A close watcher of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program could be forgiven for discounting Oshkosh [OSK] as the eventual winner of the $30 billion contract to replace Army and Marine Corps Humvees.

The company, then partnered with Northrop Grumman [NOC], in 2008 was denied entry to the program’s technology demonstration (TD) phase.

Losing out on the TD phase might have been exactly what enabled the veteran truck manufacturer to come back and win the initial $6 billion contract to build 16,901 JLTVs for the Army and Marine Corps, said John Bryant, senior vice president for defense programs at Oshkosh.

Light Combat Tactical All-Terrain Vehicle (L-ATV). Photo: Oshkosh Corporation.
Light Combat Tactical All-Terrain Vehicle (L-ATV). Photo: Oshkosh Corporation.

Oskosh was teamed with Northrop Grumman for its TD offering, which was a diesel-electric hybrid vehicle, which combines a generator with the vehicle’s engine to provide internal and external power in forward deployed scenarios. Bryant believes that such a forward-looking fuel-efficient technology “did not fit particularly well with the government’s desires.”

While the government was test driving the tech-development vehicles, Oshkosh decided to bide its time and watch not only the results of the Army tests, but its evolving requirements, Bryant said.

“That actually offered some opportunities for Oshkosh, because we were on our own so we could execute Oshkosh’s normal product development process,” he said.

The company’s independent development process mirrors the commercial automotive industry, involving a rapid prototype-to-production timetable than typical government-funded development programs, Bryant said.

“It allowed us to evolve multiple generations of our L-ATV that we probably couldn’t have done–I won’t call it the constraints of a government contract–if we were under a government contract, we would not have had the freedom to optimize the design and evolve it through multiple generations as rapidly as we did.”

Oshkosh, therefore, was ideally suited to enter the EMD phase of the competition with a vehicle that was designed in tandem with government testing, that had already integrated learned requirements, without having to retool its design in response to the testing, Bryant said.

“The vehicle we proposed, during EMD, when we engaged in 14 months of government testing, we were essentially proving to the government that which we already knew,” he said.

Light Combat Tactical All-Terrain Vehicle (L-ATV). Photo: Oshkosh Corporation.
Light Combat Tactical All-Terrain Vehicle (L-ATV). Photo: Oshkosh Corporation.

The company self-funded efforts to make the L-ATV lighter while at the same time providing better crew protection–metrics that are often at odds. They also were able to drive cost out of the vehicle, though Bryant would not disclose the per-unit cost because of the looming threat of a protest from one of the non-contracted competitors.

Between the TD and EMD phases, Oshkosh redesigned, improved and/or replaced its suspension system, its core crew protection system and the vehicle’s integrated communications systems.

Oshkosh built the 22 EMD versions of the JLTV on its existing production line that cranks out both heavy and medium tactical vehicles for the Army and Marine Corps.

Though the initial $6.7 billion contract has been let, the deal is not yet set. The competitors have three days to request a thorough debriefing from the Army of its findings and all have. Lockheed Martin [LMT] and AM General have 10 days to decide whether to lodge a protest.

Scott Davis, Army program executive officer of combat support and combat service support, said Tuesday “there is no expectation of a protest and certainly they all have that right if they weren’t selected.”

Bryant said, “There is a probability greater than zero that there will be a protest, but we achieved a manufacturing cost significantly below the government target.”

The first $6 billion contract is a base contract for low-rate initial production (LRIP) and eight options for a total of 16,901 vehicles for both the Army and Marine Corps. The Marine Corps’ 5,500 JLTVs are front loaded in the contract because the service is hesitant to commit to a larger buy, given its need to purchase an amphibious combat vehicle (ACV) in the near future.

“The biggest winners today are our soldiers and Marines who need a new capability to fill a gap in today’s light tactical vehicle fleet,” Davis said. Currently, “commanders often have to choose between payload and performance and protection.”

In terms of the JLTV, there was no significantly stretching of technologies but the magic was in balancing those three things in coming up with an optimal solution,” he said.

JLTV will provide protection similar to the M-ATV and substantially greater than the Humvee and will do so at about 2/3 the weight of the M-ATV and even less than some of the other MRAPs, which improves mobility and transport, Davis said. Payload capacity of the M-ATV is much greater than a fully armored Humvee, which can be maxed-out after adding armor.

Light Combat Tactical All-Terrain Vehicle (L-ATV). Photo: Oshkosh Corporation.
Light Combat Tactical All-Terrain Vehicle (L-ATV). Photo: Oshkosh Corporation.

The Oshkosh vehicle is transportable by CH-47 and CH-53 helicopters and fit inside Marine Corps amphibious assault ships and ship-to-shore connectors.

It remains somewhat mysterious what separated the Oshkosh L-ATV from the Lockheed and AM General vehicles. Davis said he could not discuss the details of its presumably superlative performance.

“I can tell you the selection, really, was based on the primary technical…key performance parameters and key system attributes, the cost and secondary technical,” Davis said. The government had set a firm per-vehicle unit cost of $250,000 or less.

Both Lockheed Martin and AM General were notified before the Tuesday press conference and have been notified of the rankings of both their vehicles and the Oshkosh JLTV, Davis said. The Army is offering debriefs of the decision at the request of the losing companies.

“They will be instructed on how to proceed should they want to follow up with any additional questions,” he said.

Neither company said whether they intend to protest the decision, though Lockheed Martin said it had already asked for a full debrief from the Army on the performance of its vehicle. In a statement, Lockheed Martin said it would wait for the full debrief before it decided to lodge a protest.

“The Lockheed Martin JLTV Team was disappointed to learn that the U.S. Army and Marine Corps did not select our JLTV. We believe we presented a very strong solution, and await the customers’ debrief to hear more detail regarding the reasons behind this selection before making a decision about a potential protest.”

Lockheed Martin suffered a major blow because it purchased and refit a dedicated production facility in Camden, Ark., for building its JLTV. The company advertised its expansions locally and to the international defense press in a webcast press conference in July.

Lockheed Martin purchased a 300,000-square-foot Camden plant in 2013, according to site director Colin Sterling. Lockheed Martin invested $30 million in the plant and had plans to pour another $125 million into the facility over the next six to seven years to support low-rate and full production, he said. About 650 employees would have been supported by JLTV fabrication, he added. The company self-funded a run of eight production-representative vehicles in an effort to show the government its untested production line would be ready to go when and if it won the initial JLTV contract.

Light Combat Tactical All-Terrain Vehicle (L-ATV). Photo: Oshkosh Corporation.
Light Combat Tactical All-Terrain Vehicle (L-ATV). Photo: Oshkosh Corporation.

AM General did not return repeated calls seeking comment on the decision and whether, as incumbent Humvee manufacturer, it would file a protest. The company released the following statement in the wake of the decision.

“We are disappointed with the Government’s decision and continue to believe that AM General and our BRV-O vehicle are the right choice for the JLTV program, based on our best value offer which is backed by decades of LTV expertise and proven record as a trusted and reliable partner with the U.S. military. Our BRV-O provides world-class survivability features to Soldiers and Marines while delivering unmatched vehicle payload and performance. We are very proud of our team’s efforts and our BRV-O offering. At this time, we are reviewing the Government’s decision and are considering all available options.”