An M2A3 Bradley Fighting Vehicle from the 5th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division moves into position to conduct a fire systems check at Presidenski Range, Trzebian , Poland. (US Army Sgt./Wallace Bonner)
WASHINGTON – Again, it’s up to American Rheinmetall and General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) to build the replacement for the Army’s M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, after the service announced today that those two teams are the only ones to advance in the high-profile career.
Under the Optionally Manned Combat Vehicle (OMFV) competition.no, Two years ago five teams were awarded contracts to produce concept designs for the service. The service then reopened the competition to all interested parties and, based on proposals submitted at the end of last year, they have now narrowed the list down to two names. Rheinmetall and GDLS will split the $1.6 billion development funding pot, and the eventual winner can claim a $45 billion production deal, the Army said.
“I think we’re on much firmer ground this time, from a realistic standpoint of achievable requirements,” Army acquisition chief Doug Bush told reporters today.
“This is our at least third, maybe fourth, attempt to replace the Bradley and this one will be successful,” he added later.
BAE Systems, Oshkosh Defense and Point Blank Enterprises are not receiving additional dollars to continue, and service officials today did not disclose how many additional companies submitted ultimately unsuccessful bids. It was also not immediately clear whether one or more of those companies would protest the decision, but Bush said the service has “anticipated that potential.”
Today’s announcement represents a slight change in the plans of the service, which previously could select three companies to proceed to the next two phases of the program. In the end, the military decided it would be too expensive.
“Focusing our resources on two ensures that both will be adequately funded — it was an informed decision about resources, but one that also allows us to remain competitive,” Bush said. “It’s kind of … a sweet spot between the two demands that we had.”
The duo will now embark on the next two phases of the program, ultimately leading to what is expected to be a single winner. For the next phase, Phase 3, teams will be tasked with focusing on detailed design activities to mature their vehicle project. This phase is expected to culminate in a critical design review leading to Phase 4, or prototype construction and testing activities.
It is during this period that the two teams will build and test up to 11 prototypes each (seven for contract award with an option for four more), along with two ballistic hulls and turrets, armor coupons and twin digital models, as reported. a request released in July 2022 and Maj. Gen. Glenn Dean, the program executive officer for land combat systems.
If the military and industry can successfully overcome this performance period, the service intends to select one team continue low-cost initial production in 2027, with the intention of achieving the first unit-equipped milestone in 2029 ahead of full-rate production.
In separate statements to Breaking Defense, both winning teams praised today’s announcement.
Gordon Stein, vice president and general manager of US operations at GDLS, said his team is “proud” of its innovation, research, development and investment for the program.
“Our very affordable XM30 development approach maximizes performance according to Army requirements and delivers a mission-specific vehicle,” added Stein. “Our XM30 was designed from the ground up in our digital engineering environment, enabling efficient and agile integration of transformative capabilities into a platform that embodies the Army’s vision for common systems infrastructure architecture of ground combat”.
Meanwhile, Matt Warnick, CEO of American Rheinmetall Vehicle, said his company and team are also “privileged and honored” to have been selected.
“Together with our teammates, ARV will deliver a vehicle with the most modern protection, firepower, mobility and power generation capabilities available, ensuring our soldiers dominate future battlefields,” he said. add Warnick. The Rheinmetall team includes L3Harris Technologies, RTX, Textron Systems, Allison Transmission and Anduril Technologies.
What this future vehicle might look like is a little clearer today, thanks to a new name. No longer officially the OMFV program, Army officials said today it will be called the XM30 Mechanized Infantry Fighting Vehicle effort, at least for now.
Brig. Gen. Geoffrey Norman, the cross-functional team director for the next general combat vehicle, also revealed new details today, including that the combat vehicle will fit eight soldiers (two crew members and six dismounted) and feature with a remote turret, the development tower. XM913 50mm cannon, anti-tank guided missiles and machine guns. Each team has also proposed its own active protection system to shoot down incoming air threats such as rocket-propelled grenades.
Because the service is building the vehicle to be manned by one less person than the current Bradley crew size, Bush said he is keeping an eye on the development of automation.
“These two crews are a big deal and the technologies behind this success will be [the] something we will look at very closely”, he added, but the Army has to overcome problems of cognitive load, since there is one less operator.
In addition, Dean also noted that the service decided to separate the software acquisition track to help on that front, but said the service won’t begin that acquisition activity until 2024-2025.
Time will tell if the military can be successful in coming up with dollars and nailing down a design so that it can finally carry soldiers inside a Bradley replacement vehicle, especially since this is its fourth attempt. After false starts under the Future Combat Systems and Ground Combat Vehicle umbrellas, the Army launched its initial OMFV competition that was eventually scrapped in January 2020.
A number of factors led to this decision, including the withdrawal of BAE Systems from the competition and the disqualification of the Rheinmetall team. The Army was left with only the GDLS sample bid and ultimately determined it had a “response problem” and chose to scrap the competition. Army leaders quickly recovered this time and relaunched the OMFV competition with the goal of providing companies with more flexibility to design unique concepts not tied to strict requirements during the initial phases.
For example, during the concept design phase, the Army provided companies with a list of vehicle “features” rather than firm requirements that some blamed for derailing the previous competition. This list included survivability, mobility, growth, lethality, weight, logistics, transportability, manning and training.
However, during the early phases, a couple of issues emerged that Army program officials consider essential. The first is the desire for a smaller vehicle, and the second is for it to have a hybrid-electric design, Dean told reporters in October 2022.
“We’ve gone from very large vehicles to much smaller ones along the way and we’ve seen all five current participants opt for hybrid-electric designs; this is an important change for us”, he added.
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