21 septembre 2020 |
International,
Terrestre
SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR
Industry and Congress were deeply skeptical of the Army's suggestion to enter a government design team in the OMFV competition. Now the Army has backed off.
WASHINGTON: The defense industry, Congress, and thinktanks breathed a unanimous sigh of relief at the Army's latest announcement on the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle program. In an email to reporters Thursday afternoon, the Army said it would no longer seek to enter its own design team in the OMFV competition, a controversial plan it had suggested in a draft Request For Proposals in July.
“The whole purpose of publishing a Draft RFP was to elicit feedback from our industry partners. We take their feedback seriously,” the Army's armored vehicle modernization director, Brig. Gen. Richard Ross Coffman, told me. “We won't always agree — and must act in the best interest of our soldiers — but we will always listen.”
Thursday's announcement is the latest twist in the decades-long struggle to replace the Reagan-era M2 Bradley, a heavily armed and armored troop carrier. It also suggests the notoriously bureaucratic and inward-looking Army acquisition system is finally starting to take defense contractors seriously when they say something is a bad idea.
“The only surprising thing here is that the Army may have actually taken into account and listened to the over 500 industry comments received,” said Bill Greenwalt of thinktank AEI, a former Hill staffer who spent years reforming military procurement. “I expect they got an earful.”
While the Army's announcement Thursday said it was still “carefully reviewing and analyzing industry comments (over 500 in total) [for] the next few weeks,” the message from industry on the government team seems to have been so strong the service didn't want to wait any longer to take action.
https://breakingdefense.com/2020/09/omfv-army-team-wont-compete-with-industry-for-bradley-replacement/
