Senate authorizers have advanced a defense policy bill that would require the Army to submit a new tactical wheeled vehicle strategy report three years early after the Army Transformation Initiative rendered its first plan moot.
“Within six months of the first report, [the] Army Transformation Initiative pretty much upended anything that was in the 2025 tactical wheeled vehicle strategy,” a senior congressional official told reporters at the Capitol today, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act required the Army to submit a five-year modernization plan for its fleet of TWVs starting with FY-25 and again in FY-30 and FY-35, but this year’s draft authorization bill would have the service include a second report in its FY-27 budget request, according to a summary provided to reporters.
The idea behind the requirement for the five-year plan was to “force the Army” to be more communicative with the industrial base so it could better adapt to the service’s TWV fleet needs, but the Army’s massive shift in requirements under ATI has merited the need for a new report, officials said.
“The point was, OK, Army, go back and do it again, because you’ve obviously changed your plan, so to try to . . . sort of force some sort of communication with us,” a senior congressional official said.
The Army had pledged to spend $3 billion on procurement of JLTV vehicles and trailers through FY-29, according to the original report, a little more than half of the nearly $6 billion the service said it would invest in tactical vehicles under the five-year plan.
It also pledged to invest $238 million on safety upgrades to the humvee over those five years. The report doesn’t mention the Infantry Squad Vehicle.
Instead, the service has pledged to end future procurement buys of its Joint Light Tactical Vehicle and humvee programs following the April 30 ATI announcement, as Army Chief of Staff General Randy George referred to the two systems as “excess.”
But congressional staffers revealed the Army didn’t give notice prior to that decision and has since not provided an analysis that backs up the claim that it has bought the right number of JLTVs and humvees for its formations.
“Our look is that we want that feedback — we have not seen a whole lot from the Army,” a congressional official told reporters. “We were as surprised as anybody when the JLTV and humvee decisions were made.”
The original Army TWV report planned on spending $570 million on the JLTV in FY-26; it recently requested $46 million instead.
The Army has requested $308 million in procurement dollars for the Infantry Squad Vehicle in FY-26.
Originally published Inside Defense
