Not every rifleman in the U.S. Army rides to battle in beefy Bradley or Stryker armored vehicles—in fact, a growing number of soldiers will soon do so in Chevrolet pickup trucks. So far, the Army is in the process of converting five of these planned Mobile Brigades to fight on foot with the intention of 9–14 units in total. Still, soldiers have to reach the combat zone, so each infantry squad will get an M1301 Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) based on Chevy’s Colorado ZR2 Bison. Popular Mechanics anointed the truck the “ultimate mid-sized off-road pickup” in 2018. By foregoing armor; mine protection; weapons; and even a windshield, roof, and doors, the ISV weighs merely 2.5 tons and can seat a nine-man squad (if one of them drives). Soldiers have praised the ISV’s fuel efficiency, air transportability, and ability to negotiate muddy or forested terrain.

However, an Army National Guard officer with over 20 years of experience serving in a unit converting into a Mobile Brigade Combat Team told Popular Mechanics the new Infantry Squad Vehicle’s design is ill-conceived—unable to survive enemy fire, lacking capacity for basic supplies, and pricier than existing, roomier alternatives. But the Pentagon is keen on the new whips. In May, the U.S. Department of Defense canceled most ongoing armored vehicle procurement, including Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV), Humvees, and Stryker troop carriers, claiming enough had been delivered and that ISVs were the future. Infantry Squad Vehicles may indeed assume other roles, too. The Army has tested air defense lasers on ISVs, while Chevrolet is offering flatbed transport models, a weapons-turret variant, a command-and-control kit, and an electric-propulsion model. ... it retains 90 percent civilian parts—theoretically lowering cost. However, while 2025 civilian ZR2s typically cost $49,000–$60,000, M1301 contracts average well over $330,000 to $370,000 per vehicle delivered. By comparison, recent contracts show costs of $225,000 to $275,000 per Humvee, and $330,000–$400,000 per JLTV. Following initial Infantry Squad Vehicle tests in 2020 and 2021, the Pentagon’s Department of Testing and Evaluation (DOT&E) expressed concerns over high breakdown rates, poor long-range radio performance, uncomfortable seating, and lack of cybersecurity, accessible stowage, firepower, and protection. Accordingly, Chevrolet revised the finalized production model’s engineering, ergonomics, and comms. In 2023, evaluators found the breakdown rate reduced to one incident per 15,000 miles. But DOT&E noted improvements to other cited problems weren’t evaluated, particularly “the [lack of] capability to deliver effective fires, provide reliable communication, and force protection.” But the Army didn’t require those qualities.

That’s why Infantry Squad Vehicles are supposedly meant for delivering infantry just outside combat zones without contacting enemy forces. But if ISVs truly are non-combat vehicles, they’re logistically outperformed by cheaper alternatives in service like LMTV trucks or the M1152 expanded capacity Humvee. Though an M1152 (with limited in-built armor) is 40 percent heavier at 3.5 tons, it matches or outperforms ISVs in key ways when forgoing add-on armor. Despite their non-combat role, ISVs are being attached directly to combat squads much like Bradley or JLTVs with combat capability. That means when the squad dismounts, they must either leave a squadmate in the truck or abandon it. “If the drivers are tied to the vehicles, you have just lost 11 percent of your combat power across the formation,” said the officer, who asked to remain anonymous due to fear of retribution. “If not, [i.e. the trucks are abandoned] how do we evacuate casualties or resupply troops on the line?” He argued non-combat trucks should be pooled in separate logistical platoons so infantry units don’t have personnel tied to vehicles they can’t deploy near the combat zone.

Infantry squad vehicles are also often promoted as being so mobile and stealthy that they’ll evade enemy strikes—again, despite being classed as non-combat vehicles. The Army broadly advocated for similar concepts at the turn of the century—until mines and ambushes in Iraq began killing soldiers in armorless trucks. A soldier famously asked then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld why troops were forced to “dig through landfills for scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles.” The Pentagon scrambled to acquire the most heavily protected trucks possible. But the Pentagon now favors unprotected transports again, saying it doesn’t expect to fight another insurgency, but rather plans for scenarios wherein U.S. troops rush to defend its allies from China or Russia. ISV proponents argue trucks transiting through friendly territory won’t face ambushes and mines, and that that long-distance artillery, kamikaze drones, and missiles can defeat light armor. So they argue it’s better for trucks to trade armor for speed to avoid attacks and outrun enemy detection-targeting-firing cycles, or “kill chains.”

The officer didn’t think this theory was realistic. “The ISV cannot outrun or outmaneuver a threat. Every link in the kill chain moves faster than any vehicle on the battlefield,” he said. “You cannot ‘move stealthily’ in a vehicle. Modern sensors are much more capable than our ability to deceive them.” The 2021 evaluators seemingly concurred, reporting that in exercises ISV-equipped rifle companies “did not successfully avoid enemy detection, ambushes, and engagements during a majority of their missions,” were slowed excessively while transiting off-road, and experienced “numerous casualties.” “ISVs would not survive within the 30+ kilometer range of FPV kamikaze drones,” the officer asserted. “They would shred their tires on the artillery shrapnel littering the road leading to the Forward Line of Own Troops. They would spectacularly demine the fields of whatever country we were operating in one device at a time.” (In Ukraine, rocket artillery and drones have been used to sow minefields on supply roads behind the frontline.) And bivouacking the trucks 30 kilometers back would render them useless to the units they’re tied to, he said.

“If the problem is that vehicles get killed easily by drones, I don’t think the answer is packing nine guys into one and trying your luck. We’ve all seen footage of Russians dying in droves driving around in rail buggies and ATVs. Would we be any different?” He observed the loss of just one Infantry Squad Vehicle would overwhelm the capacity of a standard Battalion Aid Station. “That means triage, strain on casualty/medical evaluation, and inability to properly deal with other casualties. And the ISV cannot carry a stretcher without modification [unlike a Humvee].” He believes vehicles near the frontline still require armor and an active protection system that shoot down incoming missiles and drones. “Armor will protect you from fragmentation,” the officer said. Light armor may not prevent vehicle knockouts, he acknowledged, but it still greatly improves passengers’ survival odds.

Still, the officer said he didn’t oppose motorized light infantry broadly. “[Mobile Brigade Combat Team] has far less of a logistical burden, is a better fit for domestic operations [like disaster response], and doesn’t require enormous amounts of money to move to training areas. That said, its ability to be decisive in a maneuver fight is lacking.” He simply felt integration of Infantry Squad Vehicles didn’t make sense, arguing their selection reflected roots in the Special Operations Command and testing by elite airborne units, with little input from regular motorized and mechanized infantry experienced in large-scale conventional motorized operations using available vehicles. “A vehicle that needs modification to hold a stretcher, or carry the basic load and three days of supply is probably not what you want to be looking at for the future of mobile brigades,” the officer said. “We have many vehicles in the inventory that will already accomplish those tasks.”

critical support to US Special Forces ghouls in their heroic effort to mislead the US military into buying a bunch of bullshit that is completely ill-suited for actual war rather than cruising around murdering civilians