U.S. Army ships Arctic Beowulf vehicles to Hawaii for jungle training

The U.S. Army has shipped its Arctic Beowulf all-terrain vehicles to Hawaii for a large training exercise in jungle and island terrain. Soldiers loaded the tracked vehicles aboard an Army transport ship at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on November 5 to support Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center Rotation 27-01, the U.S. Army said.

Staff Sgt. Aaron Southerland, a watercraft operator with Transportation Company Pacific, 8th Theater Sustainment Command, guided a BvS10 Beowulf aboard the U.S. Army Vessel MG Robert Smalls (LSV-8). The ship moved the equipment to Pōhakuloa Training Area on the island of Hawaii by the next day, so units training there could use it during the rotation.

The Beowulf is BAE Systems’ unarmored version of the BvS10, a two-section tracked vehicle built in Sweden. The front and rear cabs are linked by an articulated joint and both are driven, which lets the vehicle cross deep snow, mud, swamps and rough ground, and swim across water. The Army bought it to replace its aging Small Unit Support Vehicle in Alaska, where it carries troops and supplies for the 11th Airborne Division in extreme cold, and it has been spotted during U.S. Army exercises in Alaska.

The Army has kept adding to the fleet under its Cold Weather All-Terrain Vehicle program. It has bought more of its toughest Arctic combat vehicle in follow-on orders, and the vehicle is now being used outside the Arctic as well.

Hawaii offers a very different test. Pōhakuloa sits on a high plateau between volcanoes, with lava fields, loose volcanic rock and steep, broken ground, while other training areas in the islands are covered in dense jungle. The same features that let the Beowulf move over snow and swampland are meant to help it cross soft and uneven terrain in the tropics.

JPMRC 27-01 brings together U.S. forces with troops from South Korea, Singapore, France, New Zealand, Japan and the Maldives to practice large-scale combat operations in jungle and archipelagic terrain. The rotation involves about 10,000 personnel from the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps, along with allies and partners.

The exercise also includes a long-range airborne assault by the 11th Airborne Division, whose paratroopers flew nearly 3,000 miles from Alaska and jumped into Hawaii. After the rotation, the division turns to JPMRC 27-02 in February at the Donnelly Training Area in interior Alaska, where temperatures often drop to 40 degrees below zero.