Vehicle Mobility Assessment for Project Wheels Study Group

Project WHEELS is a study to evaluate the performance of individual standard military trucks both off and on road in relation to their missions and to cash savings possible through the elimination of special military automotive features, such as front-wheel drive, or the use of commercial vehicles in some missions. Such evaluations can only be based upon the most reliable assessments of mobility performance possible. The AMC-71 Ground Mobility Model was used to assess the off- and on-road speed performance of a group of military and commercial vehicles and vehicles with trailers or howitzers, totaling 48 cases of direct interest and 6 reference vehicles, ranging from 1-ton gross vehicle weight to 90-ton gross combined weight. The terrain data used in predicting off-road performance were obtained from transects, or strips of ground, about 3 by 52 km located in West Germany, Thailand, and Arizona, each representative of different types of climatic zones and terrain conditions.