21 Feb 15. While the ongoing worldwide economic crisis continues to have a significant negative impact on defense spending, defense intelligence provider Forecast International expects the international light wheeled vehicle market to produce over 36,000 units, worth at least $30.9bn, through 2024.
“Assuming the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle program survives the ongoing budget crisis and enters serial production as scheduled in FY18, we believe the vehicle will utterly dominate the light wheeled vehicle market, just as the HMMWV did between 2005 and 2009,” said military weapons analyst Dean Lockwood. “The JLTV could account for 75 percent of production through 2024.”
The U.S. Department of Defense currently maintains a revised procurement objective of 54,599 JLTVs – 49,099 for the U.S. Army and 5,500 for the U.S. Marine Corps. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that the DoD will spend more than $53.3bn on the JLTV program – $1.082bn for RDT&E and at least $52.3bn for procurement. The JLTV program is currently in the midst of its 33-month engineering and manufacturing development phase. The three competitors – AM General, Lockheed Martin, and Oshkosh – are vying for the low-rate initial production contract, which the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) expects to award to a single contractor in FY15.
In Russia, production of the BTR-80A, BTR-82 and BTR-82A, and of the GAZ-2975, will provide Arzamas Machine Building Plant JSC with about a 4 percent share of all light wheeled vehicle production worldwide.
“This level of production makes the Arzamas organization the most prolific producer of light wheeled vehicles in the international market at this time,” Lockwood said.
Meanwhile, the Type WZ 551 is the new standard Chinese People’s Liberation Army light wheeled combat vehicle. Forecast International research indicates that the PLA may hold a revised procurement objective of more than 3,000 Type WZ 551 series vehicles. The Type WZ 551 ranks as the second-largest light wheeled vehicle program in terms of volume, accounting for 3 percent of all light wheeled vehicle production worldwide and worth about 1 percent of the market value through 2024. Given the developmental status of the JLTV, Forecast International notes that the Russian and Chinese light wheeled vehicle efforts rank as the largest market factors in terms of active serial production.
“If we remove anticipated JLTV production from the market forecast, we find the Arzamas organization would lead the market with about 15 percent of all light wheeled vehicle production worldwide, worth 6 percent of the market’s value,” Lockwood said. “Similarly, in a non-JLTV market forecast, the NORINCO Type WZ 551 would account for 12 percent of all new production, worth 5 percent of the light wheeled vehicle market.”
17 Feb 15. Opinion: Why The Defense ‘Upturn’ Is a Mirage. Along with the rest of the U.S. federal budget, the fiscal 2016 request and plan through 2020 was released on Feb. 2. While there is a consensus that the administration won’t get what it’s requesting because Congress would have to make too many compromises on non-defense discretionary spending, taxes and entitlements, the belief stands that the final figures for fiscal 2016 will fall between the request and the budget caps in the Budget Control Act. Wall Street is sanguine about the potential compromise because the sum of procurement and research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) budget authority should still show growth over appropriations for fiscal 2015. A common theme analysts are heralding is that investment, which is shorthand for the sum of procurement and RDT&E, has bottomed out and a new up-cycle is about to emerge. (Source: glstrade.com/AvWeek)
18 Feb 15. Lockheed Martin Corp said a series of manufacturing changes and technology investments were already driving down the cost of the F-35 fighter jet, and the savings were set to triple in the nin