-ATV TAKES CENTRE STAGE AT AUSA
By Julian Nettlefold
25 Feb 09. Whilst JLTV held centre stage at last year’s AUSA Winter Symposium, this year’s centre stage was reserved for the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected All-Terrain Vehicles (M-ATV). The various contenders, BAE Systems, Oshkosh, Force Protection and Navistar all showed off their offerings for the Requirement whilst AM General showed off its uprated ECV-2 HMMV.
The M-ATV Requirement was generated by units of the 82nd and 101st Airborne in Afghanistan. They found that existing MRAP vehicles were too heavy to deploy off-road on the rough Afghan tracks, leaving he vehicles and their crews vulnerable to IED attacks. Thus the DoD rushed through the Urgent Requirement for the M-ATV which required for two Production-ready vehicles by the 18-23rd of February – some task.
M-ATV must be capable of carrying a crew of 4 passengers plus one gunner with a ballistic Coupon Test is required but not publically released with a kerb weight of 25,000 lbs..
The vehicles have already been delivered to Aberdeen Proving Ground and a down-select will be made on March 23rd from the 5 Competitors who will then provide three additional vehicles for further testing.
Then one or possibly two vehicles will be selected for the initial production contract of 2080 vehicles with a possible total of 10,000 vehicles.
BAE Systems
Dennis Morris the new President of BAE’s Global Tactical Systems (GTS) Division gave BATTLESPACE a briefing on the new structure released by BAE Systems last year. Global Tactical Systems is responsible for the FMTV, Caiman and the JLTV JV with Lockheed Martin vehicles and the RG South African Series of vehicles. Global Combat Systems, headed by Gary Slack, is responsible for Bradley and M113 vehicles, the U.K. and Swedish plants including Haaglunds and Bofors.
“Why were these changes made?” The Editor asked Dennis Mors.
“We needed a new structure to align our products with our markets and customers, this enables us to simplify our marketing and target specific customers such as Saudi Arabia, Poland and Greece where we are working on Requirements to supply trucks with our FMTV. We are also focussing on Readiness and Sustainment as part of the after-market process on a 25 Year Support process. We are also continuing dialogue with the Australian DoD for the delayed Land 121 Requirement which we will now bid through BAE Australia. India has a huge MRAP-type Requirement and our JV Company is looking at a lighter more mobile version.”
“What is your Product spread for GTS?”
“The company’s GTS business is a recognized leader in tactical vehicle production offering a wide range of heavy, medium and light tactical vehicle solutions to customers worldwide. GTS has pioneered many of the primary systems used by militaries and security forces around the world. The GTS product line includes multi-purpose military tactical vehicles, such as the U.S. Army’s Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles, armored fighting vehicles, mine protected vehicles, Caiman and RG31 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected, light armored vehicles, and police and security vehicles.”
“Your failure in down-select in the UK’s OUVS Programme and the end of Pinzgauer production in the U.K. has left you without an offering for that Programme and LPPV?”
“We offered our JLTV vehicles for OUVS but we could not obtain the required export documentation. That does not mean that we are out of the running for these Programmes.”
BAE Systems M-ATV Vehicles
BAE Systems has delivered two different M-ATV prototypes to the U.S.
Government for two months of testing and evaluation. Two different segments of the company’s Land & Armaments operating group, produced a version for consideration.
GTS M-ATV
The company’s Global Tactical Systems (GTS) submitted the GTS M-ATV prototype. GTS M-ATV incorporates the many lessons learned from development of the prototype Caiman Light MRAP and the rapid develop