Oshkosh Defense awarded $320M to supply FMTVs for U.S., allies

July 1 (UPI) -- Oshkosh Defense was awarded a $320 million contract with the U.S. Army and allies for the family of medium tactical vehicles.

The contract for the FMTVs includes vehicles for Argentina, Djibouti, Iraq, Lebanon and Romania in foreign military sales, the U.S. Department of Defense announced Friday.

Work will be performed at the company's plant in Oshkosh, Wis., with an estimated completion date of Aug. 24, 2021.

Fiscal 2019 foreign military sales and other Army procurement in the final amount were obligated at the time of the award.

The vehicles, which range from 2.5 tons to 10 tons, include tractors, load handlers, cargo trucks, dump trucks and wreckers.

"One vehicle stands alone as the get-things-done resource for military operations," according to Oshkosh.

The company said more than 80 percent commonality of parts across chassis variants significantly reduces the logistics burden as well as operational and support costs.

The FMTVs are derived from the Austrian Steyr 12M18 truck, which was first produced in 1985, according to Military-Today.com.

Steyr and Stewart & Stevenson delivered a U.S. version to the US Army in 1996. Oshkosh took over production in 2010.

Also Friday, Oshkosh Defense was awarded a $7 million contract to incorporate an engineering change proposal -- noise reduction muffler -- into the baseline configuration of the joint light tactical Vehicle family of vehicles. Variants include general purpose trucks, heavy guns carriers, utility trucks and close combat weapons carriers.