BAE Systems va fournir un nouveau type de véhicule blindé pour l'armée américaine

24/12/2014 latribune.fr 

Le groupe britannique de défense a remporté un contrat allant jusqu'à 1,2 milliard de dollars (986 millions d'euros) portant sur la construction d'un nouveau type de véhicule blindé pour l'armée américaine.

L'année finit bien pour BAE Systems. Le groupe britannique de défense a annoncé mercredi avoir remporté un contrat allant jusqu'à 1,2 milliard de dollars (986 millions d'euros) portant sur la construction d'un nouveau type de véhicule blindé pour l'armée américaine. Le contrat initial porte sur la fabrication de 29 véhicules avec cinq variantes pour 383 millions de dollars. Une option prévoit ensuite la fabrication de 289 unités supplémentaires pour un total de 1,2 milliard de dollars.

Il s'agit de remplacer les antiques M113 datant de la guerre du Vietnam avec de nouveaux véhicules blindés polyvalents (AMPV), a expliqué BAE Systems dans un communiqué. Le groupe britannique, très implanté aux États-Unis, a précisé que la fabrication va commencer immédiatement dans ses usines de Pennsylvanie et du Michigan.

General Dynamics will have to decide whether to pursue a more formal protest regarding the fairness of the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle program. (US Army)

Apr. 7, 2014 - By PAUL MCLEARY – Defense News

WASHINGTON — The April 4 rejection by US Army Materiel Command of a General Dynamics Land Systems protest disputing the fairness of the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) competition puts the ball squarely back into GD’s court, which has the option of lodging a more formal protest with the Government Accountability Office — a move that would halt all work on the program for weeks or even months.

On Feb. 14, GD filed a protest contending “the AMPV solicitation provides a competitive advantage” to competitor BAE Systems, since BAE “has years of Army test and performance data” on the M113 personnel carrier, which the competition has been launched to replace.

“In our view, the AMPV procurement process is not consistent with the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984, requiring a “full and open competition,” the company said in a statement.

These statements could indicate the company will file a protest with the GAO during the 10-day window that began when the initial protest was denied on April 4.

At issue is the fact that the Army wants competitors to incorporate parts from the Bradley fighting vehicle and the M113 in their AMPV designs, both of which are made by BAE. General Dynamics contends that it doesn’t have all of the relevant historical information on those parts to fully compete. The company has long said that it would submit a version of its eight-wheeled Stryker vehicle, of which the Army currently fields nine full brigades and a smaller Special Operations contingent.

BAE launched its own salvo on Friday afternoon, saying that it “is pleased” at the decision and that “cost savings, political expediency and business reasons do not justify putting soldiers’ lives at risk. The Army has had this solicitation in the works for two years and has adjusted requirements based on industry feedback to accommodate the broadest number of competitive offerings possible.”

On April 3, 10 members of Congress wrote a letter to the Pentagon’s top weapons tester, Frank Kendall, urging the Army to rewrite the five-month-old request for proposals. The lawmakers wrote that the Army should rework the program with a view toward “allowing for a mixed fleet of both track and wheeled vehicles” to meet the requirements for the competition.

In other words, the Army should split up the buy for 3,000 AMPVs between Stryker and Bradley variants.

The lawmakers also outlined the core reason for GD’s protests: the dearth of new ground vehicle programs in the Army’s near-term future.

“Given the intensely restrictive budget requirement the Army faces, the AMPV might be the only new vehicle entering the fleet for decades,” they wrote.

Rep. Ralph Hall, R-Texas, who represents the district that houses the Red River Army Depot — and its 4,500 jobs — which performs a great deal of work on Bradleys, issued a statement on Friday applauding the decision.

“No current vehicles meet the survivability, mobility, and reliability upgrades outlined in the Army’s competitive bid,” he wrote. The program “cannot be delayed a year or more by rehashing the multi-year bidding process.”

On March 4, Hall sent a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel pitching BAE’s AMPV bid as good for the local economy, saying that “if BAE Systems is awarded the contract, jobs will be protected at Red River Army Depot and additional jobs could be added.”

March 25, 2013 defense-aerospace.com

(Source: US Army TACOM; issued March 21, 2013)

Draft RFP Sections

The AMPV program is releasing a Full DRAFT Request for Proposal (RFP) for industry review and comment. This DRAFT RFP, including all associated Exhibits and Attachments, are DRAFT ONLY, Pre-decisional, and are anticipated to be changed before the final RFP is released.

-- Questions from Industry

All questions or comments must be submitted through the AMPV email address at usarmy.detroit.acc.mbx.ampv-program@mail.mil. Please note that ALL comments submitted in regard to the DRAFT RFP WILL NOT be released to the public and will be used for program planning purposes only. These responses MAY BE used to update the RFP if the Government determines it is in the program's best interest. All questions submitted will be posted, along with their responses, on the AMPV webpage for Industry to review.

PM AMPV remains committed to review all Industry's comments and address all questions and concerns related to the posted DRAFT RFP. Please be advised that comments and questions received close to the date of a final RFP release may not get answered or posted to the website. Due to uncertainty of a final RFP release date, the Government may lack sufficient time to respond, but will make every attempt to reconcile and post responses to submitted questions. Any previously submitted questions, which are not reconciled before a final RFP, may be resubmitted and answers will be posted until receipt of proposals.

-- *Questions to Industry (RFI Questions)
In addition to receiving industry feedback and comments based on the released DRAFT RFP and associated documents, the AMPV team would like industry feedback on specific sections within the DRAFT RFP. The following is a list of questions for industry to review and provide comment: Request for Information (RFI) Questions

-- *Please note that ALL responses to the RFI Questions WILL NOT be released to the public and will be used for program planning purposes only. These responses MAY BE used to update the RFP or Acquisition Strategy, if the Government determines it is in the program's best interest.

-- Industry Day
A second Industry Day is planned for April 23, 2013. The purpose of this event is to update industry on AMPV program requirements and provide an overview of the DRAFT RFP. Details regarding industry day, including how to register, can be found on the following link: 2013 AMPV Industry Day

-- Instructions on Requesting CUI/CLASSIFIED/FOUO/Export Controlled Information

Information on this webpage, including the referenced attachments below, marked as Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) is subject to export control. See the following instructions for access to CUI, in addition to all Classified and FOUO information: (link).


Click here to reach the RFP page, listing all related documents, on the US Army TACOM website.


(EDITOR’S NOTE: The AMPV is thus described in the RFP:
“The Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) is the proposed United States Army program for replacement of the M113 Family of Vehicles (FOV) to mitigate current and future capability gaps in force protection, mobility, reliability, and interoperability by mission role variant within the Heavy Brigade Combat Team (HBCT).
The AMPV will have multiple variants tailored to specific mission roles within HBCT. Mission roles are as follows: General Purpose, Medical Evacuation, Medical Treatment, Mortar Carrier, and Mission Command.
AMPV is a vehicle integration program. Existing Mission Equipment Packages (MEPs) will be transferred into the AMPV platforms where applicable.)

Nov. 22, 2012 - By PAUL McLEARY Defense News

More than 100 civilian employees at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama are facing layoffs in January unless the U.S. Army decides before the start of the year to refurbish more than the 47 Stryker vehicles it has already contracted for as part of the upgrade program.

On Nov. 8, General Dynamics Land Systems issued notices under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act to 139 employees working on the Stryker exchange program, in which parts from old vehicles are used to complete new-build Strykers.

The move follows recent announcements by vehicle makers Oshkosh Defense and BAE Systems that they are letting go of 450 and 145 employees, respectively, as a result of a slowdown on Army ground combat vehicle programs.

While General Dynamics is waiting until January to begin the layoffs, it does not appear any new Stryker work will come in by then — if it ever does — according to Scott Davis, the head of the Army’s Ground Combat Systems office.

Davis told Defense News the Army “is thinking through and prioritizing whether we want to continue” with its Stryker exchange program, part of a public-private partnership between General Dynamics Land Systems and Anniston.

The Army and General Dynamics will finish producing the 47 Strykers under contract early in 2013, but “I don’t hold an active requirement or the dollars to continue it” after that, Davis said. He added that his shop is preparing to brief Army leadership on the cost and benefit of modernizing Strykers in December, while a decision on which platforms and which capabilities might be upgraded is expected in February.

The Stryker exchange program harvests usable parts from older, flat-bottomed Strykers and uses them to complete builds on new double-V-hull Strykers (DVH) at Anniston. Company officials say the exchange program will not only give the Army more durable combat vehicles but also drive the cost down from $2.4 million for a new DVH to $1.6 million for an exchange vehicle.

Without new DVH contracts, operations at the facility will drop to 13 vehicles a month, well below the minimum requirement of 20 vehicles per month needed to keep the workforce at current levels.

The Army has ordered 789 DVH Strykers, and about 500 new DVH vehicles have been delivered from the Anniston facility.

The Stryker program is not the only one Army leadership is fretting over.

When it comes to overall budget pressure, Davis said, “we cut through the skin and we’re down to the bone” on development activities, and “any additional pressure will make it extremely difficult” to continue to modernize and upgrade all variants of combat vehicles on schedule.

One of Davis’ chief priorities is to identify ways to protect both the manufacturing and the intellectual industrial base in the face of budget cuts, he said. The number of companies that can design and build ground combat vehicles is limited, he added, saying, “the intellectual industrial base is mostly BAE and GD — it’s those engineers and logisticians who provide the design improvement skills” that he is looking to retain.

One of the big points of contention when it comes to the service’s ground vehicle industrial base is the battle over the Abrams tank line in Lima, Ohio. The Army doesn’t want to begin the next major round of Abrams modernization until 2017, and on Sept. 27, it awarded General Dynamics an eight-year, $395 million contract to study what capabilities it can add to the platform when those upgrades begin.

Davis said the Army and General Dynamics are studying the critical skill sets that need to be preserved at Lima and how much workflow will have to go through the line to sustain it at the minimum level of 33 tanks a month. The Army is conducting a four-month industrial base study to flesh out those issues.

One thing Davis said might help is foreign military sales (FMS).

“We’re very, very much in support of putting FMS in Lima,” he said. “We’ve got active cases in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Morocco [for Abrams tanks], and to a large degree, that will help span that gap of U.S. production.”

The Saudi and Moroccan deals have not been fully approved by the U.S. government, but Davis said “if things go the way we anticipate it with FMS, we feel good about” the Lima Abrams line being able to meet its minimum production rate.

Because the Army and industry face the quandary of Abrams, Stryker and Bradley production ending in 2014, other new programs — such as the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV), the M113 replacement — have taken on added importance. The service has said it plans to buy up to 3,800 AMPVs, making the program “pretty critical” for the overall health of the industrial base.

Oct. 21, 2012 - By PIERRE TRAN Defense News

PARIS — Nexter is sending its XP2 armored vehicle technology demonstrator and CTA International 40mm cannon to this week’s Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) show, both bearing the French company’s hopes of winning orders from the U.S. Army and other forces, a company executive said.

The target for the XP2 is the U.S. Army’s Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) program, intended to replace the M113 troop carrier, said Patrick Lier, Nexter vice president for international affairs.

The M113 saw service in the Vietnam War.

The XP2 is a six-wheel-drive vehicle in the 20-ton class, designed to show “capability for innovation and know-how in armored vehicles,” Lier said.

The French vehicle is designed to provide a high level of protection up to the NATO Standard Agreement 4 level, offer high mobility and be equipped with advanced onboard electronics and 360-degree camera vision, Lier said. The vehicle can carry nine soldiers and rations for two days, and its motor can be changed in an hour, he said.

Nexter faces stiff competition.

General Dynamics is expected to pitch its Stryker, while BAE Systems has said it will offer a modified Bradley infantry fighting vehicle.

Navistar has said it is interested in competing with a partner.

The U.S. Army, which could buy up to 3,800 units, has said it would likely opt for a vehicle already in service and has set a cost target of $2.4 million per vehicle.

Another potential buyer of the XP2 is the Australian Army, with a requirement for about 1,500 armored vehicles under its Land 400 program, Lier said.

The Australian planners have not yet said whether the new vehicle will be tracked or wheeled, Lier said.

Nexter developed the XP2 as a contender for the French Army’s Véhicule Blindé Multi-Role (VBMR), a multirole armored vehicle, for which the previous Army chief of staff set a price cap of 1 million euros ($1.3 million) for the planned 1,000 armored personnel carrier units of the VBMR program.

The cased telescoped CTA 40mm gun is aimed at arming the U.S. Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV), Lier said.

Army procurement is looking to buy more than 1,800 GCVs that will be armed with a 25mm gun, but that choice of caliber has sparked comments of “not enough,” Lier said.

Nexter hopes to spark interest with its CTA 40mm, built under the CTA International joint venture with BAE.

Nexter also hopes to sell the CTA 40mm to Australia, which is looking for a gun for its infantry fighting vehicle, Lier said.

“The 40mm could be a serious contender,” he said.

The GCV is intended as replacement for the Bradley.

Nexter sent its Véhicule Blindé Combat d’Infanterie (VBCI) to AUSA two years ago, and the Caesar 155mm artillery piece last year.

The French company had hoped the VBCI might be picked for the Ground Combat Vehicle, but the requirement for a tracked unit left the wheeled infantry fighting vehicle out in the cold.

10.10.2011 KMW - army-guide.com

Outstanding levels of tactical, operational and strategic mobility, compelling combat effectiveness and maximum survivability are key requirements imposed on modern military vehicles today – whether they are designed primarily for combat, command and control, mission-specific roles or transport.

In contemporary conflicts, where the threat is often asymmetric yet deadly, protecting troops deployed in harm’s way from hostile fire, IED attacks, CBRN agents and even extreme climates conditions has become a top priority for commanders worldwide: around the clock and in every branch of every service.

This is reflected in the current procurement plans of the armed forces of many nations, including the Bundeswehr’s GFF/GTF project to develop protected C4I and mission-specific vehicles as well as protected transport capacity.

Under this programme, Rheinmetall and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) of Germany have joined forces to develop a highly protected family of armoured multipurpose vehicles (AMPV) in the weight class up to 9 ton. Their design and layout take full account of operational experience accumulated by the German armed forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Engineered exclusively to meet the needs of the modern military, the AMPV family consists of two separate branches.

The AMPV,a prototype version of which is currently undergoing qualification by the German armed forces, is slightly over five metres long, two metres wide and two metres high. Empty, it weighs 7.3 tons and can carry a two-ton payload. The highly protected vehicle cell consists of a self-supporting steel hull with composite armour. Spall liners, reinforced flooring and cellular design offer excellent protection against mines and IEDs; while add-on armour modules supply extra ballistic protection.

High mobility likewise contributes to a vehicle’s overall battlefield survivability, and the AMPV design reflects this. The vehicle’s robust chassis, featuring independent wheel suspension, is engineered to withstand maximum punishment. An automatic transmission, permanent all-wheel drive, automatic differential locking management and combat wheels with a central tyre inflation system combine to assure superb mobility even in the toughest terrain.

A patrol version of AMPV (with an unprotected load space) will be available, as well as mission module carriers with a safety cell extending all the way back to the rear of the vehicle. For enhanced lethality, a remote control weapon station up to calibre .50 can be mounted on any AMPV vehicle.

Extremely compact, all members of the AMPV family largely consist of identical components, especially the logistically relevant parts of the vehicle. Moreover, their essentially uniform, highly ergonomic design makes all AMPV vehicles easy to operate as well as facilitating logistics and training.