Jankel, a British world-leader in the design, integration, manufacture, and support of high-specification defence systems, has announced the establishment of agreements with a number of key UK defence industry partners in order to create a team of experts to deliver the Oshkosh Defense Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) to UK.  The new partnerships follow on from the headline agreement with Oshkosh Defense announced in June 2022.  These latest partnerships are being specifically formed to create a UK based team of defence vehicle subject matter experts that can deliver the Oshkosh JLTV vehicle to meet crucial protected mobility requirements of the British Armed Forces.  Today’s announcement coincides with the DVD event taking place at Millbrook, 21/22 September, where Jankel and Oshkosh are displaying the Oshkosh JLTV vehicle and offering customer off-road demonstration rides.

A comprehensive partnership framework is being identified and developed by Jankel to establish a robust, UK-based, expert supply chain to deliver design, sub-system integration, manufacture, assembly and through life support services. The first agreements of this type to be put in place are with NP Aerospace in Coventry and Make UK Defence, a member-owned defence trade organisation. NP Aerospace are well-established suppliers to UK MoD and they bring with them expertise and pedigree across multiple UK defence vehicle projects. Jankel will be working in collaboration with Make UK Defence to access and leverage the full spectrum of UK defence industry expertise.

Jankel, working in partnership with Oshkosh Defense and supported by key UK defence vehicle industry experts, can provide a Land Industrial Strategy aligned mechanism for UK MoD to procure, support and spirally upgrade the JLTV, through life. The Oshkosh JLTV meets the requirements of the UK MoD for a role-versatile, common platform, next generation protected mobility solution. Jankel and partners, with JLTV, can deliver a low risk, technically mature, in-service and volume productionised solution matching outstanding performance with affordability. Oshkosh Defense has currently manufactured over 17,400 JLTVs and 2300 companion trailers. The JLTV has been fully validated and verified through independent testing to include 29 blast tests and 250,000 miles of reliability testing.

Andrew Jankel, Chairman at Jankel said: “I’m delighted to announce these key partnerships today with NP Aerospace and Make UK Defence that are the first of a number of this type that we will be establishing to enable the delivery of the Oshkosh Defense JLTV to UK MoD. We have so much talent present in the UK defence industry and to begin to bring it all together like this is very exciting and will give the MoD exactly what they need whilst remaining fully aligned with the Land Industrial Strategy.”  He added, “Looking ahead and beyond JLTV, these partnerships could be further developed to support our long-term strategy of establishing a UK-based light vehicle centre of excellence that integrates and further develops the best of British technology and innovation into world-leading vehicle platforms, to meet future UK and global requirements.”

John Lazar, Vice President and General Manager International at Oshkosh Defense stated “Oshkosh Defense have been providing vehicles and through life support to UK MoD for nearly two decades for Wheeled Tanker, Heavy Equipment Transporters (HET) and Light Equipment Transporters (LET).  We are proud to have demonstrated the capability and reliability of our Oshkosh military trucks through years of successful contracts and on operations abroad.  We look forward to the next chapter of this relationship, meeting protected mobility requirements in cooperation with our partners at Jankel”.

The Oshkosh JLTV pictured on the Jankel off-road test track.