Combat Vehicles

As the Army has hit speed bumps in its strategy for the multibillion-dollar Ground Combat Vehicle, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is moving full-speed ahead with an effort to revolutionize vehicle manufacturing to foster the open-source design of a prototype GCV, according to a DARPA announcement.

As the Army regroups after suspending the Ground Combat Vehicle competition last week, some officials say the program's new way forward likely will shed the kind of reliance on high-risk technology development that sunk parts of the Future Combat Systems effort.

(Editor's note: This story was updated at 1:30 p.m. to include new information from the Army.)

Based on the findings of a special "red team" report, the Army is canceling its Ground Combat Vehicle request for proposals process and intends to issue revised requirements that will allow industry teams to bid again some time in the future.

Congress has approved a Pentagon reprogramming request to transfer funds directly into the Stryker program's double-V hull protection effort, according to documents sent to the Defense Department comptroller's office last week.

In a prior approval reprogramming request sent to Congress in June, the Pentagon sought to shift $102 million in Stryker savings -- left over from reduced survivability kit requirements -- to test double-v-shaped hull variants being developed by General Dynamics in cooperation with the Army.

With a make-or-break test scheduled for September, Army and Boeing officials said last week preliminary equipment demonstrations of the Early Infantry Brigade Combat Team Increment 1 suite of equipment have showed marked performance improvements since last fall.

The House Armed Services Committee has denied a Pentagon reprogramming request to divert hundreds of millions of dollars from the procurement and modernization of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and Abrams tank to "other priorities," Inside the Army has learned.

The panel denied a measure in the Pentagon's omnibus reprogramming request that would have shifted $200 million from Bradley procurement and $143 million from both Bradley and Abrams research and development, according to sources in Congress and the Army.

BAE Systems announced last week it was awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to perform upgrades to the Army's Bradley Fighting Vehicle fleet, shortly after the House Armed Services Committee moved to deny the Pentagon's request to divert funding from the Bradley program to "higher-priority programs."

An official from Anniston Army Depot, AL, described the work-intensive process for resetting and repairing combat and battle-damaged Stryker vehicles for defense industry officials at a conference in Tysons Corner, VA last week.