Oshkosh Corporation, parent company to McConnellsburg, Pa.-based JLG Industries, announced this week that it has received an additional $189 million award from the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command Life Cycle Management Command (TACOM LCMC) to deliver an additional 352 MRAP all-terrain vehicles (M-ATV) to the U.S. Armed Forces by March 2010. The award also includes aftermarket parts packages.
This is the third award under the delivery order first awarded in June 2009. To date, TACOM LCMC has ordered a total of 4,296 M-ATVs from Oshkosh. The aggregate amount of the three awards is valued at $2.3 billion.
In July, Oshkosh Corp., Oshkosh, Wis., announced it would be hiring between 300 and 500 employees for its defense facilities in Wisconsin and would be recalling 550 to 650 JLG employees, primarily in Pennsylvania, to supply M-ATVs to the U.S. Armed Services.
“Oshkosh is committed to meeting our customer’s urgent need for this highly mobile vehicle and helping our armed forces serving in Afghanistan to better operate on the country’s challenging terrain,” said Robert Bohn, Oshkosh Corporation chairman and CEO. “We have delivered more than 100 M-ATVs through August, meeting our planned delivery requirements, and we continue to increase vehicle output at our manufacturing facilities to remain on schedule and meet our customer’s requirements.”
Oshkosh expects to meet the government’s accelerated delivery schedule without impacting other programs, with production ramping up to 1,000 vehicles a month in December, and continuing at that level through the end of March 2010. The company is leveraging its pre-contract M-ATV production and engineering efforts, manufacturing capabilities, a highly skilled workforce, and decades of experience in producing more than 67,000 military-class vehicles.
The Oshkosh M-ATV’s superior mobility, which includes a 70 percent off-road profile capability, is achieved through the incorporation of the Oshkosh TAK-4 independent suspension system. The system is featured on more than 10,000 Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacements (MTVR) used by the U.S. Marine Corps and Navy Seabees, and is being retrofitted on more than 2,000 legacy MRAPs for improved mobility in Afghanistan. The TAK-4 system, which has undergone more than 400,000 miles of government testing, also is used on the Army’s next-generation Palletized Load System and the Marine Corps’ Logistics Vehicle System Replacement.
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