WASHINGTON — Following a Marine Corps solicitation seeking a potential second supplier for Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTVs), Oshkosh Defense is throwing its hat in the ring with its JLTV A1 model, specifically to close what one senior company executive is calling “readiness gaps” in the service’s vehicle fleet.
As it is now, AM General is the sole supplier of JLTVs for the Marine Corps with its A2 variant, and Oshkosh serves as a subcontractor on the contract.
Previously, Oshkosh was the sole supplier of JLTVs to the Army joint program office (JPO) that supplied the vehicles to the Army and Marines, but in 2023 AM General upset incumbent Oshkosh Defense for the contract. But after the upset, Logan Jones, chief growth officer for Oshkosh alleged there’s been a 20- to 24-month delay in AM General’s deliveries — hence Oshkosh is vying for the potential new competition, he said.
“[The Marines] have an urgent and well-defined need for a combat proven vehicle today, and that’s what the JLTV is,” Jones said in an interview. “The issue at hand is that we delivered the last JLTV a year ago, and they fielded that at the beginning of the year, and every day that goes by, it creates or widens a readiness gap. There’s just no trucks being delivered, and they need to find a second source to close that gap.”
According to the RFI, the Marines are seeking potential vendors for “mature, production-ready, rapidly fieldable” commercial or “non-developmental” JLTV variants, but does not specify between the A1 and A2 models.
The Marine Corps didn’t provide specifics on why the service was possibly seeking another JLTV supplier, but told Breaking Defense in a statement that it “continuously evaluates acquisition options to ensure it can meet approved JLTV requirements, preserve readiness, and reduce fielding risk.” The service added that AM General remains under contract through the Army-led JPO for JLTV, and the RFI does not “represent a contract award, source-selection decision, or final decision to change suppliers.”
As part of the sweeping Army Transformation Initiative, the service announced it did not plan to procure any additional JLTVs beyond the 250 that were scheduled to be delivered to the Army in January 2025. According to a congressional report released this month, Army leaders contended at the time that this would not break the contract with AM General because such a contract was one “where you buy in tranches, and the last tranche that we bought was in January.”
Among the reasons Oshkosh believes it would be an ideal supplier for the JLTV is that it currently has an active production line for its commercial side, which makes up 90 percent of the business. Further, the company is gearing up for foreign military sale to Netherlands, allowing the company to deliver its JLTVs faster than its competitors, Jones said.
“It’s not a cold line, and once we started to wind down the main production from what was a one back in the day, we moved to a commercial mix line,” Jones said. “So on the same line we have JLTVs, we have mediums and heavies, and we have commercial platforms all rolling down the same line, which means that we can flexibly add up to certain quantities, whatever the vehicle is that we want to build.”
When asked if AM General was behind schedule and how many JLTVs the company has yet delivered to the Marines, a company spokesperson did not directly answer the questions. Instead, the spokesperson said that the company has maintained “clear and transparent communication” with the JPO for JLTV and are “aligned with a delivery schedule that keeps us on path for testing/evaluation in 2026.” They added that the JLTV A2 is “significantly improved from the A1,” and said the manufacturing process has been “streamlined.”
“As with any new program, year one is a ramp-up year for production,” the spokesperson added, saying that the company “expect[s] to hit full production in 2027.”
Further, the spokesperson said that the company sees the Marine Corps’ recent RFI as a “standard activity” as the program progresses through year three of the five-year base contract period. They added that the company “executes a parallel path strategy focused on both production ramp-up and full support of the Government’s ongoing test and evaluation program throughout the remainder of 2026.”
The Army did not respond to a request for comment regarding how many JLTV A2s have since been delivered or if AM General was behind schedule for the program.
