The USMC Shadow RST-V

The Shadow is a joint development between American manufacturing company General Dynamic Land Systems and the Marine Corps War-fighting Laboratory for the USMC Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Targeting Vehicle (RST-V) program, in corporation with the Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) and the Office of Naval Research (ONR). In 1997, ONR and DARPA awarded contracts General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) and Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control to develop a new reconnaissance vehicle that could be developed in a number of mission variants, currently fulfilled by the Humvee. In 1999, GDLS was awarded a contract for the second phase of the Shadow RST-V program, covering the build of four demonstrator vehicles and an option for 39 additional vehicles. The four RST-V vehicles were delivered in 2002 and were integrated with mission-specific equipment. This was followed by Limited User Evaluation at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona in 2004. In May 2005, GDLS was awarded a contract for the upgrade of the RST-V. The upgrade supports continued operational evaluation of the vehicle as a utility carrier, prime mover and electrical generator for various US Marine Corps applications. The upgrade included a 30kW export power capability generator by the vehicle’s hybrid electric drive, which could power battlefield loads such as the Unit Operations Center and radars. The vehicle was evaluated in an operational environment in early 2006. Since then there has been no further public information and the vehicle is not one of the six vehicles selected for the The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program to replace the Humvee, which as of 2015 is still running.