The Army is moving forward with its revised Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) acquisition strategy, releasing on Friday a draft Request for Proposal (RFP) for industry review and comment, ahead of a planned June release of the final RFP.
When fielded, the AMPV is expected to mitigate current and future capability gaps in force protection, mobility, reliability, and interoperability by supporting the Armored Brigade Combat Team (ABCT) across the range of military operations.
“The Army remains firmly committed to the success of the AMPV program to provide the needed protection and mobility to our soldiers,” said Scott Davis, program executive officer for Ground Combat Systems. “This direction allows the Army to take positive steps to ensure we affordably deliver this needed capability.”
Over the past year, the Army has diligently undertaken efforts to examine vehicle requirements, technical capabilities and existing technologies as part of the AMPV program.
The draft RFP, and its nearly 100 attachments, gives industry the opportunity to review recent changes and provide comments to the Army before Industry Day meetings April 23. The final RFP is scheduled to be released in June.
BAE Systems has already said it plans to propose a Bradley-based AMPV solution (Defense Daily, Feb. 11).
The Army expects to choose one vendor at Milestone B for the Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase. A Cost Plus Incentive Fee (CPIF) contract for EMD with three years of Fixed Price Incentive Fee (FPIF) Low Rate Initial Production options will be awarded to one contractor. The contract award is anticipated for the third quarter of 2014 and be incrementally funded.
The winning contractor must provide 29 prototype vehicles, including hardware, tools and test equipment, armor coupons, ballistic hulls and data.
“The EMD phase of the AMPV program is structured so that all threshold requirements of the EMD P-Spec should be achievable and affordable at or below the Average Unit Manufacturing Cost (AUMC) of $1.8M (FY12 dollars)” based on production quantities and assumptions in attachments, the draft said.
The AMPV Family of Vehicles will replace the five mission roles currently performed by the M113 Family of Vehicles by transferring the current M113 Mission Equipment Packages (MEP) to a new vehicle platform. The AMPV vehicle fleet will consist of five variants tailored to specific mission roles within ABCT: the general purpose, mortar carrier, medical evacuation, medical treatment, and mission command vehicles.
The current M113 has been in service for almost five decades and while it has been continuously upgraded over the years it has simply reached its full potential on the modern battlefield. The new AMPV will be designed to incorporate all of the Army’s current systems with additional Space, Weight, Power and Cooling (SWaP-C) to allow for future growth.
The AMPV effort is being led by Product Manager Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle, which falls under leadership of the Project Manager, Armored Brigade Combat Team within the Program Executive Office for Ground Combat Systems
Find the draft RFP at:http://contracting.tacom.army.mil/majorsys/ampv/RFPwebpage.htm.