U.S. Army National Guard Receives First BAE CATV Vehicles for Arctic Mountain Warfare Training.

BAE Systems has delivered 19 Cold Weather All-Terrain Vehicles to the U.S. military, the company announced on July 2, 2026, strengthening Arctic and mountain mobility for units that must operate beyond the reach of standard wheeled vehicles. The delivery includes the first CATVs assigned to the Vermont National Guard’s Army Mountain Warfare School, giving U.S. forces a tracked platform for moving troops, command teams, cargo, and casualties across snow, muskeg, and broken terrain.

Derived from the BvS10 Beowulf, the CATV provides articulated, all-terrain mobility for extreme cold-weather missions where speed, survivability, and access determine operational reach. With 58 vehicles now delivered and 97 more on order, the program supports the U.S. Army’s broader push to rebuild Arctic maneuver capacity and improve force projection in contested northern environments.

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BAE Systems has delivered the first CATV cold-weather tracked vehicles to the Vermont National Guard’s Army Mountain Warfare School, strengthening U.S. Army mobility, sustainment and casualty evacuation capabilities in Arctic and mountain terrain (Picture source: U.S. DoW).

The CATV is the U.S. Army version of BAE Systems Hägglunds’ Beowulf, an unarmored, dual-body amphibious tracked vehicle derived from the BvS10 family but optimized for mobility and payload rather than armor protection. The Army selected BAE Land and Armaments L.P. in August 2022 under a firm-fixed-price requirements contract valued at $278 million, initially covering 110 vehicles for active-duty Army and Army National Guard users. The acquisition replaced the Bv206 Small Unit Support Vehicle, a 1980s-era fleet whose sustainment costs and parts obsolescence had become a limiting factor for Arctic units. Army acquisition officials said the previous fleet could not be sustained beyond fiscal year 2022 without increasingly relying on cannibalization and one-off fabrication of parts.

The vehicle’s value is in its low-ground-pressure mobility. The Beowulf has a gross vehicle weight of about 34,000 lb, or 15.5 tonnes, and uses a Cummins 6.7-liter inline six-cylinder diesel engine producing 210 kW, or 285 hp, and 970 Nm of torque. The engine is coupled to an Allison automatic transmission with six forward speeds and one reverse speed. BAE lists a maximum road speed of about 40 mph, or 65 km/h, a reverse speed of about 10 km/h, a water speed of about 4 km/h and a stated range from roughly 400 km to as much as 1,000 km depending on load and fuel configuration. Its nominal ground pressure is about 3.6 psi at gross vehicle weight, which is central to movement across deep snow, tundra, thawing ground and muskeg.

The articulated design separates the vehicle into a front car and a rear car joined by a steering and power-transfer unit. This gives the CATV a tighter terrain-following behavior than a single rigid hull and allows the two sections to pitch and articulate through depressions, berms and uneven snowpack. BAE gives the Beowulf a 31-degree climbing capability, a gap-crossing capacity of about 2 meters, a step-climbing ability of at least 1 meter and a static side-slope figure above 35 degrees. The front car carries two to four personnel with a minimum load capacity of about 1.7 tonnes, while the rear car can be configured as a troop, cargo, ambulance, command or special-role cabin with a minimum load capacity of about four tonnes. BAE also cites payload growth up to eight tonnes and capacity for up to 12 personnel, depending on configuration.

The armament issue should be treated carefully because the U.S. CATV delivered for Arctic mobility is not an infantry fighting vehicle and no fixed weapon package has been announced for these first Vermont National Guard, ARTC and 11th Airborne Division vehicles. The broader BvS10 family, however, has documented provisions for crew-served weapons, remote weapon stations and mission kits. BAE states that BvS10 variants can be integrated with weapons from 5.56 mm to 12.7 mm, as well as a 40 mm automatic grenade launcher; the Crew Support Weapon variant uses a remote weapon station for fire support and an additional weapon station for head-out control. In U.S. CATV terms, that means any future armament would likely be for self-defense, convoy security and local suppression rather than offensive armored maneuver. A 7.62 mm machine gun would cover dismounted threats at close and medium range; a 12.7 mm heavy machine gun would provide effect against light vehicles, exposed sensors and field positions; and a 40 mm automatic grenade launcher would offer area fire into defilade, treelines and broken ground.

A remote weapon station would be the most tactically coherent armament option in extreme cold because it keeps the gunner inside a heated compartment and can integrate day optics, thermal imaging and laser ranging. The trade-off is not only cost. Added armor, ammunition, roof structure, sensors and power demand increase weight and can reduce the same mobility characteristics that justify the CATV requirement. Army acquisition reporting has already noted that a heavier CATV could face reduced range, speed, ground mobility and CH-47 sling-load utility when separated into vehicle halves. This is the central design tension: the vehicle’s contribution is not heavy firepower, but the ability to move armed soldiers, Javelin teams, mortar ammunition, radios, batteries, rations, fuel and casualty litters through terrain that slows or stops heavier vehicles.

For the Vermont Army Mountain Warfare School, the first CATVs create a training effect that goes beyond vehicle familiarization. The school can now teach route selection, snow and ice driving, recovery drills, load planning, cold-start procedures, maintenance discipline and command post movement on the same type of vehicle being fielded to operational Arctic units. For the 11th Airborne Division, the CATV fills a tactical mobility gap at the small-unit level: it can move a nine-soldier element, support command-and-control functions, carry cargo, support emergency medical evacuation and operate across water, tundra and muskeg. U.S. Army reporting also noted that prototypes were tested in Alaska from August 2021 to January 2022 for mobility, payload, swim capability and extreme-cold performance before the production decision.

The broader operational implication is that the U.S. Army is buying mobility depth rather than a new fighting vehicle. Arctic operations impose a measurable time and sustainment penalty: Army professional writing from Alaska notes that extreme cold can make activity take three to four times longer than in the lower forty-eight states, while maintenance requires heated shelters, thawing periods, and altered work-rest cycles. In that environment, the CATV’s relevance is its ability to keep dispersed forces supplied, evacuate casualties before exposure becomes decisive, move command nodes off predictable road networks, and support fires units that may need tracked prime movers over snow-covered ground. The U.S. fielding shows why Arctic modernization depends on concrete capabilities: tracked mobility, payload, amphibious movement, maintainability, and enough electrical and structural margin for communications and defensive weapons without compromising the vehicle’s primary mission.

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Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst.

Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.