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28 May 14. BAE Systems announced the submission of its highly survivable low-risk solution for the U.S. Army’s Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) competition. The company’s offering addresses the critical need to replace the Vietnam-era M113 that the Army has identified as its top priority for the safety and survivability of soldiers.
“Today’s submission is the culmination of more than 15 years of concept development and validation and two years of internal development and responses to the Army to fill a critical capability gap for our soldiers,” said Mark Signorelli, vice president and general manager of Combat Vehicles at BAE Systems. “Our AMPV proposal provides an affordable low risk solution that is ready now and meets the Army’s survivability, force protection, and mobility requirements.”
BAE Systems’ AMPV capitalizes on the proven Bradley and Paladin Integrated Management designs, meeting the Army’s force protection and all-terrain mobility requirements, enabling the AMPV to maneuver with the rest of the Armored Brigade Combat Team (ABCT). The company maximized commonality within the AMPV family of vehicles and the ABCT to reduce risk and provide significant lifecycle cost savings to the Army.
“BAE Systems built and demonstrated prototypes for each of the five variants in order to provide the best solution for the Army,” said Greg Mole, AMPV capture director at BAE Systems. “Given the maturity of our design and the commonality both within the AMPV and ABCT fleets, we feel this offers significant opportunity to accelerate the program’s schedule.”
The BAE Systems AMPV team includes DRS Technologies, responsible for power management, distribution, and integration; Northrop Grumman Corporation, responsible for Mission Command Mission Equipment Package design and integration; Air Methods Corporation, responsible for the design and integration of medical evacuation and treatment subsystems; and Red River Army Depot, responsible for vehicle teardown and component remanufacture. The company’s offering includes proven powertrain and drivetrain components from Cummins, L3 Communications, and LOC Performance that supports the ABCT industrial base. The Army terminated the M113 program in 2007 and has been working with industry for more than two years to maximize competition for the vehicle’s replacement. The service plans to award an initial contract for the 52-month engineering manufacturing and development phase in January 2015 with prototype delivery 24 months after contract award. (Source: Yahoo!/BUSINESS WIRE)
28 May 14. GDLS bows out of US Army’s AMPV competition. General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) will not bid on the US Army’s Armoured Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) programme and not take the army to court over a requirements dispute, officials said. GDLS “did not submit a proposal” on the 28 May deadline for the programme because “requirements and other provisions of the request for proposal (RFP) do not allow the company to provide a competitive solution,” a company spokesperson told IHS Jane’s in a statement. Still, GDLS is not entirely stepping away from AMPV and the spokesperson added that the company “will not pursue the matter in the Federal Circuit Court so as not to hinder the ability to continue to pursue its options to participate in the programme.” (Source: IHS Jane’s)
28 May 14. Rheinmetall wins major contract from Sweden for military trucks: joint order with Norway could push total value to €2bn. Rheinmetall has just booked another big order for its state-of-the-art, high-mobility truck families. In the medium term, Norway and Sweden intend to buy as many as two thousand military logistics vehicles with a total value of over €1bn. Following the Norwegian procurement authorities, Sweden too signed the framework agreement for joi