WASHINGTON — AM General, manufacturer of the A2 variant of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), responded today to lawmakers’ threats to pull funding from the Marine Corps’ procurement budget for the vehicle due to delivery delays, citing “complex” transition issues as the reason for such setbacks.
Earlier this week, the House appropriators on the defense subcommittee wrote in their version of the Defense Appropriations Act that they wish to reduce $133 million from the proposed $245 million for the A2 variant and reallocate those funds to be used for non-developmental JLTVs and trailers.
President and CEO of AM General John Chadbourne, however, said in a press release today: “Transitions of major defense production programs from one manufacturer to another are inherently complex. The JLTV A2 transition proved especially challenging due to the unforeseen condition of the technical baseline we inherited, the engineering effort required to mature the design for production, and supplier transition issues encountered during execution,” .
Previously, Oshkosh Defense was the sole supplier of JLTVs to the Army joint program office (JPO) that supplied the A1 variant vehicles to the Army and Marines. In 2023, AM General upset the incumbent with its A2 variant, and as a result, AM General was responsible for the “transition” from one supplier to another, according the release.
Such unforeseen conditions “complicated the transition and required our team to take substantial corrective action,” Chadbourne added.
Chadbourne said in the statement that the company intends to reach full-rate production by 2027. Separately, an Army spokesperson stated that since the JLTV program had already reached full-rate production under OshKosh Defense, “a second full-rate production decision was not required.”
Nonetheless, House appropriators on the defense subcommittee seem ready to pull the plug on the program.
“The Committee remains seriously concerned by significant delays in JLTV A2 production and the resulting delays, specifically in fielding to Marine Expeditionary Units and Marine Littoral Regiments,” the lawmakers wrote this week. “Production is more than 20 months behind schedule, with approximately 2,000 vehicles in arrears.”
The lawmakers’ concerns come after the Marine Corps released a request for information last month seeking a potential second supplier for JLTVs, with the service stating it is looking for “rapidly fieldable” commercial off-the-shelf and/or non-developmental items in the JLTV family and trailers.
With this, the lawmakers wrote that the committee “views the pursuit of a nondevelopmental, rapidly fieldable source as a prudent step to mitigate program risk and preserve the Marine Corps’ ability to meet its 12,500-vehicle requirement.” The committee added that its recommendation is to reduce “funding for JLTV A2 production” and provide “a corresponding increase for nondevelopmental JLTVs and trailers, as detailed in the funding tables accompanying this report.”
(An Army spokesperson told Breaking Defense that as of June 12, the Army has accepted deliveries of 82 trucks and 303 trailers).
Related: Oshkosh eyes potential Marine JLTV deal, citing growing readiness gaps under current contract
In regards to the “non-developmental” solution, OshKosh Defense told Breaking Defense earlier this month that the company intends to throw its hat in the ring with its JLTV A1 model, specifically to close what Logan Jones, chief growth officer for Oshkosh Defense, is calling “readiness gaps” in the service’s vehicle fleet.
“In moments like this, second-source capacity is not about revisiting the past,” Jones said in a statement today. “It’s about reducing readiness risk now. Oshkosh Defense stands ready to support the Department’s tactical wheeled vehicle requirements with fielded JLTV experience, mature manufacturing capability, and a supply base that has already delivered at scale.”
But, Chadbourne contended that the A2 variant offers more to the warfighter than other JLTV variants.
“The result is not simply another version of the JLTV. The JLTV A2 represents the next evolution of America’s premier light tactical vehicle. The improvements to the platform provide Soldiers and Marines with a more capable, more dependable vehicle while reducing lifecycle costs for the Department of Defense,” he said in the company release.
“Following an extensive evaluation, Army acquisition professionals determined that AM General offered the best overall value to the government while delivering a more capable next-generation tactical vehicle designed to meet the demands of today’s battlefield and tomorrow’s threats.”
