The U.S. Army has opened up competition to design and build prototypes for its Bradley infantry fighting vehicle replacement, and on July 1, it released a request for proposal to the industry on the government contract website Sam.gov.
Details of the Request for Proposals (RFPs) cover both detailed design (Phase III) and prototyping (Phase IV) and are not currently made public.
Phases of the OMFV2020 program
Phase 1: Market Analysis (to be completed in 2020)
Phase II: During the digital design phase (2021 to early 2023), five competitors will create digital designs for the required chariots and prepare for preliminary design review (PDR). Subsequently, the vehicle design can be further developed in subsequent design phases. Selection criteria include performance, design technology maturity, procurement and operational rights and costs.
Phase III: In the detailed design phase (2023 to 2024), in April 2023, as a result of the study of virtual vehicles, up to three suppliers will be invited to refine their designs after taking into account the simulation results of the second phase and to build functional prototypes by July 2025.
Phase IV: The manufacture of three prototypes and their testing is the subject of the so-called prototype and testing phase (2025-2026), at the end of which a winner will be selected for mass production of OMFVs.
Phase V: Pre-series production (from 2027 onwards) will be used to produce pre-series OMFV vehicles, whose vehicles are planned to be extensively tested by government agencies.
Brigadier General Glenn Dean, executive officer of the Army's Ground Warfare Systems program, offered some insights into what the vehicle's design might need at the European Defense Show in Paris last month.
He said the approach to demand for optional manned vehicles was "fundamentally different" from the approach taken in the past.
The Army awarded contracts to five teams in 2021 to develop preliminary designs. Point Blank Enterprises, Oshkosh Defense (hanwha defense, a partnership between the two companies), BAE Systems, General Dynamics Land Systems, and American Rheinmetall Vehicles.
Raythien/Rheinmetall KF41 "Lynx" infantry fighting vehicle
Hanwha/Oshkosh is offering an Americanized version of the Korean K21 infantry fighting vehicle
BAE Systems, in collaboration with the Israeli company Elbit Systems, selected the chassis of the M2 "Bradley" infantry fighting vehicle as the base, installed a huge UT30 MK2 unmanned turret equipped with a 30 mm machine gun and a "spike" missile, known as the BR301 program.
Griffin III Infantry Fighting Vehicle of General Dynamics Land Systems, the only 2019 bid to submit a prototype vehicle, two crew members, 6 crew members, the main weapon is an XM913 50 mm machine gun, with an active defense system on the hull
Another cutting-edge company , Point Blank Enterprises , has never seen a prototype
Starting with the nine features, the industry team has been proposing designs and revising them over the past 12 months.
The Army has gone through several revisions to project metrics "to get the level of detail up slightly, but, frankly, we're not done yet," Dean said.
The requirements in the exposure draft are not considered final, as the design work will continue in the third phase of the plan.
At the highest level, Dean said, the Army wants to have a tracked vehicle that is considered "medium-weight" — between 40 and 50 tons — with at least one 30mm gun, preferably a 50mm gun (that's the XM913, where the main gun firepower has been determined).
XM913 artillery prototype gun, armor thickness of up to 200 mm within 1000 meters.
He said the car would accommodate two occupants (in other words, an unmanned turret) and six infantrymen who got off the bus (this is similar to Bradley, which was 3+7, previously 2+9 but could not be determined, which led to the 2019 flow mark), and applied more autonomy in a balanced way on the platform. The entire platform will be built using a modular open systems architecture.
"It's a must and a key because we think it's where we're going to be going," Dean said.
Dean said the Army wants the ability to "silently observe" and "move silently," meaning the vehicle can move with the engine off, meaning a hybrid-electric solution is needed. All five teams designed a hybrid electric vehicle in the final stages.
He noted that it's also important to reduce the vehicle's logistics footprint, and hybrid drive capabilities can help make that happen.
It must also be equipped with an active defense system.
The competition is fully open, and plans to select up to three teams to participate in the detailed design phase, followed by the prototyping phase. Written proposals will be submitted within 120 days.
In a July 1 statement, the Army said: "In the next two phases, the Army will conduct activities to mature the design of an optional manned combat vehicle (OMFV) and validate prototype performance in testing activities, including limited user testing." ”
The detailed design phase will take place in fiscal years 2023 and 2024 and the prototyping phase will begin in 2025. The Army statement noted that the Army plans to select three teams in the third quarter of fiscal 2023 to build up to 11 prototypes, two ballistic bodies and turrets, armor and provide digital engineering data.
The Army expects to select a company in the fourth quarter of 2027 to build low-speed production vehicles. The first batch of equipment units is planned for fiscal year 2029, and full-rate production is expected to begin in 2030.
The way the optional manned vehicle (OMFV) competes dramatically compared to nearly three years ago, when the Army required physical bidding samples to enter the competition. The Army received only one sample of a physical bid from General Dynamics Land Systems Company GDLS before the set deadline of October 2019. Defense News broke the news that the only other entry — the Bobcat KF41 from the Rheinmetall and Raytheon teams — was disqualified because it was not delivered on time to the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.
When The British Aerospace BAE Systems company that produced Bradley withdrew from the competition months before the deadline, the development timeline and requirements for the optional manned vehicle (OMFV) were already doomed to failure.
The Army eliminated competition for optional manned combat vehicles (OMFVs) instead of adopting just one option and took a step back to come up with a plan to better promote strong competition within a more reasonable timeline.
The Army abandoned the plan to request physical bidding samples at the outset and instead developed a five-phase work that began in the initial design phase, then moved on to the detailed design phase, followed by prototyping, testing, and production.