US Army builds out new cold weather vehicle for command-and-control

The US Army's 11th Airborne Division Cold Weather All-Terrain Vehicle variants are outfitted with radios and Starshield to perform command-and-control functions. (Janes/Meredith Roaten)

The first – almost fully decked out – command-and-control (C2) variants of the Cold Weather All-Terrain Vehicle (CATV), complete with shifted seating arrangements and integrated communications equipment, have been used in the first large scale exercise, a US Army brigade combat team commander told Janes.

The new CATVs were first put through their paces at Operation ‘Wolf Valkyrie', a brigade field training exercise in December 2023 that laid the groundwork for their participation in the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center (JPMRC) 24-02 training rotation at Fort Greely, Alaska.

“It was just our way of training ourselves and some of our mission-essential tasks to set us up for this validation,” Colonel Sean Lucas, commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, told Janes in an interview during JPMRC 24-02, which took place from 12 to 22 February.

Operation ‘Wolf Valkyrie' was also the first time drivers were licensed to operate CATVs. Soldiers have since given positive feedback about using the vehicles, Col Lucas said. One important aspect of training was self-recovering operations. “How do you recover with the winches you have? How do you recover with another vehicle if you were to get stuck or out or roll over?” he explained.

One of the things the 11th Airborne Division changed on the CATV was the seating. CATV concept of operations (CONOPS) supportsa nine-person element, according to Program Executive Office Combat Support and Combat Service Support's website. However, the 11th Airborne Division discovered the vehicle could comfortably fit eight soldiers in the back with gear and four soldiers in the cab, Col Lucas said.