Less than a month after signing a $2.2 billion requirements contract to sell Humvees to allied militaries, AM General announced it has already filled more than a quarter of those potential orders.
The company on Aug. 28 announced deals with Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, Jordan, Slovenia, Bahrain, Columbia, Bosnia and Kenya totaling $550 million. Vehicles provided under the new delivery orders include protected weapons carriers, cargo transporters and ambulances.
New delivery orders are provided through the recently announced $2.2 billion, five-year, firm fixed price foreign military sale (FMS) requirements contract to manufacture an estimated 11,560 new Humvees for countries that wish to buy them at bargain prices negotiated through the scale of the contract. Since award of this FMS requirements contract, AM General has received orders for more than a quarter of the $2.2 billion, 5-year total maximum value of the contract.
Andy Hove, president and chief executive of AM General, told reporters on a recent tour of the South Bend, Ind., Humvee manufacturing plant that the company expects to churn through the contract as new orders come in for various configurations of the base vehicle.
The pace of recent new High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) delivery orders highlights a global demand for the vehicles, which the U.S. military considers legacy platforms unsuited for combat zones like Afghanistan and Iraq that presented significant threats to the lightly armored off-road trucks.
AM General was left out of the effort to replace some of the Humvee fleet with the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, but has since capitalized on supporting the 250,000 Humvees in use in more than 60 different countries. It has also since made billions either selling new or recapitalizing old Humvees for multiple U.S. allies.
The company also continues to recap Humvees for the U.S. Army National Guard and build ambulances for the active Army. JLTV is not slated to take over the ambulance mission.
The HMMWV platform performs more mission roles than any other tactical vehicle in the world. The modern HMMWV built by AM General, today includes many improvements throughout the vehicle to include a high performance, rugged and reliable automotive system.
AM General continues to design, test and build these improvements into the highly successful HMMWV Ambulance and Army National Guard HMMWV Recapitalization Public Private Partnership programs, with even more enhancements available to meet U.S. domestic and international customer needs.