New Defender's complicated – which makes it simple for soldiers to drive, says JLR

The MOD is offering a £2bn contract for up to 9,500 vehicles to replace its ageing fleet of Land Rover and Pinzgauer vehicles – and one of the contenders is unashamedly more complicated than some of its potential rivals.

Jaguar Land Rover is hoping to secure the Light Mobility Vehicle contract with Defender Wolf Series II, the latest iteration of a vehicle that's been in service with the British Army for more than 70 years.

The new Wolf has 32 different sensors, and while JLR is openly marketing this as a digital vehicle, some people might be concerned that it's too complex for military use.

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Tyred, not tired

But James Tooley, JLR's vehicle engineering integration manager, explained why complexity would mean simplicity for its Armed Forces users – should the Wolf win the contract.

"Our cars are easy to drive," he told BFBS Forces News. "You don't need to think about what you do, especially if you use the auto TR [automatic terrain response] modes.

"The car will read the ground and then adapt to the mode that you're driving on.

"So that means a soldier can get to their position or their mission without being tired, so they can focus on actually what they need to do to do their job rather than being tired driving the car around.

"You don't have to manually unlock this. You don't have to do this and that. You don't need to worry about anything. The car will do it for you."

Mr Tooley also praised the vehicle for its safety features.

"This car is a five-star [safety rating] car. It's got insane roll-over protection," he explained.

"It's got airbags, side airbags, front airbags, passenger airbags, which will all be configurable for the MOD spec as well."

Making sense of the sensors

Jason Walters, JLR's senior technical specialist for off-road capability, said while the vehicle was complex, it was reliable and dependable – and would be easy for the Armed Forces to maintain.

"It's a car that has to be serviced at dealerships all around the world – hundreds of thousands of units sold a year.

"So if there are any issues with it, we're very confident we have the tools and the diagnostics that any dealership would be able to use, that the military could use to be able to find those problems very quickly."

He said the vehicle had been tested for things like water sealing, dust ingress, vibration and extremes of temperature, with thousands of miles being driven on tough terrain.

"So we can flip that around and say yes, there are more systems on this than maybe a more basic vehicle," he said.

"But we've got so much confidence in its dependability and reliability and robustness."

While JLR is hoping the Wolf Series II will emerge the winner of the MOD contest, it's facing some stiff competition from the likes of Team Grenadier and Ford.