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03 Nov 22. OMFV race revs up: All 5 competitors bid to build Bradley replacement prototypes. With the different designs converging on similar physical specs – weight, powerplant, weapons – the competition comes down to digital intangibles: AI, electronics, and ease of upgrade.
In a vital vote of confidence for a once-troubled and still controversial program, all five industry teams competing to design the Army’s future troop carrier have submitted bids for the next phase, Breaking Defense has confirmed. Now comes the hard part: turning digital designs into working vehicles. By mid-2023, the service plans to pick three teams to move on to building prototypes of a high-tech Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) to replace the Reagan-era M2 Bradley. Bids were due on Tuesday.
“We’ve gotten the easy things out of the way,” one Army official told Breaking Defense, speaking candidly on condition of anonymity.
Five teams — led respectively by American Rheinmetall, BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Oshkosh and upstart Point Blank Enterprises — received contracts last year to develop initial digital designs for OMFV. Some have decades of experience making US Army vehicles, others are throwing their hats in the ring for the first time, but all have already gone through three rounds of intense feedback from the Army and revisions to their designs, increasingly converging on similar physical designs:
- a tracked vehicle (rather than wheeled) with hybrid-electric drive, which both reduces demand on fuel supplies and allows stealthier “silent watch” and “silent maneuver” modes;
- an unmanned turret boasting a 50mm autocannon (or a 30mm with option to upgrade), keeping the entire crew in the less exposed and heavily armored hull;
- a two-person crew — down from the Bradley’s three — assisted by extensive automation, plus passenger space for six infantry soldiers.
That’s up from the four or five fully equipped foot troops that can ride in Bradley, but down from the full squad of nine the Army hoped for with the earlier attempted programs. While painful, this reduction in crew size and passenger capacity is critical to keeping down the overall weight and volume of the vehicle, making it easier to fuel, maintain, and transport.
Because of the iterative process, the official expected that “these designs are going to be very similar on things the layman would consider, [such as] size, weight, crew, weapons. [Instead,] the differential will be along the lines of artificial intelligence, predictive maintenance.”
That the Army can afford to focus on such stretch goals shows how far the OMFV program has come since 2019, when its very survival was in doubt. But the Army’s long history of failed procurements still leaves ample reason for uncertainty. And with the driving threat for armored vehicle combat, the Russian military, disintegrating in Ukraine, the US Army has yet to make a clear case for OMFV’s relevance to a Pacific war with China.
for replacement, with decades of upgrades having maxed out its electrical system and weight capacity. In fact, the mid-weight OMFV is the Army’s third attempt to replace the Bradley, which first entered service in 1981 and can sits at 25 to 35 tons depending on variant. The under-armored Future Combat System (26 tons) was cancelled 2009 after the Army spend roughly $20 bn , and the overheavy Ground Combat Vehicle (60-plus tons) was cancelled in 2014 before prototypes were even built.
As for whether the Army or other military services will adopt the autonomous technology, Stuart Young, DARPA program manager for ALIAS, said he’s “very confident” but “the question has to do in what form or fashion.”
In 2019, the Army decided it needed a Bradley replacement to enter service by 2026 and the only way to meet that tight schedule was to have companies deliver full-up working prototypes — at their own expense — by Oct. 1. Only one company, General Dynamics, even tried to meet that deadline, and it was promptly disqualified for failing to meet requirements — requirements that the Army itself soon realized they were unrealistic. There was no way to carry armor thick enough to meet all likely threats and transport a full squad of nine infantry and be light enough to fit two vehicles on a C-17 air transport.
So, in a rare public reversal, the Army admitted its mistake and rebooted the program with a longer timeline, less rigid requirements and more funding for industry. In the new, multi-phase approach, the service would pay companies to develop designs before requiring them to commit to building prototypes.
So, now, with all these commonalities, what distinguishes the different entrants? That’s hard to tell, entirely by design, because the Army and the competitors are keeping details close. But there are still clearly different approaches among the five teams.
The five teams competing for OMFV divide, roughly, into outspoken outsiders and tight-lipped insiders.
Two companies with no track record of building heavy armored vehicles for the US Army are offering variants of existing foreign designs, and both spoke in detail for this story:
- American Rheinmetall, a subsidiary of the famous German armsmaker, is offering a version of the Lynx, already on order by Hungary. It’s partnered with Raytheon, Textron, and other US firms.
- Oshkosh, celebrated for rugged civilian and military trucks like the JLTV, has teamed with Korean conglomerate Hanwha to offer a version of the Korea Army’s K21.
A Hanwha K21 variant, the AS21 Redback, is competing with a variant of the Rheinmetall Lynx for a big Australian contract.
Two other teams are led by the US-based companies that, between them, have produced every US Army armored vehicle since the 1980s:
- General Dynamics makes the iconic M1 Abrams heavy tank, the MPF light tank and the wheeled Stryker.
- BAE Systems makes the M109 mobile howitzer, the M2 Bradley and its updated but downgunned support variant, the AMPV.
Both companies are drawing on their extensive experience but building all-new designs, and both limited themselves to brief, bland statements. They haven’t even released concept art of their offerings.
Then there’s the outsiders’ outsider: relatively tiny Point Blank Enterprises of Florida, best known for making body armor, which has branched out into helicopter armor and some highly sensitive surveillance vehicle programs. Point Blank has posted sleek CGI video of its OMFV concept, for which it’s partnered with several well-respected small and midsized firms. The company provided some additional information in an interview.
So there clearly is a culture gap, with the competitors that are outsiders to the US armored vehicle market making a much bigger public play than the insiders with long connections to the Army’s armored corps. That said, don’t draw excessively sweeping conclusions from how much companies are willing to talk to the press. The Rheinmetall and Hanwha vehicles are already on the market, so people know a lot about Lynx and Redback already; if those teams had all-new, as-yet unseen designs like GDLS and BAE, they might be just as guarded.
“We have an all-new, purpose-built vehicle based on the Army requirements,” a BAE spokesperson said. “No vehicle available in any fleet today meets those requirements.” BAE deferred all further inquiries to press briefing set for sometime later this month.
While Rheinmetall and Oshkosh are both offering variants of existing designs, in their conversations with Breaking Defense, both companies emphasized how much they’ve changed in response to feedback from the US Army. Both Lynx and Redback have slimmed down and lost weight to meet the US requirement. Both have reduced crew from three to two and passengers from eight or nine to six. Both have moved from manned turrets to unmanned and from diesel powerplants to hybrid.
“The Australia program, it’s a much larger, much different vehicle, different number of dismounts, different capability,” said Pat Williams, Oshkosh vice president & general manger. of Army & Marine Corps programs. “The United States Army wants a much smaller, much lighter, still heavily protected vehicle with enhanced lethality and optics.”
The Army’s desires have evolved, not just industry’s designs. “The Army realized that, based on their [original] requirements, they were getting a very large vehicle,” said Michael Milner, American Rheinmetall’s director of business development & strategy. “So they went back in, they tweaked some requirements here and there, which allowed us to reduce the size of the vehicle.”
The Army has made tough trade-offs. In particular, a smaller crew gets overwhelmed more easily, with potentially fatal consequences in combat. As early as World War II, German panzers with three-man turrets – commander, gunner, and loader – consistently outfought Soviet T-34s with better guns and armor but only two men in the turret, which forced the commander to double up as the gunner, let alone French tanks with just one. With OMFV, the Army is betting heavily on automation to help maneuver the vehicle and even identify threats, although the computer won’t open fire without human authorization. For at least some missions, the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle could operate entirely by remote control — hence “optionally manned.”
“That’s probably one of the most challenging aspects of this program, how do I take a three-soldier crew and break that down into a two-soldier crew?” Milner said. “What can be fully automated? …What are those things that, because of current policies, you can’t fully automate, [e.g.] you have to have a soldier in the loop when you actually press the fire button? … And there some things we can’t automate at all because we’re just not there yet.”
Self-driving tanks, for instance, are proving even harder than self-driving cars. “We’re able to provide a lot of automation features and hooks for when technology’s available,” Milner said, “ [but] it’s still very difficult to drive off road autonomously.”
The new tech demands have fostered new tech partnerships. Rheinmetall has allied with defense behemoth Raytheon to launch mini-drones from Lynx and with upstart Anduril to develop autonomy software. Meanwhile, Oshkosh has brought aboard Pratt & Miller and Qinetiq, two robotics companies that together won an Army competition for an experimental unmanned scout, the Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV) – Light.
Another critical but abstruse aspect of OMFV’s electronics is modularity: Every piece of software and hardware, from every vendor, must be compliant with an evolving Army standard known as GCIA. (That’s a mercifully short nested acronym for GCS (Ground Combat Systems) Common Infrastructure Architecture).
All the competitors have collaborated with the Army on defining the GCIA standards, Oshkosh’s Williams said, and compliance is a major criterion in the competition. “There are technical requirements for the capability and performance of the vehicle, but there’s also a significant evaluation on your ability to conduct digital engineering and compliance with the GCIA,” he said. “You’re evaluated on your ability to operate within that standard.”
“Getting that [standard] defined was really, really hard,” the Army official said — but it’s critical. The goal is to make future upgrades plug-and-play, without extensive bespoke integration traditionally required for each new feature. This way the Army can easily and affordably keep the vehicle cutting-edge throughout its decades of projected service. In other words, what OMFV has the potential to grow into is at least as important to the Army as what it can do today. (Source: Defense News Early Bird/Breaking Defense.com)
03 Nov 22. US Army digs deeper to develop robotic breachers. The U.S. Army is digging deeper to develop robotic breacher vehicles for the force as it heads into a prototyping effort that will help it to define requirements for a future capability. The service awarded a contract in May this year to Cybernet, a specialist in robotics and autonomous navigation, for a robotic applique that will be installed on Assault Breacher Vehicles, creating prototypes that will undergo evaluation for about 18-24 months.
“The Assault Breacher Vehicle remote control system … is a fully tracked combat engineer vehicle designed to breach minefields and complex obstacles … one of our highest risks [and] threats out there to our soldiers today,” Brig. Gen. Luke Peterson, the Army’s program executive officer for combat support and combat service support, told Defense News in a recent interview.
The Army expects to pass through a preliminary design review for the prototypes in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023, with the delivery of the first prototypes scheduled for the second quarter of fiscal 2024, Peterson said.
The prototype effort will inform longer-term Army requirements, he added.
The Army waded into concept development for robotic Assault Breacher Vehicles in May 2019 at Yakima Air Base in Washington state.
As part of the Joint Warfighting Assessment exercise, two of the vehicles controlled by a Marine Corps unit tackled obstacles atop a desert plateau. Both robotic vehicles were controlled from a single command vehicle.
The first Assault Breacher Vehicles employed a mine-clearing line charge, creating a path for the second to fill a tank trench. The battlefield preparations paved the way for an assault force to move on an enemy location.
While the first breach exercise took two and a half hours, the second time around took 30 minutes less, proving robots could at least accomplish the same breach in roughly the same amount of time as a manned operation would take.
The evaluation raised questions about how to deploy such capabilities and protect them, how to avoid enemy detection, how to move them off the battlefield if they broke down, to how to design a vehicle that could be considered expendable and therefore be abandoned on a battlefield if necessary.
Industry is also thinking about the problem set.
At the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference last month, General Dynamics Land Systems brought a new concept it calls the TRX Breacher. The tracked, 10-ton robotic technology demonstrator would support the Army’s desire to have robots execute the dull, dirty and dangerous missions, the company said.
GDLS partnered with Pearson Engineering, which is providing an obstacle reduction kit.
The breacher robot is capable of keeping up with formations, and is transportable on CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopters and C-130 aircraft, the company said.
The team also designed the robot for hybrid power and gave it the ability to generate exportable power to support mission command operations.
(Source: Defense News)
02 Nov 22. Arquus and PT Pindad present the ANOA 3 at Indodefense 2022.
French leader of military mobility solutions Arquus is exhibiting at Indodefense 2022, the first edition since 2018. Arquus is eager to renew its commitment to Indonesian defense and to strengthen its ties with major Indonesian Defense companies such as Arquus’ long-term partner PT Pindad.
On the occasion, Arquus is proud to present a VAB MK3 APC (Armored Personnel Carrier) on Defend ID’s booth, under Arquus’ partner, state-owned company PT Pindad’s flag. The VAB MK3 is exhibited in a configuration specifically thought for Indonesia, with several adaptations conducted by PT Pindad: the ANOA 3.
That modern, well-protected and equipped APC showcases Arquus’ and PT Pindad’s joint cooperation to meet the needs of the Indonesian army and law enforcement units. Already in service and combat-proven in various armies around the world, the VAB MK3 is Arquus’ flagship on the 6×6 market. It is a modern, NATO-compliant vehicle that Arquus constantly upgrades to better answer the operational needs of the operators on the battlefield.
The VAB MK3 is a very agile and well protected vehicle, which can serve as an APC or an IFV (Infantry Fighting Vehicle) depending on the mission at hand. Its very compact architecture and low silhouette makes it a vehicle very well adapted to high-intensity conflicts against opponents equipped with multiple reconnaissance and aggression solutions. This concept proves once again its validity as modern combat vehicles tend to grow taller and bigger, which increases their visual signature on the battlefield.
Arquus also presents large-scale models for VAB MK3, Bastion and Fortress on its booth, to showcase its complete range of defense and security vehicles, as well as its ability to partner with companies on the long run. Such a cooperation can include vehicle design, production, support and upgrade during the whole life of the equipment to fully answer the evolution of the operational needs.
ARQUUS & PT PINDAD: 15 YEARS OF TECHNICAL & INDUSTRIAL PARTNERSHIP
Arquus and PT Pindad have been running a long-term and successful relationship over the past 15 years. Throughout these years, Arquus has been supplying PT Pindad with major components and parts which have been integrated in Indonesian-made armored vehicles.
In the framework of that cooperation, Arquus has notably supplied powerpacks for ANOA 6×6 APC vehicles and BADAK 6×6 IFV, currently serving in the Indonesian Army. Arquus has also supplied rolling chassis for the KOMODO 4×4 multipurpose vehicle.
At Indodefense 2022, Arquus and PT Pindad renew their partnership, which has been running successfully for 15 years and has been recently completed by a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed at Eurosatory 2022 in Paris to establish future collaboration in land systems for Indonesia. This MoU covers the development and production of new armored vehicles, as well as corresponding systems and services. With this agreement, both companies agreed to turn an exemplary relationship into an official, and larger scale partnership.
The aim of this MoU is to cooperate in the field of military vehicles and systems to address the current needs of the Indonesian Armed Forces. Such cooperation will cover multi-purpose armored vehicles, reconnaissance vehicles, APC and IFV, as well as remote-controlled weapon stations. It could also include development, product qualification, production and assembly, plus aftersales services.
On top of its long-running relationship with PT Pindad, and the hundreds of ANOA, BADAK and KOMODO armored vehicles proudly serving daily, Arquus is a major supplier for the Indonesian Army. Arquus has indeed produced and delivered a total of 80 vehicles directly to the Ministry of Defense, including VAB, VBL and Sherpa Light vehicles in various configurations.
That cooperation could go further in case of new needs, with 4×4 and 6×6 vehicles, both for Defense and Security needs, as well as corresponding services and systems, such as drivelines and mobility elements or RCWS (Remote-Controlled Weapon Stations) such as the Hornet range, already in service within the French Army. Arquus is looking forward to developing its relationship with Indonesia.
02 Nov 22. Future of RAF Frontline Support. A glimpse into how exo-skeletons and robots could be used to support the Royal Air Force’s frontline aircraft was revealed today at RAF Coningsby, home to the UK’s Typhoon fleet. BAE Systems and the Royal Air Force are exploring how fast jet support could be carried out smarter and faster using transformative technologies as well as greener, sustainable solutions and digital twinning. The innovations could significantly reduce costs and improve the availability of front line Typhoon fighter jets and, in the future, Tempest.
These technologies could be used to reduce fatigue and chance of injuries among support crews as well as improve the speed of maintenance on aircraft.
Some of the projects being trialled include:
- Exoskeletons – allowing aircrew and maintenance teams to handle greater loads safely;
- Autonomous co-bots – free-moving robots could work in tandem with the exoskeleton users assisting with training and maintenance tasks;
- Augmented Reality headsets – allowing data to be visualised in new ways, offering aircraft maintainers hands-free access to technical publications and the capability to view a digital twin of the aircraft and its maintenance history;
- Sustainable operations – delivering advanced synthetic training to pilots and aircrew whilst maximising use of renewable resources to help the RAF meet its target of net zero by 2040.
Nick Sharples, Head of Technology Delivery, Support and Training for BAE Systems’ Air sector, said: “Working with our partners to trial new technologies and solutions for future fast jet support helps us explore new ways of delivering leading-edge capabilities and value for money to the RAF on the front line, whilst also reducing the environmental impact of our operations through synthetic training and investment in electric products.”
Group Captain Daniel Penter, Director RAF ASTRA, said: “The pace by which technology advances is increasing all the time and it’s imperative that we explore with industry how best to harness this to enhance how we support the frontline.”
The trials at RAF Coningsby form part of a wider strategy to drive efficiency through the introduction of technologies, to develop new partnerships through collaboration across academia and small and medium enterprises and to contribute to UK jobs across the supply chain.
02 Nov 22. Australian and South Korean air forces sign aerial refuelling arrangement. The agreement will allow the RAAF and the ROKAF to expand their area of operations and improve interoperability.
The air forces of Australia and the Republic of Korea have formalised a bilateral air-to-air refuelling (AAR) arrangement.
An agreement regarding this cooperation was signed earlier in September.
It was signed between Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) air commander air vice-marshal Darren Goldie and Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) Operation Command commander lieutenant general Park Ha Sik.
The agreement will provide an opportunity for the forces to align the procedures and techniques of AAR.
The two air forces conduct joint exercises, training and other activities at regular intervals, and the latest aerial refuelling arrangement has added another significant component to this existing cooperation.
The new agreement will also allow the RAAF and the ROKAF to further expand their area of operations, while simultaneously improving the combined operational capability.
Park Ha Sik said: “As strategic partners, various collaborations between the two countries should take place in the future.
“This implementing arrangement will be the ironclad foundation for the development of the military cooperation between Australia and the Republic of Korea.”
According to Goldie, the latest agreement marks a major step towards bolstering the partnership between the two nations.
He added: “This helps further ensure that our two air forces can support one another in the skies, during exercises and training activities and on any future operations.
“The transfer of fuel when required to sustain and prolong our presence in the air is critical to our aircraft being able to successfully project air power.”
The most recent aerial refuelling engagement between the two nations was during the exercise Pitch Black 2022.
The exercise saw the deployment of the ROKAF’s KC-330 tanker aircraft to the Northern Territory, Australia. (Source: airforce-technology.com)
01 Nov 22. Oshkosh Submits Proposal for Phase 3 and 4 of OMFV Program.
Oshkosh Defense, LLC, an Oshkosh Corporation (NYSE: OSK) company, announced today it has submitted its proposal in response to the U.S. Army’s Request for Proposal (RFP) for the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) program Phases 3 and 4 (Detailed Design and Prototype Test and Build). The OMFV is the Army’s Bradley replacement program.
“We are proud to submit our proposal for Phase 3 and 4 of the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) program,” said Pat Williams, Vice President and General Manager, U.S. Army and Marine Corps Programs, Oshkosh Defense.
“Our decades of experience working with the U.S. military to support their unique mission requirements with innovative ground vehicle solutions positions us strongly for this next phase of the competition.
By partnering with Pratt Miller Defense, Hanwha Defense USA, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, QinetiQ, and Plasan, we have brought together an elite team of global experts in combat vehicle and lethality design, digital engineering, and manufacturing excellence.
We look forward to continuing our strong partnership and collaboration with the U.S. Army to deliver a capability to the Soldier that increases lethality, situational awareness, and tactical flexibility, while also offering the growth capacity for future mission systems as technologies and capabilities evolve.” (Source: ASD Network)
01 Nov 22. BAE Systems reveals OMFV design and prototype proposal. BAE Systems is bidding for the US Army’s Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) programme with a brand-new, purpose-built product to increase the vehicle’s flexibility and capability to adapt in the future.
BAE Systems has submitted its design and prototype (Phase 3 and 4) proposal for the US Army’s Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) programme, the company announced on 1 November.
BAE Systems has thrown its hat into the OMFV ring with a brand-new, purpose-built product.
This way, the company believes, the vehicle will not be ‘constrained by an old design’ and will have the ‘agility and ability to grow with the [US] Army into the future.’
It will feature an open-systems approach to support both existing and future technologies, BAE Systems said.
The company’s offering will also incorporate its hybrid electric drive architecture.
‘Backed by our millions of miles of Hybrid Electric Drive data, strong partnerships, and the experience necessary to design and deliver quality combat vehicles, BAE Systems’ offering will be agile, lethal, survivable and enable a two-person crew with the growth needed to support future requirements,’ Andy Corea, VP and GM for BAE Systems Combat Mission Systems, noted in a 1 November statement. (Source: News Now/Shephard)
01 Nov 22. Successful trial for autonomous vehicle with sensor technology. Scientists have field-tested their research into how the ground-breaking technology could be used to detect hazardous material.
The use of autonomous uncrewed systems for the recce and survey of areas for chemical and radiological material is a step closer to becoming a reality. The successful Hybrid Area Reconnaissance and Survey (HARS) field trial has taken place to demonstrate the concept of this cutting-edge research. The technology concept could help keep troops safe, improve efficiency and give the UK armed forces an operational advantage in the future.
This project is a collaboration between the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), the wider Ministry of Defence (MOD) and industry.
Dstl’s HARS Trial Lead Scientist Andy Martin said: “This trial aimed to test the feasibility of the concept and the maturity of the technology. This technology offers an innovative approach, which could significantly change the military’s capabilities in the future by reducing the hazard to soldiers and acting as a force multiplier. That is quite an exciting thing to be involved in.”
Some of the key challenges associated with the system are reducing the cognitive burden for personnel and using sensors, which are designed to be manually operated by personnel, applying sufficient automation in the system to allow that to be done remotely and autonomously.
Dstl Lead Operational Analyst Emma said: “We know autonomy could be useful to do those repetitive jobs where people are at risk and we can take them away from that risk. It has been nice to see it actually in practice, moving around out in the field and demonstrating that this is somewhere that, if we continue to put some work into it, we could make some real progress and do things very differently to the way they’re done now.”
The platform used in the trial was the recently developed concept demonstrator which consisted of an uncrewed ground vehicle (Viking) with a chemical and radiological sensor payload:
- 2 mass spectrometers to identify deposited chemicals on the ground
- 2 vapour sensors to detect volatile chemicals
- a gamma radiation spectrometer to detect and identify radiological hazards
Adding this sensor technology to a modular ‘pallet’ means it is more scalable and cost-effective, as it could then be mounted onto the appropriate platform as and when required.
The trial took place over 5 weeks on Salisbury Plain, working with soldiers from FALCON Squadron, 28 Engineer Regiment (C-CBRN) doing back-to-back trials to compare the concept against the performance of a crewed system.
14 Troop Leader, FALCON Squadron, Sebastian, said: “This trial is important because it is working with future technologies so hopefully we will be able to have more time on target, less risk to personnel and better capability to detect whatever is there.”
HORIBA MIRA Chief Engineer Andy Maloney said: “This has been a great example of MOD, industry, and end users working together with the expertise from Dstl and the stakeholders able to influence the systems we’re developing. The adaptability of the Viking UGV provides an excellent basis for development of new payloads and novel autonomous behaviours.”
Find out more about Dstl’s work including our autonomy and robotics capability and how to work with us: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/robotics-and-autonomous-systems-defence-science-and-technology-capability (Source: https://www.gov.uk/)
31 Oct 22. BMC moving ahead on Altay tank for Turkey amid supply chain questions.
“Production of Turkey’s first indigenous battle tank, the Altay, in development since the 1990s, is pressing ahead amid questions about the supply chain for a key component.
BMC, the Turkish-Qatari partnership that makes the Altay, says it will deliver the first two tanks to the Turkish government in 2023. Mehmet Karaaslan, general manager of BMC (defense), said the company plans to deliver eight units a month in an order for an initial batch of 100 units. The Altay contract eventually involves the production of 1,000 tanks.
Ankara has been negotiating to buy as many as 100 units of South Korean-made engines and transmission that will power the Altay. However, an industry source in the northeast Asian country said that the program is not moving ahead.
“There are serious tech-related and other problems,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Turkey’s top defense procurement official, Ismail Demir, has said that negotiations with two South Korean companies focused on the quantity of the power pack (engine and transmission), also called a power train, to be supplied for Turkey’s Altay program.
“We must set a quantity … We are talking about 50 to 100,” Demir said in March.
Turkey’s defense industry boomed over the last decade, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In 2010, The country had one company on the Defense News list of Top 100 Global Defense Companies. Presently it has seven—more companies than Israel, Russia, Sweden and Japan combined.
Turkey wants to make sure the Altay has enough foreign-made power packs until an domestically produced product is available.
In order to indigenously power the Altay, Turkey is developing the Batu engine. There is no local solution for the tank’s transmission mechanism.
In October 2021, Turkey and South Korea signed a letter of intent under which two Korean companies will supply engines and transmission mechanisms for the Altay.
Under the deals, South Korean manufacturers Doosan and S&T Dynamics would supply the know-how for engine and transmission mechanism for the Altay, which would be co-produced in Turkey. The co-production option did not go ahead as planned and the new understanding changed into off-the-shelf acquisition of the Korean power pack.
BMC won the multibillion-dollar Altay contract in 2018. The contract involves the production of an initial batch of 250 units, life-cycle logistical support and the establishment and operation by the contractor of a tank systems technology center. (Source: Defense News)
01 Nov 22. U.S. Army Selects BAE Systems’ Beowulf Vehicle with Allison Automatic for Its Newest Cold Weather All-Terrain Vehicle,
Allison’s 3000 Specialty Series™ transmission enables the Army’s Cold Weather All-Terrain Vehicle (CATV) to travel in extreme arctic conditions.
Allison Transmission, the largest global manufacturer of medium- and heavy-duty fully automatic transmissions for commercial and defense vehicles, will provide the transmission for the U.S. Army’s new Cold Weather All-Terrain Vehicle (CATV) program. The Allison-equipped Beowulf vehicle, from BAE Systems, will provide soldiers with capable, reliable mobility and increase their survivability in the harshest conditions that Alaska and the Arctic has to offer.
“The CATV program proves the versatility and power of Allison’s propulsion solutions. The CATV is a light tracked vehicle powered by a transmission normally used in a medium-duty truck or Stryker wheeled combat vehicle,” said Dana Pittard, Vice President, Defense Programs, Allison Transmission. “Our transmission successfully performed down to minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit, effortlessly moved a 10,000-pound payload, climbed 60-degree slopes and had the superior reliability and torque to accomplish the challenging Alaskan amphibious swim test.”
The U.S. Army operates in a variety of grueling conditions including Arctic regions and other extreme cold weather environments. The CATV is a tracked vehicle that will provide transportation for up to ten soldiers, emergency medical evacuation, communication and general cargo transportation on- and off-road in an arctic environment under a wide range of otherwise impassable terrain, including ice and extreme cold weather conditions, to support missions involving homeland security, humanitarian assistance and search and rescue.
The Allison 3000 Specialty Series™ transmission, paired with next generation controls, provides optimal maneuverability across varying surfaces, which is key to the effectiveness of the Beowulf vehicle’s articulated mobility system. In addition to the proven durability and reliability of the Specialty Series transmission, Allison engineers have continued to refine the transmission to accommodate future controls evolutions, enabling continued advancements in system performance over the life cycle of the vehicle. (Source: BUSINESS WIRE)
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TEK Military Seating Limited
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From its inception ProTEK seats have been designed around a family of innovative seat frames onto which tested and certified modules can be fitted to create a bespoke solution for the user. These include Blast protection to Stanag 4569 standards, vibration reduction, head and body protection, seat risers and turntables, fore & aft adjustment, and seat back rake along with viable seat dimensions without the need for additional tooling costs.
Contact: David Parkman
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