The Army’s civilian leader said Tuesday she’s “confident” AM General will meet the required production and delivery schedule as it’s set to take over building Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, with the service set to accept the first “pilot builds” in late summer.
“At this time, we are not anticipating any problems in the shift from Oshkosh [Defense] [OSK] to AM General,” Army Secretary said during a Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) pressed Wormuth during the hearing on transition from incumbent manufacturer Oshkosh Defense, which is based in her state, to AM General, citing the tactical wheeled vehicle industrial base as an “important part of the Wisconsin economy.”
“I remain troubled by the Army’s lack of careful management of the [tactical wheeled vehicle] industrial base, as I see it. The Army has now awarded the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle contract to an organization with no experience making JLTVs. That company must now stand up a brand new production line, risking a gap in fielding this critical platform,” Baldwin said.
AM General in February 2023 beat out Oshkosh Defense for the 10-year JLTV re-compete production contract, which may cover delivery of up to 20,682 vehicles and up to 9,883 JLTV Trailers, with the latter company having built the vehicles since 2015 (Defense Daily, Feb. 9 2023).
The Army then awarded AM General an initial $196.9 million order in May 2023 covering 271 JLTVs for the Army and 206 vehicles for the Marine Corps (Defense Daily, May 25).
Wormuth told the panel on Tuesday the Army will likely be able to place additional JLTV production orders with Oshkosh Defense using replenishment funds from the recently passed national security supplemental, to build on the “bridge” as the existing production contract comes to a conclusion and AM General starts to manufacture the vehicle.
“As you rightly pointed out, AM General has not made JLTV previously. But one of the things I think will provide a bridge, if you will, and allow AM General to be fully prepared is the fact that we are going to keep the production line open with Oshkosh using replenishment funds. So that I think will allow us to make a smooth transition,” Wormuth said.
Baldwin previously pressed the Army on its JLTV recompete decision following the contract award and her concern with selecting the private equity-owned AM General, which she said has a “very high credit risk” (Defense Daily, June 16).
Mark McCoy, who leads the Joint Program Office-Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, told Defense Daily in late February the previous cut-off date for the Army to place production orders with Oshkosh Defense was this past November, with the company expecting to work on building those vehicles into FY ‘25.
“We’ve placed all of the service requirements with [Oshkosh Defense] as well as our Foreign Military Sale requirements. And they will be producing those vehicles over the next 19 months,” McCoy said during an interview at NDIA’s Tactical Wheeled Vehicles conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. “There was a deliberate overlap between the two contracts so that we had an ability to kind of ramp down the production with Oshkosh as we started ramping up with AM General.”
McCoy said at the time the Army is expecting AM General to start delivering its initial “pilot builds” of the new JLTV A2, around 20 vehicles, in late July to early August, which will be used for testing and to prove out the company’s production process for a manufacturing readiness assessment before moving into actual production.
“And they will continue to produce vehicles and ramp up and scale up their production concurrently,” McCoy said.
AM General unveiled the new JLTV A2 this past October, with Bob Putnam, the company’s JLTV program executive director, telling Defense Daily the new A2 version of the platform features around 200 engineering changes, to include an updated powertrain and alternator, increased fuel efficiency, improved corrosion protection, a simplified electrical architecture featuring a lithium-ion battery, a new base line integration kit to allow for more cargo storage space and design changes to reduce vehicle noise (Defense Daily, Oct. 18 2023).