Russian-owned plant scandal jeopardizes US military vehicle armor
Bloomberg, citing sources within the metallurgical holding company Evraz North America Inc., has revealed issues with the armour of American military vehicles, the JLTV—their armour, produced at a factory owned by a Russian, cracks under fire.
Bloomberg reports, citing anonymous sources from Evraz North America Inc.. This holding company owns metallurgical plants in the United States, that the results of the armour tests conducted in the Evraz factories in Portland, Oregon, were falsified for years.
The holding owner is Russian Roman Abramovich. The armour plates in his factories were delivered to the defence firm Oshkosh Defense LLC. According to Bloomberg, 12,800 armour plates of various types were sent to defence plants.
These plates were used, among other things, to armour vehicles from the JLTV family—true workhorses of the American armed forces intended to replace the military's Humvees (HMMWV) partially. However, the vehicles' armour began to crack despite theoretically being designed to maintain the properties declared by the manufacturer for 20 years.
Falsifying test results from 2017 to 2019 supplied faulty armour plates. Although all components were supposed to be inspected, only a few were selected from the production batch for quality control.
The scandal probably explains why Oshkosh Defense LLC lost the 2023 contract to build the next series of JLTV vehicles, which is valued at £6.6 billion.
JLTV - complement and successor to the Humvee
The JLTV (Joint Light Tactical Vehicle) is a wheeled vehicle powered by a 6.6-litre V8 engine. The American armed forces introduced it into service in 2019. Since then, more than 20,000 units have been produced. In the basic variant, each weighs just over 11 tonnes and carries a three-person crew along with the driver.
JLTV vehicles were developed with MRAP (mine-resistant) requirements in mind. Compared to the HMMWV, they are better armoured. All vehicles leave the factory with standard armour (kit A), which can be supplemented with reinforced additional armour (kit B).
The universal JLTV chassis is the basis for numerous specialised vehicles, such as transport trucks, M2 heavy machine gun carriers, tank destroyers equipped with TOW anti-tank missiles, or the MADIS light anti-aircraft system developed for the Marine Corps.
JLTV family vehicles are used by the American army and other armed forces worldwide. In Europe, Belgium, Montenegro, Lithuania, and Romania have ordered them.
