The Army and Marine Corps’ light tactical vehicle program is feeling the effects of the automatic budget cuts but military officials are confident the problem can be managed and the fiscal 2015 timeframe for awarding the production contract remains in place.
Lockheed Martin [LMT], AM General and Oshkosh [OSK] are currently competing for the contract for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program and are providing the vehicles to the Army and Marines under the engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase of the program.
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| Lockheed Martin’s version of the JLTV. Photo by Lockheed Martin |
Army Col. John Cavedo, the JLTV program manager, told reporters Friday that he anticipates sequestration could slow the program by about three months. He believes, however, that could be made up. Because the currently defined program requirements are “solid,” Cavedo expects few changes will be needed, thereby saving time going forward.
“We have been diligently tracking (the impact of sequestration),” he said. “We’ve got a lot of mitigation plans that are in the pike right now and I think that we still have a real strong potential –with those mitigation plans–of buying back some of that three months if not all of that three months.”
“We are still on schedule for an FY ’15 award with those mitigation plans,” Cavedo added. “We feel very confident we are going to pull this off.”
Cavedo and other program and industry officials addressed a small group of reporters during a media day event on vehicle testing grounds administered by Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va.
The three firms are due to each deliver 22 of the vehicles to the Pentagon in August. There will then be a 14-month assessment of the vehicles to assess performance, survivability and other areas, and affordability will also play a role in determining the winner, Cavedo said.
The JLTVs are meant to fill a capability “gap” in the military’s fleet of ground vehicles that was exposed by the onslaught of roadside bombs, or improvised explosive devices, (IEDs) in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The JLTVs will eventually replace the Humvees, which during the wars had to be retrofitted with heavy armor to counter the IEDs. The extra weight made them overly heavy, reduced payload, and weakened their maneuverability.
The JLTVs are designed to restore the maneuverability while having the armored protection equal to the massive Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles.
The Army plans to buy 49,000 JLTVs and the Marine Corps will purchase 5,500 under the current plans. They will be in production for at least 20 years, Cavedo said. The total program cost, which includes developing, procuring, operating and maintaining the vehicles over their lifetime, is estimated to be $30 billion.