Industry has until Feb. 24 to submit offers responding to the final Request for Proposals (RFP) for a potential $5 billion Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) program expected to replace the venerable M113 armored personnel carrier and its family of vehicles.
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| M113 Fallujah Photo: DoD |
The Army expects to make one award, in the spring of 2014, according to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on the AMPV issued Sept. 24, the same month the service anticipated releasing the RFP, with full-rate production beginning in FY 2020.
The Army has about 3,000 M113 vehicles in service and wants something short of that, 2,897 vehicles as the Acquisition Objective, the Army program office said. The quantity could change depending on force structure reductions. The final RFP is only to purchase 29 EMD vehicles, with three LRIP options with 186-457 vehicles due to the ranged pricing.
The RFP does not specify a not-to-exceed Average Unit Manufacturing Cost (AUMC), while the draft AMPV RFP stated the Army wanted an AUMC no greater than $1.8 million in base year 2012 dollars.
BAE Systems revealed a prototype AMPV in October 2012 and has been refining its proposal ever since (Defense Daily, Feb. 11).
A number of other defense firms are likely to propose AMPV solutions. General Dynamics [GD] is reviewing the RFP to see if it will offer a proposal.
The initial M113 design belongs to the Food Machinery Corp. (FMC) and dates back to around 1960. It moved to FMC subsidiary United Defense, which in 2005 was bought by BAE.
The final RFP, released via the Army Program Executive Office Ground Combat Vehicles procurement network, covers an acquisition strategy consisting of two contracts: a cost-plus incentive fee contract for a 54-month Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) period and a fixed-price incentive contract with three, 12-month options for Low-Rate Initial Production (LRIP).
The acquisition is needed to address and mitigate current and future capability gaps, which the Army lists as force protection, mobility, reliability, and interoperability to support the armored brigade combat team across the spectrum of conflict.
The land service lays out some specifics, such as the threshold cost target as $90 per operating mile in fiscal year 2013 constant dollars. The service also considers an average operational tempo of 720 miles per year for live training, using this tempo for a 26-year life. This consideration, while used for most Army vehicles, was completely upended by the operational tempo of the past decade on service vehicles.
Additionally, the service said the AMPV shall have a minimum of 57 percent component commonality within the five variants, considering both functional commonality and vehicle commonality.
The Army doesn’t want a newly-designed vehicle, but a non-developmental vehicle, an existing or modified existing vehicle with current M113 mission equipment packages (MEP) transferred to the new platform.
The AMPV family of vehicles will consist of five variants. The first is a Mission Command (Mcmd) Vehicle to host current battle command systems, future replacements, and upgrades.
The second variant is a Mission Treatment (MT) vehicle. This variant will provide a surgical environment for immediate medical care for one patient by a four-person medical crew.
A Medical Evacuation (ME) vehicle will provide ambulance services and provide casualty evacuation for as many as four litters or six ambulatory patients with a crew of three medical attendants.
A General Purpose (GP) vehicle will operate throughout the battlespace conducting resupply, maintenance, casualty evacuation and other tasks.
The fifth variant will be the Mortar Carrier (MC) vehicle, providing immediate fire support to conduct fast-paced offensive operations.
The Army said funding for the EMD Phase is expected to be $70 million in FY ’15, $174 million in FY ’16, $114 million in FY ’17, $64 million in FY ’18 and $14 million in ’19.
LRIP funding is expected to be $244 million in Option 1, $479 million in Option 2, and $505 million in Option 3.
During EMD, contractors are expected to develop, design, model, simulate, fabricate and test all five AMPV variants.
A total of 29 prototypes are to be delivered to the government, as well as armor coupons, ballistic hull structures and data.
The government will discuss with the winning contractor ways to expedite EMD prototype deliveries to accelerate program milestones. The EMD effort will have cost and performance incentives.
Additionally, the government may offer an exchange agreement with the contractor to exchange Bradley and M113 vehicles for AMPVs.
All information on the RFP will be posted at: https://contracting.tacom.army.mil/majorsys/ampv/ampv.htm.