The Army last night awarded AM General, Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Oshkosh (OSK) contracts totaling about $185 million for the engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase of its planned family of Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV).
Three other competitors were dropped: Navistar [NAV], General Tactical Vehicle (GTV) a joint venture between General Dynamics [GD] and AM General and a team led by BAE Systems.
“In developing the requirements for this new vehicle, we collaborated closely with the Marine Corps and Industry, incorporating the collective lessons learned over the past decade of war,” said Gen. Lloyd Austin, Army vice chief of staff.
The JLTV is the Army-Marine program for a vehicle that can provide more protection and payload room and fill the gap between today’s Humvee and the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle.
The awards are firm-fixed price contracts for 27 months. The full values of these awards include the base contract, which is capped at $65 million and an evaluated unexercised level of effort option price, the service said in a statement.
About $99.5 million was obligated for the three contractors for the action, with initial funding of about $28 million to $36 million for each contractor.
The balance of the funding, up to the full base contract amount will be provided in fiscal year 2013 and 2014, the service said.
“This award is a significant milestone that brings JLTV closer to fruition, and reflects very successful collaboration between the Army and Marine Corps, said Lt. Gen. William Phillips, military deputy/director, Army Acquisition Corps, office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology.
The EMD phase is scheduled for 33 months. EMD contracts include each contractor delivering 22 full-up prototypes, which will arrive starting 12 months after contract award, and contractor support for the 14-month government test program. This program will include blast, automotive and user evaluation.