine resistant ambush protected shaped hulls. This was one of the vices, followed on the heels of the suc- (MRAP) vehicle contracts were award- vehicles that had a V-shaped hull, cessful deployment of the Cougar ed in January 2007, military and indus- along with the Buffalo and RG-31 se- hardened engineering vehicle (HEV) try teams were addressing the needs of ries vehicles. In order to mitigate blast for the USMC into Iraq during late Army and other service warfighters because of the protection that was af- 2004,” said Mark Edwards, executive under a larger “superset” category of forded on the current vehicles that we vice president, business development, “mine protected vehicles.” had as platforms, operational need for Force Protection. “The Cougar is a Purchased for engineer formations statements came about to support en- very scalable platform, which allowed and use in route clearance missions, gineer units. That’s when we came up us to scale up the JERRV protection one representative example of these with the JERRV.” levels to meet the evolving and chang- early mine protected vehicle programs Col. Dease noted that the joint as- ing threats experienced in both Iraq was the Joint explosive ordnance dis- pects of the program were based on and Afghanistan.” posal rapid response vehicle (JERRV), receipt of a Joint service urgent un- Of the initial 122 JERRVs, approxi- or Cougar, built by Force Protection funded need statement, with the ini- mately 38 went to the Marine Corps; Inc. tial JERRV procurements conducted 84 went to the Army and other ser- The JERRV program falls under the under the auspices of the Joint IED vices. The initial award was followed Product Manager for Assured Mobil- Defeat Organization (JIEDDO). by an additional stand-alone JERRV ity Systems within the office of Project The JIEDDO-funded procurement award, as well as a subsequent JERRV Manager, Force Projection, Program awards were administered by Marine award under the MRAP program. Executive Office for Combat Support Corps Systems Command (MCSC), In August 2005, Force Protection and Combat Service Support. which had previously contracted 27 announced the shipment of its first “The JERRV came about through an Marine Corps Cougars in April 2004. Cougar JERRV under the May con- operational need statement to support With the name subsequently changed tract award. As part of the contract, the warfighters,” explained Lt. Col. to JERRV, MCSC awarded the initial Force Protection also provided spare The Joint explosive ordnance disposal rapid response vehicle (JERRV), or Cougar, is a medium-sized, blast- protected vehicle designed to deflect the force of explo- sions away from passengers inside the armored hull. otection, Inc. ce Pr Photographs: For November 2008 I ARMY 77 parts, operator and maintenance train- ing and in-country field service repre- sentatives to assist in the rapid de- ployment of the vehicles. Alluding to an early evolution of JERRV designs, the company charac- terized JERRV as meeting the need for “a larger, safer and more reliable vehi- cle to support all services in their ex- plosive ordnance disposal (EOD) mis- sions. … Force Protection has taken the original Cougar HEV and dramat- ically improved protection levels against both blast and ballistic attacks. This vehicle will make a real differ- ence in Coalition efforts to thwart ter- rorist activities in both Afghanistan and Iraq.” In its 2006 annual report, JIEDDO confirmed JERRV’s tactical contributions. Above, the 4 by 4 Cougar series JERRV is nearly 20 feet long and seats ERRV actually has two mission pro- four passengers, plus driver and codriver. The 6 by 6 (below) accommo- Jfiles, according to Col. Dease. “One dates eight passengers. Each vehicle can be used to carry troops to neu- profile is for the EOD units to go out tralize IEDs and as a convoy protection platform to transport troops safely. there and carry the troops to neutralize IEDs or any type of explosive device,” he said. “It is also used as a convoy protection platform to carry troops from one destination to another. “Once you look at a route clearance team and the formation of those vehi- cles, the engineer variant carries a [de- ployable] robot and the equipment used to neutralize the event on site. So the route clearance teams go out in their vehicles and identify, detect and mark that device. The Buffalo interro- gates that device. Then they will call for the EOD unit to come forward with their equipment and their robot to neutralize that device.” Col. Dease added that the JERRV is currently fielded in a 4 by 4 variant and two different 6 by 6 variants of 25 of the 6 by 6 engineer variants and now these vehicles are meant to pro- Cougar. Based on a Spartan chassis 84 of the 6 by 6 EOD variants. While vide support for the current opera- with a Caterpillar diesel engine and an declining to identify specific quantities tions.” Allison 3500 SP transmission, the 4 by currently in the field supporting the Col. Dease concluded: “The reason 4 has a gross vehicle weight of 38,000 force, Col. Dease said, “It could be this is important to the warfighter is pounds and measures 233 inches long, more than 200.” that right now, when you look at the 108 inches wide and 130 inches high. The Army project manager pre- engineer force and EOD force struc- The 6 by 6 engineer variant features dicted “no specific changes to the pro- ture, it’s the only vehicle they have to the same chassis and power train. gram” during fiscal year (FY) 2009. He mitigate the threat of IEDs. So, to sup- Measuring 279 inches long, 108 inches said, however, “The only change that port the EOD community there is a wide and 130 inches high, it has a we may have to the program is that in need for the V-shaped hull to provide gross vehicle weight of 52,000 pounds. FY 2012 it looks like we may harvest a level of protection for these soldiers, The initial 122 vehicles ordered in- some of these vehicles to put back into to mitigate the risk and bring them cluded 13 of the 4 by 4 EOD variants, the engineer force structure. But right back alive.” ( 78 ARMY I November 2008.