By the mid 1970's, the US military initiated a series of studies which looked into the development of new concepts and designs for tanks which combined good firepower and survivability. The latter of which was to be achieved through a smaller size, rather than heavy armor protection.

As at the time, both the US Army and USMC were looking into possible replacements for their M551 Sheridan and M50 Ontos tanks respectively, the two military branches joined forces in a joint research program dubbed "ARMVAL" (Advanced Anti-armor Vehicle Evaluation). The vehicles developed under this program would be used as test beds for various new concepts and ideas in an effort to gain new experiences, which would in turn be used in the development of future tank designs.

One of the later products of this experimental program was the HSTV-L - a compact, lightweight, highly mobile tank design, fitted with an autoloaded 75mm smoothbore cannon, designed to fire kinetic ammunition in short bursts in order to wear down and ultimately defeat composite armor screens. The HSTV-L was built in 1979 and underwent various trials until 1981.

At the start of the 1980's, the 75mm gun was considered inadequate to deal with the most recent Soviet MBTs by the Army, while the USMC questioned the vehicle's effectiveness in amphibious landing operations. This led to the ultimate discontinuation of the collaborative project in 1981.