April 23, 2024 | International, Land
July 20, 2020 | International, Land
OMFV: Army Wants Smaller Crew, More Automation
The draft RFP for the Bradley replacement, out today, also opens the possibility for a government design team to compete with private industry.
By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.on July 17, 2020 at 1:51 PM
WASHINGTON: The Army is giving industry a lot of freedom in their designs for its future armored troop transport, letting them pick the gun, weight, number of passengers and more. But there's one big exception. While the current M2 Bradley has three crew members – commander, gunner, and driver – a draft Request For Proposals released today says that its future replacement, the OMFV, must be able to fight with two.
Fewer humans means more automation. It's an ambitious goal, especially for a program the Army already had to reboot and start over once.
The other fascinating wrinkle in the RFP is that the Army reserves the right to form its own design team and let it compete against the private-sector contractors. This government design team would be independent of any Army command to avoid conflicts of interest.
If the Army does submit its own design, that would be a major departure from longstanding Pentagon practice. But the Army has invested heavily in technologies from 50mm cannon to automated targeting algorithms to engines, so it's not impossible for a government team to put all that government intellectual property together into a complete design.
The Army has embraced automation from the beginning of the Bradley replacement program, and that's been consistent before and after January's decision to reboot. OMFV's very name, Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle, refers to the service's desire to have the option to operate the vehicle, in some situations, by remote control – eventually. But an unmanned mode remains an aspiration for future upgrades, not a hard-and-fast requirement for the initial version of the vehicle scheduled to enter service in 2028.
By contrast, the two-person crew is one of the few hard-and-fast requirements in the draft RFP released this morning. It's all the more remarkable because there few such requirements in the RFP or its extensive technical annexes (which are not public). Instead, in most cases, the Army lays out the broad performance characteristics it desires and gives industry a lot of leeway in how to achieve them.
That's a deliberate departure from traditional weapons programs, which lay out a long and detailed list of technical requirements. But the Army tried that prescriptive approach on OMFV and it didn't work.
Last year, in its first attempt to build the OMFV, the Army insisted that industry build – at its own expense – a prototype light enough that you could fit two on an Air Force C-17 transport, yet it had to be tough enough to survive a fight with Russian mechanized units in Eastern Europe. Only one company, General Dynamics, even tried to deliver a vehicle built to that specification and the Army decided they didn't succeed.
So the Army started over. It decided heavy armor was more important than air transportability, so it dropped the requirement to fit two OMFVs on a single C-17; now it'll be satisfied if a C-17 can carry one. In fact, it decided rigid technical requirements were a bad idea in general because it limited industry's opportunity to offer ingenious new solutions to the Army's problems, so the service replaced them wherever it could with broadly defined goals called characteristics.
And yet the new draft RFP does include a strict and technologically ambitious requirement: the two-person crew.
Now, since the OMFV is a transport, it'll have more people aboard much of the time, and when an infantry squad is embarked, one of them will have access to the vehicle's sensors and be able to assist the crew. But when the passengers get out to fight on foot, there'll just be two people left to operate the vehicle.
A two-person crew isn't just a departure from the Bradley. This is a departure from best practice in armored vehicle design dating back to World War II. In 1940, when Germany invaded France, the French actually had more tanks, including some much better armed and armored than most German machines. But a lot of the French tanks had two-man crews. There was a driver, seated in the hull, and a single harried soldier in the turret who had to spot the enemy, aim the gun, and load the ammunition. By contrast, most German tanks split those tasks among three men – a commander, a gunner, and a loader – which meant they consistently outmaneuvered and outfought the overburdened French tankers.
A lot of modern vehicles don't need a loader, because a mechanical feed reloads automatically. But in everything from the Bradley to Soviet tanks, the minimum crew is three: driver, gunner, and commander. That way the driver can focus on the terrain ahead, the gunner can focus on the target currently in his sights, and the commander can watch for danger in all directions. A two-person crew can't split tasks that way, risking cognitive overload – which means a greater risk that no one spots a threat until it's too late.
So how do fighter jets and combat helicopters survive, since most of them have one or two crew at most? The answer is extensive training and expensive technology. If the Army wants a two-person crew in its OMFV, the crew compartment may have to look less like a Bradley and more like an Apache gunship, with weapons automatically pointing wherever the operator looks. The Army's even developing a robotic targeting assistant called ATLAS, which spots potential targets on its sensors, decides the biggest threat and automatically brings the gun to bear – but only fires if a human operator gives the order.
Now, industry does not have to solve these problems right away. The current document is a draft Request For Proposals, meaning that the Army is seeking feedback from interested companies. If enough potential competitors say the two-man crew is too hard, the Army might drop that requirement. The current schedule gives the Army about nine months, until April 2021, to come out with the final RFP, and only then do companies have to submit their preliminary concepts for the vehicle. The Army will pick several companies to develop “initial digital designs” – detailed computer models of the proposed vehicle – and then refine those designs. Physical prototypes won't enter testing until 2025, with the winning design entering production in 2027 for delivery to combat units the next year.
https://breakingdefense.com/2020/07/omfv-army-wants-smaller-crew-more-automation/
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April 19, 2021 | International, Aerospace
German defense minister vows to keep fighting for armed drones
German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said she will continue to push for armed drones in the military, after lawmakers this week insisted on keeping the Franco-German Eurodrone weaponless for now.
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November 3, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - November 02, 2020
AIR FORCE Akima Logistics Services LLC, Herndon, Virginia (FA6800-21-D-0002); DynCorp International, Fort Worth, Texas (FA6800-21-D-0005); M1 Support Services LP, Denton, Texas (FA6800-21-D-0003); PAE Aviation and Technical Services LLC, Arlington, Virginia (FA6800-21-D-0001); and Vertex Aerospace LLC, South Madison, Mississippi (FA6800-21-D-0004), have collectively been awarded an $835,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity multiple award contract for helicopter maintenance services in support of Air Force Global Strike Command, Pacific Air Forces, Air Education and Training Command, and Air Force District of Washington requirements. This contract provides helicopter maintenance, aircrew flight equipment maintenance and weapons maintenance services 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Work will be performed at Malstrom Air Force Base, Montana; Minot AFB, North Dakota; F.E. Warren AFB, Wyoming; Yokota Air Base, Japan; Fairchild AFB, Washington; Kirtland AFB, New Mexico; and Andrews AFB, Maryland. This contract is the result of a competitive acquisition and 11 offers were received. Fiscal 2021 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $14,521,850 are collectively being obligated at the time of award. Air Force Installation Contracting Center, Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, is the contracting activity. NAVY Huntington-Ingalls Industries - Newport News Shipbuilding, Newport News, Virginia, is awarded a not to exceed $284,285,022 fixed-price-incentive (firm target) modification to previously awarded contract N00024-15-C-2114, and a not-to-exceed $30,714,978 cost-plus-fixed-fee and cost plus incentive fee modification to previously awarded contract N00024-09-C-2116, for the accomplishment of CVN 79 single phase delivery and Joint Strike Fighter (F-35C) capabilities. The Navy is transitioning to a single-phase delivery approach to meet both Fleet requirements and a congressional mandate of ensuring that CVN 79 is capable of operating and deploying Joint Strike Fighter (F-35C) aircraft before completing the post-shakedown availability as codified in Section 124 of the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (Public Law 116-92). The single-phase delivery date is planned for June 30, 2024. Work will be performed in Newport News, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by June 2024. Fiscal 2018 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funding in the amount of $13,961,569 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity. Sodexo Management Inc., Gaithersburg, Maryland, is awarded a $124,391,335 firm-fixed-price modification P00043 under previously awarded contract M95494-18-C-0018 for the management and operation of mess halls in support of the Marine Corps Regional Garrison Food Services Program. Work will be performed in Washington, D.C.; Indian Head, Maryland; Quantico, Virginia; Norfolk, Virginia; Camp Lejeune, North Carolina; Cherry Point, North Carolina; Bogue, North Carolina; New River, North Carolina; Beaufort, South Carolina; and Parris Island, South Carolina. Fiscal 2021 military personnel (Marine Corps) funding in the amount of $27,431,955 will be obligated at the time of award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Marine Corps Installation Command, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity. Sodexo Management Inc., Gaithersburg, Maryland, is awarded a $121,791,100 firm-fixed-price modification P00038 under previously awarded contract M95494-18-C-0016 for the management and operation of mess halls in support of the Marine Corps Regional Garrison Food Services Program. Work will be performed in Camp Pendleton, California; San Diego, California; Twentynine Palms, California; Miramar, California; Yuma, Arizona; and Bridgeport, California. Fiscal 2021 military personnel (Marine Corps) funding in the amount of $27,440,774 will be obligated at the time of award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Marine Corps Installation Command, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity. Booz Allen Hamilton, McLean, Virginia (N00189-18-D-Z067); CACI Inc. – Federal, Chantilly, Virginia (N00189-18-D-Z068); Science Application International Corp., Reston, Virginia (N00189-18-D-Z069); Capstone Corp., Alexandria, Virginia (N00189-18-D-Z070); and Serco Inc., Herndon, Virginia (N00189-18-D-Z071), are awarded an estimated increased multiple-award-program ceiling-price of $92,834,859 via modifications P00003 to a previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity multiple award contract program that included terms and conditions for the placement of both cost-plus-fixed-fee and firm-fixed-price task orders to provide technical support services for functions such as chief information officer strategic support; data and information management; engineering support; information technology system support; network support; information assurance/cyber security; enterprise business intelligence/enterprise business analytics; software analysis; hardware maintenance and development; and business process reengineering in support of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, the Bureau of Naval Personnel, Navy Personnel Command, the Navy Manpower Analysis Center, Commander Naval Education and Training and Commander Navy Recruiting Command. This modification brings the total cumulative multiple-award-program ceiling to $342,538,913. The contracts run concurrently and the ordering period is expected to be completed by September 2024. Work will be performed in Millington, Tennessee (45%); Pensacola, Florida (27%); Arlington, Virginia (10%); various locations throughout the continental U.S. (16%); and various contractor facilities (2%). Operations and maintenance (Navy) funds will fund individual task orders with appropriate fiscal year appropriations at the time of their issuance. This contract action for the modifications is being executed on a non-competitive basis. The original multiple award contracts were solicited under full and open competition; the multiple-award-program ceiling increase is non-competitive utilizing the authority of 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(2) as implemented by Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-2. The Naval Supply Systems Command, Fleet Logistics Center, Norfolk Contracting Department, Philadelphia Office, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the contracting activity. Science Applications International Corp., Reston, Virginia, is awarded a $36,020,450 modification (P00005) to previously awarded, cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract N00421-18-D-0017. This modification increases the ceiling of the contract to continue to provide systems engineering support to include multi-discipline, integrated technical baseline evaluations, developmental progress assessments, cost, schedule, emerging technology and maturity of design assessments for all Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) acquisition programs in support of the NAVAIR Systems Engineering Department. Work will be performed in Patuxent River, Maryland (95%); various locations within the continental U.S. (4%); and various locations outside the continental U.S. (1%), and is expected to be completed in April 2023. No funds will be obligated at the time of award; funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. The Naval Air Warfare Center, Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. Integral Aerospace,* Santa Ana, California, is awarded a $9,230,400 modification (P00004) to previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract N00019-18-C-1036. This modification exercises an option for the production and delivery of 72 external fuel tanks in support of the F/A-18E/F and EA-18G aircraft. Work will be performed in Santa Ana, California, and is expected to be completed in May 2022. Fiscal 2021 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $9,230,400 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Burlington Apparel Fabrics, Greensboro, North Carolina, has been awarded a maximum $8,122,500 modification (P00010) exercising the second one-year option period of a one-year base contract (SPE1C1-19-D-1100) with four one-year option periods for cloth. This is a firm-fixed-price with economic-price-adjustment, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. Location of performance is North Carolina, with a Nov. 4, 2021, ordering period end date. Using military service is Army. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2021 through 2022 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. *Small business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2402363/source/GovDelivery/