“Oshkosh won the Pentagon’s $30 billion sweepstakes to replace the U.S. Army’s Humvee with up to 55,000 new Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, or JLTVs, over the next 25 years,” Defense One reports.  

“The Army awarded a $6.7 billion contract Tuesday to Oshkosh for an initial batch of 17,000 vehicles for the Army and Marine Corps. Production will begin in the first quarter of fiscal 2016…with a later decision on the full scale of production to come in 2018, the year the vehicles are expected to be ready for battle.”  

“Years of difficult combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, full of harsh terrain and roadside bombs, compelled the Army to seek an armored vehicle to replace the Humvee. They sought a truck that was tougher and better-armored in critical spots, but also agile and capable of off-road maneuvering. The JLTV is meant to recover the vehicle performance lost when the Army and Marine Corps had to up-armor Humvees to protect troops from an abundance of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, in Iraq and Afghanistan”  

“The truck is the first built for networked military operations. And a CH -47 Chinook or CH -53 heavy-lift helicopter will be able to carry the JLTV , unlike the heavier MRAP .”