The Army, which has over 250,000 TWVs, generally categorizes the vehicles as heavy, medium, and light. Heavy TWVs represent about 10 percent of the Army’s TWV fleet and include vehicles like the Heavy Equipment Transporter System, which is used to transport main battle tanks and other heavy equipment. Medium TWVs represent about 40 percent of the Army’s TWV fleet and include vehicles for hauling cargo and for launch and support platforms’ weapon systems such as the High- Mobility Artillery Rocket System. Light TWVs represent about 50 percent of the Army’s TWV fleet and currently consist of the HMMWV family of vehicles, which began production in 1983. The Army’s HMMWV program also provides vehicles to satisfy Marine Corps and Air Force requirements. The HMMWV has gone through various upgrades during its nearly 30-year history and has served as DOD’s primary wheeled vehicle for shelter carriers, command and control systems, light cargo and troop carriers, weapons carriers, and ambulances. This report addresses issues related to light tactical vehicles and the M-ATV. The M-ATV is not considered a light vehicle by its weight, but it is being used for functions typically done by light tactical vehicles. In February 2005, Marine Corps combatant commanders identified an urgent operational need for armored tactical vehicles to increase crew protection and mobility of Marines operating in hazardous fire areas against improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades, and small arms fire. In response, the Marine Corps identified the solution as the up-armored HMMWV. Over the next 18 months, however, combatant commanders continued to call for more robust mine-protected vehicles. The solution to the requirement was the MRAP family of vehicles. MRAPs provide warfighters with platforms capable of mitigating the effects of improvised explosive devices, underbody mines, and small arms fire threats, which are currently the greatest casualty producers overseas. The MRAP family of vehicles consists of four categories: Category I for urban combat missions; Category II for convoy escort, troop transport, explosive ordinance disposal, and ambulance missions; Category III for clearing mines and improvised explosive devices; and the M-ATV for small- unit combat and tactical operations in complex and highly restricted rural, mountainous, and urban areas. The current M-ATV requirement is to rapidly acquire 8,104 vehicles for use primarily in Afghanistan. Delivery orders for production were awarded to a single contractor, Oshkosh Defense. Like the Category I, II, and III variants, vehicles are prepared to accommodate government-furnished equipment during production at Oshkosh with government-furnished equipment integrated at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command. In 2007, the Army reported that there were approximately 120,000 HMMWVs in use by the services. The Army also reported that the need for additional armor for current operations, among other things, had pushed the use of the HMMWV far beyond its original purpose and capabilities. The effect of this employment, according to the Army, led to an imbalance in protection, payload, and performance; specifically, protection: light vehicles required the adoption of supplemental armor; payload: the supplemental armor reduced the vehicles’ useable payload (including warfighters, mission equipment, and cargo); and performance: the supplemental armor degraded mobility, reliability, and maintainability, decreased fuel efficiency, decreased vehicle stability and safety, and decreased operational availability. The objective of the JLTV program is to address the HMMWV fleet’s protection, payload, and performance imbalance within a transportable vehicle. JLTV is expected to provide comparable protection to the MRAP vehicles in most cases—the major exception being underbody protection—but with better payload and performance. To guide the future investment decisions related to JLTV and the M-ATV, as well as other TWVs, the Army and Marine Corps have prepared investment strategies, which enable the services to synchronize their respective TWV programs to maximize the use of limited funding. The Army’s most recent strategy was prepared in October 2009 and will be updated later this year. The Marine Corps prepared a TWV strategy in August 2008; an updated strategy is scheduled for release the end of this year. In 2008, the Army and Marine Corps also prepared a joint TWV investment strategy at the request of the Office of Management and Budget. DOD is also committed to preparing a comprehensive and unified strategy and implementation plan for making sound investment decisions for TWVs. In 2007, at the request of the Subcommittees, we were asked to assess the extent to which DOD had developed a DOD-wide TWV investment strategy. We found that DOD did not have such a strategy. To improve DOD’s ability to plan for and manage the development, production, and sustainment of TWVs across the department, we recommended that the Secretary of Defense develop a DOD-wide strategy and implementation plan for making sound investment decisions for TWVs. DOD concurred with our recommendation, stating the following. Upon completion of the ongoing TWV studies by the Army and Marine Corps, and the Analysis of Alternatives for Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, DOD will unite these efforts into a comprehensive strategy that dovetails with the services’ equipping strategies. DOD will endeavor to align requirements, resources, and acquisition strategies into a unified plan for TWV investment decisions. DOD has acquired and fielded the M-ATV as quickly as possible in response to an urgent need. This acquisition was successful on a number of fronts. Multiple vendors responded to the urgency; in June 2009 the government awarded the first production delivery order to a single manufacturer—Oshkosh Defense—and the contractor has consistently delivered vehicles well ahead of schedule. The cost to acquire and field 8,104 M-ATVs is now estimated to be $12.5 billion. As it did for MRAP, DOD chose to begin fielding the M-ATV before it had completed developmental and operational testing due to the urgency of the requirement. Before fielding began in December 2009, however, ballistic testing did establish that the vehicles met the requirements for crew protection and vehicle survivability and automotive testing confirmed that the vehicles were generally safe to operate. No major issues have been identified in subsequent testing and the vehicles appear to be performing well in their operational environments. DOD expedited many M-ATV acquisition decisions because of the urgent nature of the requirement. In September 2008, combatant commanders identified a need for a lighter and more agile version of the MRAP—one that offered at least the same protection as the MRAP but was better suited to the conditions in Afghanistan. In quick succession, the Joint Staff approved the requirement; the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics directed the Navy to procure and test vehicles against the requirement; and the Army released a request for proposal. In early 2009, the Army examined proposals, armor samples, and production representative vehicles and in April awarded fixed-price, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts to five manufacturers for three additional vehicles for mobility and ballistic testing. In seeking sources for the vehicles, the government placed a strong emphasis on a desire for mature, nondevelopmental vehicles and contractor support for an accelerated program schedule—one of the lessons learned from the MRAP acquisition—according to the program manager. Fully functional prototypes had to be available quickly for test and evaluation. Of the evaluation criteria for awarding a contract, delivery schedule and production capability were second only to the technical performance requirement to provide MRAP-like protection. The first vehicles to be delivered were designated for testing that was necessary to ensure that vehicles were safe to operate before being operated by users. The next priority was to begin delivering vehicles for home station training, which was necessary before the vehicles could be fielded to users. Delivery of vehicles for theater use began shortly after and took place concurrently with delivery and fielding of vehicles for home station training. The government reserved the right to place production orders with multiple contractors as it had for the MRAP, but elected to issue a delivery order for production vehicles to a single contractor—Oshkosh Defense— after the vehicles completed the additional tests in June 2009. The contractor delivered the first 46 vehicles the next month and the first vehicles arrived in theater in December 2009, about 15 months after combatant commanders identified the need. By December, Oshkosh had ramped up delivery to its maximum of 1,000 vehicles per month and had delivered 300 more vehicles than planned in the first 6 months of the effort. The contractor consistently exceeded planned deliveries and has begun to ramp production back down, with planned deliveries ending in November 2010. As of late August 2010, 7,488 vehicles had been delivered to the government and 4,379 vehicles had been fielded to units in Afghanistan. Fielding is expected to be completed in December 2010. DOD took several actions to expedite fielding, including beginning the process of installing vehicle mission equipment during the manufacturing process—a lesson learned from the MRAP production. On MRAP vehicles, some work had to be done on the vehicles after production and before integration could begin, which took time. For example, wiring on the vehicles had to be reconfigured first to accommodate the mission equipment. On the M-ATV, the wiring was configured on the manufacturing line. Figure 1 compares planned and actual deliveries of vehicles to the vehicles fielded through August 2010, and the planned deliveries through November 2010. As of June 2010, the cost to acquire the M-ATV is estimated to be about $12.5 billion through fiscal year 2024. Through fiscal year 2010, all costs continue to be resourced through supplemental funding across all services, except for program management costs—approximately $55 million in fiscal years 2010 through 2015 to be budgeted into baseline service budgets.