Despite budget cuts, furloughs, sequestration, continuing resolutions, ongoing changes in force structure, and a central authority shutdown, both the military and Marine Corps are committed to purchasing an identical quantity of Joint Light Tactical Vehicles they initially got down to purchase.
The JLTV is designed to exchange the Humvee, and to bring additional capability to both the military and the Marine Corps. It’s lighter and more mobile than the mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle, nonetheless it also provides more survivability than the Humvee.
The Army expects to purchase 49,000 of the vehicles, while the Marine Corps expects to shop for 5,500.
Col. John Cavedo, manager of the Joint Program Office for the JLTV, said while the military changes in size by reason of end-strength reductions, and the force structure changes accordingly, the military will still want the similar collection of vehicles.
“Reductions to compare the force structure would come at a discounted collection of 30-year-old Humvees,” he said, indicating that the military expects to shop for all 49,000 JLTVs, and can simply eliminate Humvees more quickly than expected.
Marine Corps Lt. Col. Mike Burks, deputy manager of the Joint Program Office for the JLTV said the identical.
“Let me be clear at the front of Marine Corps commitment to JLTV: We’re in,” he said. “Right now, inside the current conversation, within the context of the dimensions the Marine Corps is calling at, 5,500 JLTVs is sweet enough to satisfy deployed commanders critical mission needs within the Marine Corps’ most threatening combat mission profiles.”
There are currently three defense contractors in competition to be named manufacturer of the JLTV for the military and Marine Corps. Those competitors are Oshkosh Defense, Lockheed Martin, and AM General. AM General manufactured the Humvee.
In August, all the three manufacturers delivered 22 in their vehicle prototypes to the military and Marine Corps for testing. a complete of 66 vehicles in all were delivered. Today, those vehicles are opened up across multiple sites for testing.
Kevin Fahey, Program Executive Officer, Combat Support and Combat Service Support, said the JLTV program is, despite some budget issues, largely on schedule.
“Everybody was on schedule or earlier than schedule,” he said. “The perturbations we’ve had have all been driven by budget and continuing resolution authority. The toughest portion of what we’re facing isn’t knowing.”
Fahey said that the hot government shutdowns had an unusual impact at the JLTV program. While this system had prior-year funding available to continue testing at the vehicle, the funding doesn’t cover the operating costs for the sites where the testing actually occurs.
“The proving ground was basically shut down,” he said. Therefore, testing needed to stop at the vehicles.
When the govt. came back on-line, the testing program was unable to begin back up as quickly. “Starting back up was a completely difficult proposition,” Fahey said.
The stoppage of testing throughout the shutdown, plus the slow restart, has delayed JLTV testing somewhat, he said, but at this point it’s not significant.
“We are behind our current ideal plan, but that doesn’t mean we’re behind our macro schedule,” he said, adding that this system office is asking daily at the way it could make up for that schedule slip over the process the subsequent nine months. “We are pretty confident we will be able to do this.”
Right now the JLTV is funded by a constant resolution that results in early 2014, the second one quarter of the fiscal year. Fahey said this system is heading in the right direction now, but definitely by the third quarter of the fiscal year, a confirmed budget decision might want to be in place.
“The JLTV is a type of programs where if we don’t get the cheap approved it’ll impact this system,” he said.
Cavedo said that for now, he’s operating as if funding will arrive when the CR ends, and he thinks the JLTV program will continue to remain on course.
“We are planning for achievement here, and we will keep the train on target for so long as we possibly can keep it on there,” he said. “Some really hard decisions are going to must be made within the second quarter, mid-second quarter of this (fiscal) year. And from where I sit, I certainly hope that for JLTV, the hard decision is to maintain it at the tracks. But that isn’t be what the military decides.”
Fahey, Cavedo and Burkes spoke Oct. 22 during a press conference on the 2013 Association of the u. s. Army Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C.
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