Oshkosh dangles JLTV bridge option for Marine Corps, but the deadline to take it is looming

OSHKOSH, Wis. — Oshkosh Defense has given the Marine Corps until Oct. 31 to decide whether the service will accept the firm’s offer to provide Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV) to Marines in less than a year, as AM General sorts out production delays after winning the contract for the JLTV’s upgraded variant.

Oshkosh Defense’s representatives say they haven’t received any indication that the Marines will bite, leaving the future of the company’s existing JLTV production line up in the air and sparking a full-court press campaign by the firm to showcase its offering. Oshkosh has flown reporters out to its facilities in Oshkosh, Wis., for an exhibition of their production line, and hosted Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth there as well in August for his “Arsenal of Freedom” tour, where he walked through manufacturing facilities and viewed the vehicles being built — including the JLTV. 

Officials at Oshkosh say their offering, known as a “production bridge,” will not only assist the Marine Corps with its modernization efforts, but also support competitor AM General amid delivery setbacks of its A2 variant of the JLTV. 

“Every day that units aren’t hitting the fleet is a day later that modernization occurs, and so their mission is what’s at risk,” Logan Jones, chief growth officer for Oshkosh Corporation’s transport segment, told Breaking Defense during a trip to Oshkosh’s facilities.

“The other thing, the reason why we call it a bridge, is we all hope the A2 lives into production, serves the needs of both the Army, Navy, Air Force, everybody, right? But what this really is is an insurance program,” Jones said. “There’s a delay. We can help you with your modernization and allow time for that current contract to catch up on production. So that’s why we call it a bridge program. But what’s at risk is modernization.”

While Oshkosh previously won a contract in 2015 as the sole supplier of the A1 JLTV for the Army and the Marine Corps, AM General secured a follow-on production contract in 2023 with its A2 variant.

Under Oshkosh’s production bridge proposal to the Marine Corps, the company says it has allocated more than $50 million in private capital to go toward production capacity and to nail down long-lead materials for the JLTV. 

Additionally, Oshkosh says it can deliver 1,200 JLTVs annually — the first of which would be delivered to the Marine Corps in 10 months. The firm said the production bridge proposal factors in current workforce, production space, and supplier assumptions. If, however, the Marine Corps waits until after Oct. 31, such details must be reevaluated. 

Jones said that while the Marine Corps has told Oshkosh it is aware of the deadline and understands the rationale, the company has received “no indication of direction or anything like that from them.” 

“If there’s no demand signal, we’ll have to figure out what to do with it,” Jones said. “It could be servicing the existing fleet, could be international partners, could be partner programs like ROGUE Fires or other things.”

The Marine Corps did not respond to a request for comment from Breaking Defense by publication time. The service did put forth a solicitation in May seeking a second JLTV supplier, stating that it was looking for “mature, production-ready, rapidly fieldable” commercial or “non-developmental” JLTV variants. 

At the time, the service told Breaking Defense that it “continuously evaluates acquisition options to ensure it can meet approved JLTV requirements, preserve readiness, and reduce fielding risk.”

Since then, Oshkosh has positioned itself to supply the Marine Corps with its JLTV A1 model, whose production line has remained active for its commercial business. Likewise, the Netherlands tapped Oshkosh to produce a Dutch JLTV in 2025. 

The Marine Corps is requesting $244.9 million in its fiscal year 2027 budget request to procure more than 340 A2 JLTVs. Altogether, the Marine Corps wants 12,500 JLTVs, but Oshkosh says the service has received less than 60 percent of its acquisition objective. 

Meanwhile, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have voiced concerns about AM General’s ability to produce JLTVs, and claim the firm is nearly two years behind delivering the vehicles. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., wrote a letter in June to then-Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll calling the delay “unacceptable performance for one of DoD’s largest vehicles contracts.” 

AM General did not respond to a request for comment from Breaking Defense. In June, though, AM General CEO John Chadbourne pointed to “complex” transition issues as the culprit of such delays and said that the company plans to hit full-rate production by 2027. 

Even so, Oshkosh Defense maintains that the production bridge isn’t an attempt to undermine AM General. 

“This could be misunderstood or misconstrued that we have some agenda to push AM General to fail,” Pat Williams, chief programs officer at Oshkosh Defense, told Breaking Defense. “That’s actually not the case. I hope that they find a way to make it work. … Our whole goal is to help the Marine Corps find a bridge to buy AM General time.”