Eight months ago Team LionStrike formally unveiled three vehicle models they were considering for the UK MoD LMV requirement, writes Bob Morrison.
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Following the 13 November 2025 vehicle launch at Millbrook Proving Ground I penned the Team LionStrike LMV Part One feature before heading off to MiliPol Paris on the Monday with plans to follow up with a Part Two once UK MoD had firmed up their LMV (Light Mobility Vehicle) specification requirements.
As time dragged on and Winter 2025 turned into Spring 2026, far from firming up requirements the UK MoD buying team issued a calling notice in May for an Early Market Engagement or EME for the Light Mobility Vehicle (LMV) Project to “engage with industry about the current requirement, explore key challenges and opportunities, and gain a clearer understanding of current market capabilities and offerings which may be relevant to how we deliver this requirement in the future”. By now it was beginning to look unlikely that the replacements for the majority of the aged and very well-used 1990s vintage Truck Utility Medium and Truck Utility Medium [Heavy Duty] fleets (i.e. Land Rover Defender 110 aka Wolf and Pinzgauer 716M) would be replaced by a similar sub-3500kg GVW truck so Team LionStrike – consisting of GM Defense, NP Aerospace and BAE Systems – indicated they were putting their Chevrolet S10 GSUP four-door pickup on the back burner in favour of the larger Chevrolet Silverado LD (Light Duty) pickup and introducing the even larger Chevrolet Silverado HD (Heavy Duty) pickup for those roles where a bigger truck may be required by UK MoD.
Around 48 hours before the formal Team LionStrike Silverado HD afternoon launch in London this May I had flown into Bucharest from SAHA 2026 in Istanbul to next cover BSDA 2026 but, realising the importance of this possible LMV submission tweak, I grabbed a ‘Day Return’ ticket with WizzAir to allow me to quickly photograph the collection assembling in Chelsea and then head back out to Romania on the late afternoon flight to attend the BSDA expo opening next morning. (See LionStrike Adds Silverado HD to UK Defence Offerings for more.) At the time the Team offered me a visit to Coventry to receive an individual briefing and take all-round photographs of both Silverado models when mutually convenient, but as I had further defence expos to cover in Bulgaria and France in June and the Silverados were booked in for personal appearances at a number of events in June and early July, last Thursday was the first chance that my cameras, my notebook and I had to to visit the NP Aerospace factories where the Team LionStrike demonstrator vehicles are based. It was a long but really interesting day as the NP Aerospace team also briefed me on other, non-vehicular, defence sector developments.
Since the UK Light Mobility Vehicle ~ Pipeline Notice was issued in May 2025, at which time it was stated the “estimated date of a Tender Notice is advised as being 1 December 2025”, the general buzz around the industry has been that it looks like the UK MoD is going to require candidates for the bulk of LMV requirement to be able to comfortably seat at least two, and in some circumstances possibly three, forward-facing 97 percentile male soldiers with body armour and combat helmet side-by-side. That is simply not possible in the outgoing Truck Utility Medium fleet, or for that matter in many other 3500kg GVW utility vehicles, but this is easily accommodated in even the smaller cab Silverado LD; I might come back to this topic in a future feature and in case I do, during my visit I took photos of occupants for confirmation.
Although the UK LMV Project EME (Early Market Engagement) has now taken place, it appears final requirements have still not been set out by MoD. However it seems likely that an RFP (Request for Proposals) with more detail could now be issued to interested parties before (or to coincide with?) DVD or Defence Vehicle Dynamics in mid-September; assuming the incoming Prime Minister and his appointed Chancellor do not introduce delays while they try to work out what their spending priorities are. Presumably a WMIK replacement on a common base platform will still be part of the LMV requirement, assuming the project isn’t either cancelled or delayed and reworked. Team LionStrike have the GM Defense Infantry Squad Vehicle (in both 5-seat and 9-seat versions) on their inventory to meet that possible requirement… though that is a story for another day once the interested parties are informed what the final tender requirements are likely to be.
One major factor in Team LionStrike’s favour, which not all UK LMV Project hopefuls can boast, is that the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) has been embedded fully in the project as a team member since the outset. GM Defense, which of course is a division of General Motors, not only has the manufacturing ability to speedily produce a very high volume of base vehicles but it is also the design authority and can therefore quickly incorporate and have certified any major changes to the standard vehicle should the military customer urgently require this. When it started to become apparent that UK MoD might need to increase payload and capacity compared to that of the outgoing Defender it was simply a case of reselecting models from GM’s extensive range to better suit what they reckoned the client might actually now need, rather than trying to re-engineer an off-the-shelf third party vehicle and seek the original manufacturer’s approval to make required changes and then have these validated for use.
It will be interesting to see precisely what UK MoD finally specifies for LMV, though as even with something as non-sensitive as a simple utility vehicle they have a tendency to be overly secretive – possibly to ensure nobody is held responsible if they make another of their disastrous defence procurement decisions – it is by no means certain that requirements will be publicised any time soon.
¤ See also: Team LionStrike Possible UK LMV Candidates ~ Part One
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Footnote: Various slightly militarised pickup trucks have recently been procured by UK MoD, mostly but not exclusively under the Project TEDI Framework Arrangement to rapidly source equipment related to support for Ukraine. Some of these trucks have been spotted at MoD facilities &/or where British Army personnel are operationally deployed, but those suppliers who are providing vehicles are contractually bound not to discuss these with the media. For the record, I did not spot any of these vehicles at either factory I visited on Thursday (though of course I didn’t get to see behind every partition or take a look under every dust sheet in what are very large facilities) and I did not embarrass my hosts by asking them to comment on topics I know they would not be able to discuss.
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