Oshkosh Defense secures contract extension with Army for Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles A2
OSHKOSH, Wis. (WFRV) – On Thursday, Oshkosh Defense announced a three-year contract extension for the Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles A2 (FMTV A2).
The contract extension will allow the U.S. Army to continue to order the FMTV A2, including three FMTV A2 Low Velocity Air Drop (LVAD) variants, through February 2028.
'The FMTV A2 contract extension enables the Army to continue modernizing its fleet with proven medium tactical vehicles in support of the Army Transformation Initiative and Force Design 2030,' said Pat Williams, Chief Programs Officer at Oshkosh Defense. 'The FMTV A2 LVAD variants fill a critical capability gap for the Airborne community by replacing an aging fleet with an upgraded capability that can be rapidly deployed in contested and austere environments.'
Appleton woman educates young people on safe driving in memory of daughter
The FMTV A2 fleet is designed in Oshkosh and is engineered to incorporate next-generation technologies without compromising operational readiness.
Officials say the contract award provides the opportunity for continued production and fielding of these mission-critical vehicles into 2030, while preserving a mature U.S.-based supply chain, which began with the initial FMTV A1P2 contract in 2009.
Oshkosh Defense is a global leader in the design, production, and sustainment of best-in-class military vehicles, technology solutions, and mobility systems. Setting the industry standard for sustaining fleet readiness, Oshkosh ensures every solution is supported worldwide throughout its entire life cycle.
More information about Oshkosh Defense can be found here.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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WIRED
19 hours ago
- WIRED
What Lt. Col. Boz and Big Tech's Enlisted Execs Will Do in the Army
Jun 20, 2025 10:26 AM Meta CTO Andrew "Boz" Bosworth and leaders from OpenAI and Palantir have joined a detachment intended to make the US Armed Forces "force leaner, smarter, and more lethal." OpenAI's product head, Kevin Weil, and Meta's chief technology officer, Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth. Photo-Illustration:When I read a tweet about four noted Silicon Valley executives being inducted into a special detachment of the United States Army Reserve, including Meta CTO Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth, I questioned its veracity. It's very hard to discern truth from satire in 2025, in part because of social media sites owned by Bosworth's company. But it indeed was true. According to an official press release, they're in the Army now, specifically Detachment 201: the Executive Innovation Corps. Boz is now Lieutenant Colonel Bosworth. The other newly commissioned officers include Kevin Weil, OpenAI's head of product; Bob McGrew, a former OpenAI head of research now advising Mira Murati's company Thinking Machines Lab; and Shyam Sankar, the CTO of Palantir. These middle-aged tech execs were sworn into their posts wearing camo fatigues, as if they just wandered off some Army base in Kandahar, to join a corps that is named after an HTTP status code. (Colonel David Butler, communications adviser to the Army chief of staff, told me their dress uniforms weren't ready yet.) Detachment 201, wrote the Army in a press release, is part of a military-wide transformation initiative that 'aims to make the force leaner, smarter, and more lethal.' The Army's Executive Innovation Corps (EIC) commissioning ceremony in Conmy Hall, Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Va., June 13, 2025. Photograph: Leroy Council/DVIDS Don't blame Donald Trump for this. The program has been in the works for over a year, the brainchild of Brynt Parmeter, the Pentagon's first chief talent management officer. Parmeter, a former combat soldier who headed veteran support at Walmart before joining the Department of Defense in 2023, had been pondering how to bring experienced technologists into service to update an insufficiently tech-savvy militia when he met Sankar at a conference early last year. The idea, he says, was to create 'an Oppenheimer-like situation' where senior executives could serve right away, while keeping their current jobs. Both men collaborated on a plan to bring in people like, well, Sankar, who has been a vocal cheerleader of the Valley's recent embrace of the military, proclaiming that the US is in an 'undeclared state of emergency' that requires a tech-led military rehaul. When the Wall Street Journal wrote about the forthcoming program last October, Sankar vowed to be 'first in line.' In a sign that it's no longer taboo in the Valley to face the fact that its creations go hand in hand with boosting deadly force in the military, the program was fast-tracked and is now in operation. 'Ten years ago this probably would have gotten me canceled,' Weil told me. 'It's a much better state of the world where people look at this and go, 'Oh, wow, this is important. Freedom is not free.'' This is an essay from the latest edition of Steven Levy's Plaintext newsletter. SIGN UP for Plaintext to read the whole thing, and tap Steven's unique insights and unmatched contacts for the long view on tech. The four new officers are full members of the Army Reserve. Unlike other reservists, however, they will not be required to undergo basic training, though they will undergo less immersive fitness and shooting training after induction. They will also have the flexibility to spend some of the approximately 120 annual hours working remotely, a perk not offered to other reservists. The Army also says that these men will not be sent to battle, so they will not be risking their lives in potential theaters of war in Iran, Greenland, or downtown Los Angeles, California. Their mission is to use their undeniable expertise to school their colleagues and superiors in the military on how to utilize cutting-edge technologies for efficiency and deadly force. One might assume the Army would have done an extensive study of the specific talents required for this pilot program and pulled those people from an open call for the best candidates. That did not happen. Sankar helped recruit the other three future officers—all male, which by intention or coincidence seems to satisfy the anti-DEI bent of today's military—and they all accepted. According to Butler, 'Lieutenant Colonel Sankar said 'I want to wear the uniform. And I have three other guys willing to go with me.'' Weil confirms that he joined after a request from Sankar. (Parmeter said to me that since this is a pilot program with an unknown outcome, a closed process was appropriate.) Clearly, the four new officers genuinely want to serve their country. Weil, who I've known for years, told me that when Sankar explained the program, 'I was just like, 'Yes, I want to help—that sounds amazing.'' But during a wave of widespread unease over privileges of tech elite—did you see those disgusting billionaire bros on that show Mountainhead ?—special arrangements for well-off digital achievers seems tone-deaf. My big question is whether these men could have provided the same assistance from the private sector. Parmeter and Butler both cited precedent of cases where top executives were directly commissioned, including a top railway executive in 1917, the head of a gas and electric company in 1944, and the General Motors Company president in 1942. But those were full-time roles during world wars. Parmeter also reminded me that many currently serving reservists are already in the tech industry, including, he claimed, some generals at Google(!). Presumably none of them, however, began their military careers as senior officers, and they presumably do not receive special dispensation to perform some of their service from home. Another program, the Defense Digital Service, gives tech workers a chance to lend expertise to the Pentagon full time for up to two years. What's more, Parmeter conceded that the military already has a trusted adviser program, where civilians could work part or full time on projects. "That's obviously still going on, and that's something that is useful,' he says. 'But in this case, we wanted to go beyond that.' The Army says that there is no conflict of interest in having these privately employed officers provide advice on high-tech subjects. They will have no say in what contracts the Army makes with the private sector. The expertise they offer, however, seems inseparable from the sectors of AI, VR, and data mining at the center of their companies' business models. Maybe it's just bad timing, but the month before Bosworth was sworn in, Meta announced a deal with Anduril, a defense contractor co-founded by former fired employee Palmer Luckey, to pursue military contracts. Around the time Lt Col Weil raised a hand beside Boz, OpenAI announced a $200 million defense contract: it's also working with Anduril to develop an air defense system. Sankar's employer Palantir has billions of dollars worth of government deals, including a $759 million Army contract for advanced AI systems. (Thinking Machines Lab, which McGrew advises, is still in semi-stealth, so there's no news of its plans for military contracts.) Also, while these soldiers are serving in a personal capacity, their employers will undoubtedly benefit from the inside-the-perimeter knowledge that they will gather while simultaneously working on military contracts. Lieutenant Kevin Weil, OpenAI's head of product and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy A. George Photograph: Leroy Council/DVIDS OK, so what will they do ? Parmeter provides a hypothetical scenario: the commander of the Indo-Pacific region is figuring out how to address threats in the Far East over the next five to 10 years. They might ask Detachment 201 to tell them how the future state of machine learning and AI would affect security in that context. Or, the new officers might operate more tactically, advising how soldiers could use new tools to understand battlefield conditions. This kind of sounds like… consulting. Weil argues, however, that advice coming from an actual officer would be more seriously heeded: 'There's nothing wrong with being a contractor,' he says. 'But if we're off supporting an exercise somewhere, it's different that we're wearing the same uniform, having taken the same oath.' A more serious consequence might come from these men having dual loyalty when setting policy at their private companies. Companies like Meta, Open AI, and Thinking Machines Lab are helping create superintelligence that could profoundly impact the world. OpenAI is among those companies that prohibit their models from being used to harm others, and that includes developing weapons. But the mission of the US military is exactly the opposite. Working inside the Army, these recruits are explicitly charged with making the technologies more lethal—in fact, in a hearing this very week, Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll told Senators that the Army Transformation Initiative, which involves Detachment 201, will eliminate programs that do not contribute to lethality. Who will these officers be serving when they make those determinations? (Weil emphatically tells me that his service is a personal matter, and in any case there are plenty of uses for AI in the military that don't involve killing.) When I brought this issue up to Parmeter, he said that when determining the direction of future AI at their companies, the officers' wider perspective would be a plus. Then again, Parmeter did mention Oppenheimer, who created the atom bomb. Bottom line: Sankar, Bosworth, Weil, and McGrew are soldiers now, even if critics are already accusing them of being rich tech bros cosplaying the real thing. Considering the optics, they would do well to avoid any chest-thumping. Weil displayed humility when I spoke to him. But an op-ed Sankar wrote in the Free Press to explain his motives hit a sour note. Though much of it set out the benefits of a private tech industry in sync with the military, and his family's inspiring American immigrant story (which might not have happened under current Trump policies), he veered into self-aggrandizement. 'None of these men need to pad their résumé,' he wrote of his Detachment 201 blood brothers and, by implication, himself. 'None have free time between fatherhood, demanding day jobs, and a dozen other demands. But all feel called to serve.' Forgive me for thinking that their sacrifices rank in the bottom rung of what the vast majority of soldiers experience. In our conversation,Weil, again, was humble about becoming an instant senior officer, a rank given to reflect his achievements in private life. 'I'm still a little bit sensitive to the title, because there's so many people that have given their lives or spent their lives dedicated to this,' he told me. 'So I want to earn the title.' I have no idea how their Army-mates will regard them, but all who hold lower ranks, including life-long soldiers and veterans of combat, will be required to salute the Detachment 201 lieutenant colonels on sight. According to Butler, these overnight officers haven't yet mastered the art of crisply returning those salutes. 'They've got a bit of work to do,' he told me. Weil is correct when he says that a decade ago, Silicon Valley would have condemned him for accepting his post. He was working for Facebook as Instagram's head of product during the time that Luckey was tossed out of the company for supporting Donald Trump and lavishingly expressing his fondness for the military. In my book Facebook: The Inside Story I describe how in 2016 Palmer Luckey alienated Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook workforce—by acting like Zuckerberg would act in 2025. All is copesetic now as the two are partners in developing VR technology for today's military. Luckey was a political conservative, supporting the right wing with the same enthusiasm he devoted to fast food, cosplay photos with his girlfriend, and soldering artisanal computer peripherals. He was a huge admirer of the military. [Brendan] Iribe [cofounder of Oculus] remembers that he once got a call saying Luckey had driven a tank on the Facebook campus. The police had been called. The vehicle was Luckey's Humvee, repurposed from military service with toy machine guns attached to the postings. [The orange-colored guns were clearly not operational.] To Facebook's workers though, it might as well have been a nuclear bomb. Luckey defused the situation and wound up posing for pictures with the cops, but the incident was a black mark on his record. 'Here at Facebook, you can't drive Humvees with guns—military vehicles—onto the lot and have the police show up,' says Iribe. 'That's not what we're focused on here.' Madhu on Bluesky asks, 'If all of us adopted AI to write our medical clinic notes, how will that impact our carbon footprint?' Thanks for the question, Madhu. You are correct in implying that AI large language models consume considerable electricity. Writing medical clinic notes probably isn't the biggest worry, though. The actual numbers are fuzzy, maybe intentionally. But according to Nature, for a chatbot to find something, it consumes 23 to 30 times the energy of a Google search. And it's going to get worse. For instance, consider AI agents, which nearly everyone agrees are the next step for LLMs. I recently learned that compared to simple prompts and outputs, tasks where LLMs essentially query the world to fulfill and verify people's requests have jaw-droppingly higher power demands. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has estimated that reasoning-based agentic AI will require 100 times the computation, and thus the power consumption, of the current paradigm. As you suspect, this will not be great for the environment. Submit your questions in the comments below, or send an email to mail@ Write ASK LEVY in the subject line. End Times Chronicle In a 'Bible Prophecy Update,' Christian commentator Greg Laurie cited 'super signs' in the Middle East that the Last Days may be on track and advised readers to prepare. Last but Not Least How activists helped Elon Musk pay the price for DOGE-ing the government. Visiting the United States or returning from a trip abroad? Here's how to protect your information at the border when you return. A bulked-up visit to the Steroid Olympics. Former WIRED editor Megan Greenwell talks about her book on private equity. She's not a fan. Don't miss future subscriber-only editions of this column. Subscribe to WIRED (50% off for Plaintext readers) today.
a day ago
Sig Sauer, faced with lawsuits over a popular pistol, gets protection in New Hampshire
CONCORD, N.H. -- Faced with mounting lawsuits over a popular pistol, New Hampshire-based Sig Sauer asked for — and got — protection in the form of a new state law that makes it harder to take the gunmaker to court. Supporters in the Republican-led Legislature said the law was needed to help a major employer. The lawsuits say Sig Sauer's P320 pistol can go off without the trigger being pulled, an allegation the company denies. The law covers all gun manufacturers and federal firearm licensees in product liability claims regarding the 'absence or presence' of four specific safety features. One of those features is an external mechanical safety that people suing Sig Sauer say should be standard on the P320, based on its design. Claims can still be filed over manufacturing defects. Those who have sued Sig Sauer in New Hampshire and elsewhere include police, federal law enforcement officers, and other experienced gun users from multiple states who say they were wounded by the gun. The manufacturer has prevailed in some cases. It is appealing two recent multimillion-dollar verdicts against it, in Pennsylvania and Georgia. George Abrahams a U.S. Army veteran and painting contractor in Philadelphia who won his case, said he had holstered his P320, put it in the pocket of his athletic pants and zipped it up before going downstairs. "All I did was come down the stairway and there was a loud explosion, and then the excruciating pain and bleeding,' he told The Associated Press in 2022. He said the bullet tore through his right thigh. The company, which employs over 2,000 people in a state with permissive gun laws, says the P320 has internal safety mechanisms and 'has undergone the most rigorous testing and evaluation of any firearm, by military and law enforcement agencies around the world." It says the problem is user error or incompatible holsters, not the design. 'Do you want people to be able to sue car manufacturers because they sell cars that don't have air conditioning?' state Rep. Terry Roy, a Republican from Deerfield, told the House during debate in May. Opponents criticized the bill as a special exemption in liability law that has never been granted to any other New Hampshire company. 'I think there is a difference between helping out a large employer and creating an exemption that actually hurts people and doesn't give them their day in court,' state Rep. David Meuse, a Democrat from Portsmouth, said in an interview. His district covers Newington, where Sig Sauer is headquartered. A 2005 federal law gives the gun industry broad legal immunity. New Hampshire was already among 32 states that have adopted gun immunity laws in some form, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Some states also have repealed gun industry immunity statutes or weakened them. A Sig Sauer executive asked New Hampshire lawmakers for help in April, two weeks after a Pennsylvania-based law firm filed its most recent lawsuit in federal court in Concord on March 26 over the design of the P320. The firm represents over 100 people who have filed such lawsuits, including more than 70 in New Hampshire. 'We're fighting all these court cases out of town and every single court case we have to fight takes away money from Granite State residents and workers that we can employ and technology,' testified Bobby Cox, vice president of governmental affairs for the company. The measure took effect once Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed it on May 23. Legislators said it doesn't apply to the current lawsuits. However, lawyers for Sig Sauer mentioned it as part of their argument to dismiss the March case or break up and transfer the claims of 22 plaintiffs to court districts where they live. A hearing on the matter is set for July 21. Ayotte's office did not respond to an AP request seeking comment, but it told The Keene Sentinel that she's 'proud to protect New Hampshire companies that create thousands of good-paying jobs from frivolous lawsuits.' 'Out-of-state trial lawyers looking to make money will not find a venue in New Hampshire,' Ayotte's office said in an emailed statement to the newspaper. Robert Zimmerman, the plaintiffs' lead attorney in Pennsylvania, said the goal of the lawsuits is to get the weapon's design changed so that it's safe for the people who use it. New Hampshire was the chosen location because federal rules allow lawsuits against a company in its home state, Zimmerman said. Those lawsuits have been assigned to one federal judge in Concord. 'Sig is trying to strategically decentralize this case and make every client go to 100 different courthouses and slow down the process for both sides to get a just outcome, which is a trial that is decided on the merits,' Zimmerman said in an interview. The lawsuits accuse Sig Sauer of defective product design and marketing and negligence. During the House debate, Roy said he owns a P320 and it's one of his favorite guns, 'but you can buy them with or without safeties.' The plaintiffs say 'the vast majority' of P320 models sold don't come with the safety, 'even as an option.' Sig Sauer says some users prefer the faster draw time granted by the absence of an external safety; others want the feature for added security. Sig Sauer offered a 'voluntary upgrade' in 2017 to include an alternate design that reduces the weight of the trigger, among other features. The plaintiffs' lawyers say the upgrade did not stop unintentional discharges. 'It's not a great look' when a manufacturer can carve out a statutory exemption for itself, but it's also not unusual, said Daniel Pi, an assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law. In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill in 2023 following a deadly school shooting that gives gun and ammunition dealers, manufacturers and sellers additional protections against lawsuits. This year, Tennessee lawmakers passed another bill to further limit liability for gun companies. In a different industry — pesticides — governors in North Dakota and Georgia signed laws this year providing legal protections to Bayer, the maker of Roundup, a popular weed killer. Bayer has been hit with 181,000 claims alleging that the key ingredient in Roundup causes non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Bayer disputes those claims. The Louisiana Legislature passed a bill that would protect nursing homes from most lawsuits and cap damages. Republican Gov. Jeff Landry hasn't acted on it yet.
San Francisco Chronicle
a day ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Sig Sauer, faced with lawsuits over a popular pistol, gets protection in New Hampshire
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Faced with mounting lawsuits over a popular pistol, New Hampshire-based Sig Sauer asked for — and got — protection in the form of a new state law that makes it harder to take the gunmaker to court. Supporters in the Republican-led Legislature said the law was needed to help a major employer. The lawsuits say Sig Sauer's P320 pistol can go off without the trigger being pulled, an allegation the company denies. The law covers all gun manufacturers and federal firearm licensees in product liability claims regarding the 'absence or presence' of four specific safety features. One of those features is an external mechanical safety that people suing Sig Sauer say should be standard on the P320, based on its design. Claims can still be filed over manufacturing defects. Those who have sued Sig Sauer in New Hampshire and elsewhere include police, federal law enforcement officers, and other experienced gun users from multiple states who say they were wounded by the gun. The manufacturer has prevailed in some cases. It is appealing two recent multimillion-dollar verdicts against it, in Pennsylvania and Georgia. George Abrahams a U.S. Army veteran and painting contractor in Philadelphia who won his case, said he had holstered his P320, put it in the pocket of his athletic pants and zipped it up before going downstairs. "All I did was come down the stairway and there was a loud explosion, and then the excruciating pain and bleeding,' he told The Associated Press in 2022. He said the bullet tore through his right thigh. The company, which employs over 2,000 people in a state with permissive gun laws, says the P320 has internal safety mechanisms and 'has undergone the most rigorous testing and evaluation of any firearm, by military and law enforcement agencies around the world." It says the problem is user error or incompatible holsters, not the design. 'Do you want people to be able to sue car manufacturers because they sell cars that don't have air conditioning?' state Rep. Terry Roy, a Republican from Deerfield, told the House during debate in May. Opponents criticized the bill as a special exemption in liability law that has never been granted to any other New Hampshire company. 'I think there is a difference between helping out a large employer and creating an exemption that actually hurts people and doesn't give them their day in court,' state Rep. David Meuse, a Democrat from Portsmouth, said in an interview. His district covers Newington, where Sig Sauer is headquartered. A 2005 federal law gives the gun industry broad legal immunity. New Hampshire was already among 32 states that have adopted gun immunity laws in some form, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Some states also have repealed gun industry immunity statutes or weakened them. Sig Sauer seeks help A Sig Sauer executive asked New Hampshire lawmakers for help in April, two weeks after a Pennsylvania-based law firm filed its most recent lawsuit in federal court in Concord on March 26 over the design of the P320. The firm represents over 100 people who have filed such lawsuits, including more than 70 in New Hampshire. 'We're fighting all these court cases out of town and every single court case we have to fight takes away money from Granite State residents and workers that we can employ and technology,' testified Bobby Cox, vice president of governmental affairs for the company. The measure took effect once Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed it on May 23. Legislators said it doesn't apply to the current lawsuits. However, lawyers for Sig Sauer mentioned it as part of their argument to dismiss the March case or break up and transfer the claims of 22 plaintiffs to court districts where they live. A hearing on the matter is set for July 21. Ayotte's office did not respond to an AP request seeking comment, but it told The Keene Sentinel that she's 'proud to protect New Hampshire companies that create thousands of good-paying jobs from frivolous lawsuits.' 'Out-of-state trial lawyers looking to make money will not find a venue in New Hampshire,' Ayotte's office said in an emailed statement to the newspaper. Robert Zimmerman, the plaintiffs' lead attorney in Pennsylvania, said the goal of the lawsuits is to get the weapon's design changed so that it's safe for the people who use it. New Hampshire was the chosen location because federal rules allow lawsuits against a company in its home state, Zimmerman said. Those lawsuits have been assigned to one federal judge in Concord. 'Sig is trying to strategically decentralize this case and make every client go to 100 different courthouses and slow down the process for both sides to get a just outcome, which is a trial that is decided on the merits,' Zimmerman said in an interview. Sig Sauer gets protection The lawsuits accuse Sig Sauer of defective product design and marketing and negligence. During the House debate, Roy said he owns a P320 and it's one of his favorite guns, 'but you can buy them with or without safeties.' The plaintiffs say 'the vast majority' of P320 models sold don't come with the safety, 'even as an option.' Sig Sauer says some users prefer the faster draw time granted by the absence of an external safety; others want the feature for added security. Sig Sauer offered a 'voluntary upgrade' in 2017 to include an alternate design that reduces the weight of the trigger, among other features. The plaintiffs' lawyers say the upgrade did not stop unintentional discharges. States, industries and immunity 'It's not a great look' when a manufacturer can carve out a statutory exemption for itself, but it's also not unusual, said Daniel Pi, an assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law. In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill in 2023 following a deadly school shooting that gives gun and ammunition dealers, manufacturers and sellers additional protections against lawsuits. This year, Tennessee lawmakers passed another bill to further limit liability for gun companies. In a different industry — pesticides — governors in North Dakota and Georgia signed laws this year providing legal protections to Bayer, the maker of Roundup, a popular weed killer. Bayer has been hit with 181,000 claims alleging that the key ingredient in Roundup causes non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Bayer disputes those claims.
