Army Issues RFP For $6 Billion M113 Replacement: Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle Program

[unhappycamper]

http://defense.aol.com/2013/03/22/army-issues-rfp-for-6-billion-m113-replacement-armored-multi-p/



he Army wants to replace its Vietnam-vintage M113s (pictured) with a new Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle, the AMPV.

Army Issues RFP For $6 Billion M113 Replacement: Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle Program
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Published: March 22, 2013

~snip~

The bottom line: almost $1.5 billion for over 300 vehicles -- for a start. The RFP proposes a $1.46 billion contract in two phases: design, develop, and build 29 prototypes over four years -- the $388 million engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase, 2014 through 2017; and then build up to 289 production models over three years -- the $1.08 billion low-rate initial production (LRIP) phase, 2018-2020.

Beyond 2020, the Army plans to buy another 2,618 AMPVs over 10 years, for a total of 2,907, at an average manufacturing cost not to exceed $1.8 million per vehicle. (Weapons and electronics will add more, depending on the variant). That's about another $4.7 billion.

Of course, these are all pre-sequestration figures. President Obama has still not released his 2014 budget request. With Congress having just passed the 2013 spending bills yesterday -- halfway through the fiscal year -- and the automatic cuts of the sequester still set to happen, it's up in the air whether any big programs will survive intact, or at all.

Already the Army has had to slow down development of the AMPV's big brother, the Ground Combat Vehicle, and give up on competitive prototyping. So for AMPV, as with the revised GCV program, the Army will award just one development contract to one company. This saves money in the short run while raising the long-term risk that you won't like what you've bought but won't have an alternative.

[bluedigger]

1. It's about time.

Like any military procurement program it will bear watching for corruption, graft, and profiteering, but it clearly is time to replace these vehicles. They were considered outdated, inadequate, and unsafe by grunts back when I used a M577 (command version) in the '80's. If their replacements serve half as long and well, they would be a major success.

[Victor_c3]

2. Some platoons in the battalion I was attached to were still using 113s

When I was in Iraq in 2004, we even came across some old 113s in some of Sadam's motor pools.

Going through some of the armor we found at FOB Normandy (i.e. Muqdadiyah, Iraq) was like going through a military history museum of the 1960s. The Iraqi military was made up of such a hodge podge of vehicles it was comical. They had everything from US 113s, to Chieftans, to old broken down Leopards to all of the old Soviet era vehicles I had to memorize in my vehicle identification classes.

I spent the afternoon rummaging through a bunch of these vehicles and it was as if the Iraqi army went to the motor pool the day before the war and then never showed up again. They just left newspapers, books, and all sorts of equipment behind in their vehicles. It was very interesting to see that these guys were probably screwing off in their motor pools during "command maintenance" like we did in our motor pools.

The 113s were from the Vietnam era and the parts weren't even compatible with the 113s we had in 2004.