DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: Panetta Cites ‘Red Lines’ Iran Should Avoid

Defense News: DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: Panetta Cites ‘Red Lines’ Iran Should Avoid
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Elaine Sanchez - American Forces Press Service
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - February 16, 2012:  The nation is open to reaching diplomatic solutions with Iran, but is keeping all options on the table in case clear-cut “red lines” are crossed, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said today.

Speaking to members of a House Appropriations subcommittee, Panetta said Iran is becoming increasingly isolated in the world.

“The international community has sent a very clear message,” he said. “We will not tolerate this. You’ve got to change your ways. You’ve got to come into the international community. You’ve got to abide by international laws, rules and regulations.”

The United States and the international community share the same concerns, Panetta noted. First, he said, “We will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.”

Panetta said intelligence reports clearly indicate that Iran continues to develop its enrichment capability; however, “intelligence does not show they’ve made the decision to proceed with developing a nuclear weapon.”

“That is the red line that would concern us and that would ensure the international community, hopefully together, would respond,” he said.

The international community also will not allow Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, the secretary said. The strait is the only sea passage to the open ocean for petroleum-producing nations in the Persian Gulf region. Iran recently threatened to cut off access to the strait if the United States continues to maintain an aircraft carrier presence there.

Other concerns include the spread of violence, the country’s support of terrorism and its attempts to undermine other nations, Panetta added.

“All of that has been made very clear,” he said.

The international community has implemented strong diplomatic and economic sanctions that are having “a very strong impact,” he said.

“We are open … to negotiations with them to try to find a diplomatic solution to these issues, but we do keep all options on the table in the event the red lines, I just made very clear, are crossed,” Panetta said.

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Elaine Sanchez - American Forces Press Service
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DTN News: U.S. Department of Defense Contracts Dated February 16, 2012

Defense News: DTN News: U.S. Department of Defense Contracts Dated February 16, 2012

 Source: U.S. DoD issued No. 116-12 February 16, 2012

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - February 16, 2012: U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) Contracts issued  February  16, 2012 are undermentioned;

CONTRACTS

U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND

            L-3 Global Communications Solutions, Victor, N.Y., was awarded a modification to increase the contract ceiling by $50,000,000 to a new not-to-exceed amount of $207,000,000.  This is a contract for procurement and sustainment of Special Operations Forces deployable node-medium, very small aperture terminal and small aperture terminals satellite antennas.  The work will be performed in Victor, N.Y., and is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2015.  U.S. Special Operations Command Headquarters Procurement Division, MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., is the contracting activity.

NAVY

            AMG Healthcare Services, Inc.*, Miami, Fla. (N62645-12-D-5010); CentralCare, Inc.*, Annandale, Va. (N62645-12-D-5011); Medtemps, Inc.*, San Antonio, Texas (N62645-12-D-5013); and SPDS, Inc.*, Ashburn, Va. (N62645-12-D-5014), are each being awarded a firm-fixed priced, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, multiple award task order contract for multi-disciplinary dental services (e.g., general dentists, dental subspecialists, dental hygienists, dental assistants, and dental laboratory technicians).  The aggregate not-to-exceed amount for these multiple award contracts combined is $184,284,019 and these four companies will have the opportunity to bid on each individual task order.  Work will be performed at naval military treatment facilities and their associated branch clinics in the Western United States, which include:  Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton, Calif. (40 percent); Naval Health Clinic Hawaii (21 percent); Naval Hospital Lemoore, Calif. (16 percent); Naval Medical Center San Diego, Calif. (11 percent); Naval Hospital Oak Harbor and Naval Hospital Bremerton, Wash. (8 percent); Naval Health Clinic Yuma, Ariz. (2 percent); and Naval Health Clinic Fallon, Nev. (2 percent).  Work performed under these contracts is expected to be completed June 17, 2017.  Funding is predominantly from the Defense Health Program; however, other funding initiatives such as psychological health/traumatic brain injury, Overseas Contingency Operations and wounded, ill, and injured may be used.  These are all one-year funding types.  These contracts were solicited via a multiple award electronic request for proposals as a 100-percent small business set-aside; 20 offers were received.  The Naval Medical Logistics Command, Fort Detrick, Md., is the contracting activity.

            Black Hills Ammunition, Inc.*, Rapid City, S.D., is being awarded a firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity base year contract plus four option years with a possible value of $23,391,000.  This contract is for the manufacture of nine various types of ammunition including five varieties of 5.56mm ammo, three varieties of 7.6mm ammo and one variety of .300 caliber ammo.  The ammunition will support the warfighter mission essential requirements.  Work will be performed in Rapid City, S.D., and is expected to be completed Sept. 30, 2016.  The applicable procurement of ammunition, Navy & Marine Corps contract funds will not expire by the end of the current fiscal year.  This contract was not competitively procured.  The NAVSUP Weapon Systems Support, Mechanicsburg, Pa., is the contracting activity (N00104-12-D-K900).

            Honeywell International, Inc., Defense & Space Electronic Systems, Albuquerque, N.M., is being awarded an $8,145,560 modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract (N00019-10-C-0061) to exercise an option for the procurement of 124 full rate production advanced multi-purpose displays (70 5x5 forward displays; 36 5x5 aft displays; and 18 8x10 displays) for Lot 35 F/A-18F and EA-18G aircraft.  Work will be performed in Albuquerque, N.M., and is expected to be completed in December 2013.  Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.  The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.

            Raytheon Network Centric Systems, Marlborough, Mass., is being awarded a $7,027,114 cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery order against a previously issued basic ordering agreement (N00421-09-G-0002) for engineering and technical services in support of the air traffic, navigation, integration, and coordination system for the Air Traffic Control Systems Division (AIR-4.5.8).  These services will provide engineering changes, field support, maintenance support, depot requirements, and system restoration.  In addition, the work provided will include fault isolation, assembly, disassembly, fabrication, refurbishment, upgrading, purchasing of parts, components, assemblies, and materials, and fleet support activities to return the system to a level of serviceability comparable to a new system.  Work will be performed in St. Inigoes, Md., and is expected to be completed in February 2013.  Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.  The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

            Sonosite, Inc., Bothell, Wash., was issued a modification exercising the third option year on contract SPM2D1-09-D-8339/P00023.  The award is a fixed-price with economic price adjustment, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with a maximum $46,303,658 for radiology systems, subsystems, and components.  There are no other locations of performance.  Using services are Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and federal civilian agencies.  There were 43 responses to the Web solicitation.  Type of appropriation is fiscal 2012/2013 Defense Working Capital Funds.  The date of performance completion is Feb. 18, 2013.  The Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pa., is the contracting activity.

            Tullahoma Industries, L.L.C.*, Tullahoma, Tenn., was awarded a firm-fixed-price contract with a maximum $8,868,065 for soft shell, extreme cold/wet weather jackets.  Other location of performance is Alabama.  Using service is Army.  There were nine responses to the Web solicitation.  Type of appropriation is fiscal 2012/2013 Defense Working Capital Funds.  The date of performance completion is June 15, 2013.  The Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pa., is the contracting activity (SPM1C1-12-D-1024).

AIR FORCE

            SRI International, Menlo Park, Calif., is being awarded a $12,735,834 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to create visual exploitation and indexing tools to rapidly extract mission-relevant visual intelligence from large quantities of diverse, ill-defined, unstructured imagery captured from multiple adversary sources.  The location of the performance is Princeton, N.J.  Work is expected to be completed by Feb. 15, 2016.  Air Force Research Laboratory/RKIF, Rome, N.Y., is the contracting activity (FA8750-12-C-0103).

            ObjectVideo, Inc., Reston, Va. is being awarded a $9,999,919 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for creation of an analyst tool to extract relevant information from unstructured imagery that contains little or no metadata by integrating existing computer vision and pattern matching algorithms.  The location of the performance is Reston, Va., and Colombia, Md.  Work is expected to be completed by February 2016.  Air Force Research Laboratory/RKIF, Rome, N.Y., is the contracting activity (FA8750-12-C-0105).

            General Electric Aviation, Cincinnati, Ohio, is being awarded a $7,142,060 firm-fixed-price fixed quantity contract for newly redesigned high pressure compressor and high pressure turbine assemblies; newly redesigned aging engine upgrade components; initial provisioning spares; and new technical data to support the service life extension plan and aging engine upgrade initiatives applicable to the F110-GE-100/-129 engine, F-16 aircraft.  Work is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2012.  848 SCMG/PKAB, Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., is the contracting activity (FA8104-05-C-00053-P00023).

*Small business

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources U.S. DoD issued No. 116-12 February 16, 2012
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DTN News - AFGHAN WAR NEWS: U.S.-Taliban Talks Only "Exploratory" Says Afghan Envoy

Defense News: DTN News - AFGHAN WAR  NEWS: U.S.-Taliban Talks Only "Exploratory" Says Afghan Envoy
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Reuters
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - February 16, 2012:  The Afghan Taliban and the United States have made only "exploratory" contacts for possible reconciliation which do not involve the Kabul government, the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan said on Thursday.

The Wall Street Journal said that the U.S. and Afghan governments had begun secret three-way talks with the Taliban, based on an interview it conducted with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

"I must emphasize that word 'exploratory'. They are not talks," Afghan ambassador to Pakistan Umar Daudzai told Reuters.

"When there's talks, it's supposed to be between the Afghan government and the Taliban. We have not reached to that stage although we wish to reach to that stage."

The Wall Street Journal quoted Karzai as saying the Taliban were "definitively" interested in a peace settlement to end the 10-year war in Afghanistan, and that all three sides were now involved in discussions.

It said Karzai had declined to specify the location of the talks or go into further detail, saying he feared this could damage the process.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid also said the group had not held talks with the Karzai government.

The Afghan Taliban announced last month it would open a political office in Qatar, suggesting the group may be willing to engage in negotiations that could likely give it government positions or official control over much of its historical southern heartland.

"At a high level, (there are) secret talks and American-Taliban talks. I'm not aware of any other than the Qatar process," said Daudzai.

"The Qatar process is exploratory contacts between Taliban and the United States."

The Afghan ambassador said the Kabul government's contacts with the Taliban were limited to communications between low-level officials and local insurgent commanders.

Washington wants to accelerate contacts with the Taliban so it can announce serious peace negotiations at a NATO summit in May, officials say, in what would be a welcome bright spot in Western efforts to end the war in Afghanistan.

The United States hopes it can declare a start to authentic political negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban at the May 20-21 summit in Chicago, after a year of initial, uncertain contacts with militant representatives.

It would be a needed victory for the White House and its NATO partners in Afghanistan as they struggle to contain a resilient insurgency and train a local army while moving to bring their troops home over the next three years.

(Additional reporting by Chris Allbritton in ISLAMABAD and Rob Taylor in KABUL; Editing by Michael Georgy and Nick Macfie)


*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Reuters
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DTN News - MEXICO DRUGS WAR: Meth In Mexico - A Turning Point In The Drug War?

Defense News: DTN News - MEXICO DRUGS WAR: Meth In Mexico - A Turning Point In The Drug War?
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Ben West - Stratfor
 (NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - February 16, 2012: Mexican authorities announced Feb. 8 the largest seizure of methamphetamine in Mexican history -- and possibly the largest ever anywhere -- on a ranch outside of Guadalajara. The total haul was 15 tons of pure methamphetamine along with a laboratory capable of producing all the methamphetamine seized. While authorities are not linking the methamphetamine to any specific criminal group, Guadalajara is a known stronghold of the Sinaloa Federation, and previous seizures there have been connected to the group. 

 Methamphetamine, a synthetic drug manufactured in personal labs for decades, is nothing new in Mexico or the United States. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has led numerous crusades against the drug, increasing regulations on its ingredients to try to keep it from gaining a foothold in the United States. While the DEA's efforts have succeeded in limiting production of the drug in the United States, consumption has risen steadily over the past two decades. The increasing DEA pressure on U.S. suppliers and the growing demand for methamphetamine have driven large-scale production of the drug outside the borders of the United States. Given Mexico's proximity and the pervasiveness of organized criminal elements seeking new markets, it makes sense that methamphetamine would be produced on an industrial scale there. Indeed, Mexico has provided an environment for a scale of production far greater than anything ever seen in the United States. 

But last week's methamphetamine seizure sheds light on a deeper shift in organized criminal activity in Mexico -- one that could mark a breakthrough in the violent stalemate that has existed between the Sinaloa Federation, Los Zetas and the government for the past five years and has led to an estimated 50,000 deaths. It also reveals a pattern in North American organized crime activity that can be seen throughout the 20th century as well as a business opportunity that could transform criminal groups in Mexico from the drug trafficking intermediaries they are today to controllers of an independent and profitable illicit market. 

While the trafficking groups in Mexico are commonly called "cartels" (even Stratfor uses the term), they are not really cartels. A cartel is a combination of groups cooperating to control the supply of a commodity. The primary purpose of a cartel is to set the price of a commodity so that buyers cannot negotiate lower prices. The current conflict in Mexico over cocaine and marijuana smuggling routes shows that there are deep rifts between rival groups like the Sinaloa Federation and Los Zetas. There is no sign that they are cooperating with each other to set the price of cocaine or marijuana. Also, since most of the Mexican criminal groups are involved in a diverse array of criminal activities, their interests go beyond drug trafficking. They are perhaps most accurately described as "transnational criminal organizations" (TCOs), the label currently favored by the DEA.

Examples from the Past

While the level of violence in Mexico right now is unprecedented, it is important to remember that the Mexican TCOs are businesses. They do use violence in conducting business, but their top priority is to make profits, not kill people. The history of organized crime shows many examples of groups engaging in violence to control an illegal product. During the early 20th century in North America, to take advantage of Prohibition in the United States, organized criminal empires were built around the bootlegging industry. After the repeal of Prohibition, gambling and casinos became the hot market. Control over Las Vegas and other major gambling hubs was a business both dangerous and profitable. Control over the U.S. heroin market was consolidated and then dismantled during the 1960s and 1970s. Then came cocaine and the rise in power, wealth and violence of Colombian groups like the Medellin and Cali cartels. 

But as U.S. and Colombian law enforcement cracked down on the Colombian cartels -- interdicting them in Colombia and closing down their Caribbean smuggling corridors -- Colombian producers had to turn to the Mexicans to traffic cocaine through Mexico to the United States. To this day, however, Colombian criminal groups descended from the Medellin and Cali cartels control the cultivation and production of cocaine in South America, while Mexican groups increasingly oversee the trafficking of the drug to the United States, Europe and Africa.

The Mexican Weakness

While violence has been used in the past to eliminate or coerce competitors and physically take control of an illegal market, it has not proved to be a solution in recent years for Mexican TCOs. The Medellin cartel became infamous for attacking Colombian state officials and competitors who tried to weaken its grasp over the cocaine market. Going back further, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel is thought to have been murdered over disagreements about his handling of the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. Before that, Prohibition saw numerous murders over control of liquor shipments and territory. In Mexico, we are seeing an escalating level of such violence, but few of the business resolutions that would be expected to come about as a result. 

Geography helps explain this. In Mexico, the Sierra Madre mountain range splits the east coast and the west from the center. The Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean coastal plains tend to develop their own power bases separate from each other. 

Mexican drug traffickers are also split by market forces. With Colombian criminal groups still largely controlling the production of cocaine in jungle laboratories, Mexican traffickers are essentially middlemen. They must run the gauntlet of U.S.-led international interdiction efforts by using a combination of Central American traffickers, corruption and street-gang enforcers. They also have to move the cocaine across the U.S. border, where it gets distributed by hundreds of street gangs. 

Profit is the primary motivation at every step, and each hurdle the Mexican traffickers have to clear cuts into their profit margins. The cocaine producers in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia can play the Sinaloa Federation and Los Zetas (as well as others) off of each other to strengthen their own bargaining position. And even though keeping the traffickers split appears to create massive amounts of violence in Mexico, it benefits the politicians and officials there, who can leverage at least the presence of a competitor for better bribes and payoffs. 

For Mexican drug traffickers, competition is bad for the bottom line, since it allows other actors to exploit each side to get a larger share of the market. Essentially, everyone else in the cocaine market benefits by keeping the traffickers split. The more actors involved in cocaine trafficking, the harder it is to control it.

The Solution 

Historically, organized criminal groups have relied on control of a market for their source of wealth and power. But the current situation in Mexico, and the cocaine trade in general, prevents the Mexican groups (or anyone) from controlling the market outright. As long as geography and market forces keep the traffickers split, all sides in Mexico will try to use violence to get more control over territory and market access. We assume that Mexico's geography will not change dramatically any time soon, but market forces are much more temporal. 

Mexican criminal organizations can overcome their weakness in the cocaine market by investing the money they have earned (billions of dollars, according to the most conservative estimates) into the control of other markets. Ultimately, cocaine is impossible for the Mexicans to control because the coca plant can only grow in sufficient quantity in the foothills of the Andes. It would be prohibitively expensive for the Mexicans to take over control of coca cultivation and cocaine production there. Mexican criminal organizations are increasing their presence in the heroin market, but while they can grow poppies in Mexico and produce black-tar heroin, Afghanistan still controls a dominant share of the white heroin market -- around 90 percent. 

What Mexicans can control is the methamphetamine market. What we are seeing in Mexico right now -- unprecedented amounts of the seized drug -- is reminiscent of what we saw over the past century in the infancy of the illegal liquor, gambling, heroin and cocaine markets: an organized criminal group industrializing production in or control of a loosely organized industry and using that control to set prices and increase its power. Again, while illegal methamphetamine has been produced in the United States for decades, regulatory pressure and law enforcement efforts have kept it at a small scale; seizures are typically measured in pounds or kilograms and producers are on the run. 

Mexican producers have also been in the market for a long time, but over the past year we have seen seizures go from being measured in kilograms to being measured in metric tons. In other words, we are seeing evidence that methamphetamine production has increased several orders of magnitude and is fast becoming an industrialized process. 

In addition to the 15 tons seized last week, we saw a record seizure of 675 tons of methylamine, a key ingredient of methamphetamine, in Mexico in December. From 2010 to 2011, seizures of precursor chemicals like methylamine in Mexico increased 400 percent, from 400 tons to 1,600 tons. These most recent reports are similar to reports in the 1920s of U.S. liquor seizures going from barrels to shiploads, which indicated bootlegging was being conducted on an industrial scale. They are also eerily similar to the record cocaine seizure in 1984 in Tranquilandia, Colombia, when Colombian National Police uncovered a network of jungle cocaine labs along with 13.8 metric tons of cocaine. It was the watershed moment, when authorities moved from measuring cocaine busts in kilograms to measuring them in tons, and it marked the Medellin cartel's rise to power over the cocaine market.

A True Mexican Criminal Industry?

Anyone can make methamphetamine, but it is a huge organizational, financial and legal challenge to make it on the industrial level that appears to be happening in Mexico. The main difference between the U.S. labs and the Mexican labs is the kind of input chemicals they use. The U.S. labs use pseudoephedrine, a pharmaceutical product heavily regulated by the DEA, as a starting material, while Mexican labs use methylamine, a chemical with many industrial applications that is more difficult to regulate. And while pseudoephedrine comes in small individual packages of cold pills, methylamine is bought in 208-liter (55-gallon) barrels. The Mexican process requires experienced chemists who have mastered synthesizing methamphetamine on a large scale, which gives them an advantage over the small-time amateurs working in U.S. methamphetamine labs. 

Thus, while methamphetamine consumption has been steadily growing in the United States for the past two decades -- and at roughly $100 per gram, unpure methamphetamine is just as profitable on the street as cocaine -- it is even more profitable for Mexican traffickers. Methamphetamine does not come with the overhead costs of purchasing cocaine from Colombians and trafficking valuable merchandise through some of the most dangerous countries in the Western Hemisphere. Precursor materials such as methylamine used in methamphetamine production are cheap, and East Asian producers appear to be perfectly willing to sell the chemicals to Mexico. And because methamphetamine is a synthetic drug, its production does not depend on agriculture like cocaine and marijuana production does. There is no need to control large swaths of cropland and there is less risk of losing product to adverse weather or eradication efforts. 

For the Mexican TCOs, industrializing and controlling the methamphetamine market offers a level of real control over a market that is not possible with cocaine. We expect fighting over the methamphetamine market to maintain violence at its current levels, but once a group comes out on top it will have far more resources to expel or absorb rival TCOs. This process may not sound ideal, but methamphetamine could pick the winner in the Mexican drug war. 


*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Ben West - Stratfor
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*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
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DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: International Armoured Vehicles Conference Features the Oshkosh Defense M-ATV Tactical Ambulance

Defense News: DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: International Armoured Vehicles Conference Features the Oshkosh Defense M-ATV Tactical Ambulance
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Oshkosh Defense
 (NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - February 16, 2012:  The Oshkosh Defense® M-ATV tactical ambulance will be on display Feb. 20-23 in booth B50 at the International Armoured Vehicles Conference in Farnborough, United Kingdom. Oshkosh Defense, a division of Oshkosh Corporation (NYSE:OSK), designed the M-ATV tactical ambulance to meet an international need for a more protected battlefield ambulance with advanced off-road capabilities.

The vehicle is the latest variant within the Oshkosh MRAP All-Terrain Vehicle (M-ATV) family. More than 8,100 life-saving M-ATVs are currently fielded in Afghanistan.

“We’re bringing our M-ATV tactical ambulance to the International Armoured Vehicles Conference to showcase the modularity of the M-ATV platform and breadth of the family of vehicles,” said Serge Buchakjian, senior vice president and general manager of International Programs for Oshkosh Defense. “The M-ATV is a proven solution for armed forces looking to modernize their fleets with increased off-road mobility and protection across a variety of missions.”

The Oshkosh M-ATV tactical ambulance is designed to help military medics reach and treat casualties in hostile environments across rugged terrain. Quick and easy stretcher loading enables prompt extraction of patients, and the best-in-class Oshkosh TAK-4® independent suspension system can cover tougher terrain at higher speeds than current fleets.

A fully functional ambulance, the M-ATV tactical ambulance has mounting provisions that provide options for a complete suite of medical equipment. The vehicle is available in two configurations that provide ample room to treat two patients on stretchers or four ambulatory patients.

The tactical ambulance is the newest configuration in the M-ATV family of vehicles, which is designed to maximize parts commonality and simplify maintenance and support.

About Oshkosh Defense
Oshkosh Defense, a division of Oshkosh Corporation, is an industry-leading global designer and manufacturer of tactical military trucks and armored wheeled vehicles, delivering a full product line of conventional and hybrid vehicles, advanced armor options, proprietary suspensions and vehicles with payloads that can exceed 70 tons. Oshkosh Defense provides a global service and supply network including full life-cycle support and remanufacturing, and its vehicles are recognized the world over for superior performance, reliability and protection. For more information, visit www.oshkoshdefense.com.

About Oshkosh Corporation
Oshkosh Corporation is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of a broad range of specialty access equipment, commercial, fire & emergency and military vehicles and vehicle bodies. Oshkosh Corporation manufactures, distributes and services products under the brands of Oshkosh®, JLG®, Pierce®, McNeilus®, Medtec®, Jerr-Dan®, Oshkosh Specialty Vehicles, Frontline™, SMIT™, CON-E-CO®, London® and IMT®. Oshkosh products are valued worldwide in businesses where high quality, superior performance, rugged reliability and long-term value are paramount. For more information, visitwww.oshkoshcorporation.com/.

®, TM All brand names referred to in this news release are trademarks of Oshkosh Corporation or its subsidiary companies.

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*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Oshkosh Defense 
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