By Ann Roosevelt
By May 27, the Army wants to hear from industry on its market survey questionnaire for a competitive Humvee recapitalization and modernization effort.
The work would encompass all potential Humvee customers including the Navy, Marines, Air Force, Special Operations Command, non-Defense Department components and Foreign Military Sales customers.
Depending on available funds, there is a potential requirement to competitively recapitalize and modernize not only the Army’s current fleet of 60,000 Uparmored Humvees (UAH), with other customers, the potential total quantity is about 100,000 vehicles over the next 20 years.
AM General and the team of Granite Tactical Vehicles and Textron [TXT] are interested in the competitive program (Defense Daily, Dec. 23).
The Army’s Tactical Wheeled Vehicle Strategy (TWVS), released earlier this year, said the Humvee, currently the service’s primary light tactical vehicle, was out of balance in several areas, including model-type and modernization. For example, it said the Army has a shortage of Humvee ambulances while having more armament carriers than it requires.
Additionally, modernization in each component is unbalanced: the Army National Guard has a higher percentage of armored Humvees in its fleet than the active component despite having fewer requirements.
The Army’s stated TWVS priorities are to balance the Humvee fleet in terms of the model mix to meet requirements; armored, armor-capable and unarmored levels; and on hand quantities and modernization level between components. The service also wants to divest Humvees that are excess to requirements after the fleet is rebalanced, and recapitalizing or repairing Humvees returning from theater (Defense Daily, Jan. 28).
The Product Manager, Light Tactical Vehicles (PM LTV) is conducting the survey for the Up-Armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, Modernized Expanded Capacity Vehicle (MECV).
Improved protection while maintaining performance is the intent behind the TACOM Life Cycle Management Command’s MECV program effort.
“This offers an opportunity to insert technology and improve survivability while in the process of performing vehicle overhaul tasks,” the document, found on the TACOM ProcNet Warren Web site, said.
The survey wants to know such things as an estimated rough order of magnitude unit cost for a proposed vehicle based on an estimated quantity of 800-2,800 per year for five years, what technologies are critical to meet a Technology Readiness Level 7 for the MECV, and what major assemblies might be retained and reused from current vehicles. The current deployed fleet has reduced performance while significant increases in operation and maintenance costs, due to additional protection kits, enhancements for crew survivability, safety and platform mission requirements.
Based on the Tactical Wheeled Vehicle Strategy and future force structure plans, the UAH will be “required to play a significant part in combat, combat support and combat service support roles” beyond fiscal year 2025, the document said.
The PM LTV is considering a program that would recap the expanded capacity vehicle chassis into a MECV with enhanced capabilities.
“The intent of the program is to use a systems approach to improve crew survivability, restore payload capacity and automotive/mobility performance” while incorporating lessons from recent Operational Need Statements, the survey said.
The government plans a phased, best-value trade-off source selection acquisition, and now currently intends to evaluate proposals and fully functional vehicles in a competitive selection and downselect process.
Once a single MECV producer is chosen for a long term production contract, a full test and evaluation process for type classification and material release will begin.
The market survey will be used for program planning purposes.