The U.S. industry-leading designer and manufacturer of tactical military trucks and armored wheeled vehicles Oshkosh Defense, has received $803 million contract modification for the procurement of 2,721 Joint Light Tactical Vehicle and 16,714 associated packaged or installed kits.
The new contract modification involves foreign military sales to Montenegro, according to a statement issued Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Defense.
Work will be performed in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, with an estimated completion date of Jan. 31, 2021.
In October, Breaking Defense reported that the US appears to be finalized an agreement with Montenegro to sell them dozens of brand-new Joint Light Tactical Vehicles.
A defense official confirmed the deal is for 67 Oshkosh-made JLTVs.
If the deal goes through, Montenegro would become the fourth NATO ally to express interest or actually buy into the program, though so far Lithuania is the only country to receive US approval after the State Department signed off on a $170 million deal with the Baltic nation for 500 JLTVs in August.
The JLTV is a complement and replacement for the Humvee. The Humvee was designed as a utility vehicle, but the JLTV was built from ground up as an armored system.
The JLTV trumps the HMMWV in every aspect of the triangle: a scalable engine with a base tune that currently doubles the horsepower of the HMMWV; an increased operating payload to roughly 2,500 more pounds; and increased organic protection before additional armor kits, which results in an increased average vehicle range before operational mission failure.