GROUND MOBILITY
USSOCOM GROUND MOBILITY BY SCOTT R. GOURLEY
“… Modernizing key capabilities to increase lethality includes accelerating recapitalization of air, ground, and maritime mobility systems and strike aircraft. We continue to enhance agility, proactively shaping the environment by placing capability and infrastructure where we can enable agile, timely, and effective responses. …” - USSOCOM 2018 Posture Statement
with increases in lethality qAlong and precision, U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) has placed significant focus on the mobility of its forces across ground, sea, and air domains. Command leadership has noted that the mobility focus assists in “rapidly positioning and focusing” special operations forces (SOF), resulting in enhanced options and effects. The command’s ground mobility capabilities, which are encompassed within the Family of Special Operations Vehicles (FoSOV), provide many representative examples. Speaking at a government/industry conference in February 2019, Logan Kittinger, FoSOV deputy program manager at SOCOM, provided a broad overview of the command’s current ground mobility capabilities and future needs. “Today’s brief is not intended to leave you an expert on SOF mobility,” he began,
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Special Operations Outlook
“but just to give you the once-over-theworld lay of the land of where we’re at in SOF mobility, where we’re going, and where we can use some help from industry.” Kittinger explained that the FoSOV program office includes about two dozen individuals working to “field highly advanced and specialized ground mobility across the full spectrum of mobility.” On an annual basis, he said that the office manages a budget of approximately $300 million, which is targeted at sustainment of more than 3,000 vehicles deployed worldwide. “This true ‘family of the vehicles’ approach is really working on that blend of off-road mobility performance with protection and with mission payload,” he said. “Some folks refer to that as the ‘iron triangle.’ And one of our daily battles is figuring out that proper blend of performance, protection, and payload.”
U.S. Special Forces soldiers conduct vehicle movement during a training event at Panzer Kaserne, Germany, aboard an LTATV and GMV 1.0.
