Combat Vehicles

The office of the Pentagon's top weapons tester has concluded that only one element of the Army's Boeing-built Early-Infantry Brigade Combat Team Increment 1 is "operationally suitable," dealing the key service modernization effort a blow on the eve of a major review by top Defense Department acquisition officials on whether to proceed with fielding the new capabilities.

While mostly
optimistic about the new direction announced in the Army's revised Ground
Combat Vehicle request for proposals last week, experts and industry officials
voiced concerns about the program's new contract configuration, its seven-year
time line and constricting government budgets -- with one analyst going so far
as to call the effort "doomed."

After months of reviews and revisions, the Army today re-released its solicitation for the technology-development phase of the Ground Combat Vehicle program, emphasizing affordability targets and "trade space" that will allow industry increased design freedom.

In a move
that could have broad implications for the future of Stryker modernization, the
Army recently waived a requirement that the in-production double-V hull variant
of the vehicle must be transportable by a C-130 aircraft, service and industry
sources told Inside the Army last week.

Army officials have quietly begun to pave the way for a new brigade combat team design that would boost the number of maneuver forces available to commanders, an idea vehemently rejected by the service just five years ago under the mantra of modularity, according to service officials and a previously unreported memo issued by Training and Doctrine Command over the summer.

BAE Systems continues to push a Bradley-based solution for replacing the Army's outdated fleet of M113 armored personnel carriers.

In a bid to compensate for cutbacks over the last 10 years, the Army plans to bolster funding for its heavy vehicles programs -- to include Stryker, Abrams and Bradley -- by transferring some of the $2 billion it will harvest in 2012 through curtailed spending on overhead operations, according to a senior service official.

The Army released a market survey on Oct. 20 to collect information from industry on what technologies are available to upgrade the Abrams tank in terms of power and power management. The Abrams is currently outfitted with a turbine engine that provides approximately 10 kilowatts of power.