Representatives from major combat vehicle and component manufacturers will converge next week on Detroit Arsenal in Michigan, where they will each get an hour to sell Army officials on upgrades to the Stryker wheeled fighting vehicle.
Defined as “market research,” the Army cast a particularly wide net to investigate any and all technologies industry could offer in the short term to improve the Stryker’s combat performance. Because of the breadth of the solicitation, nearly every company in the land warfare business answered the call and will attend the upcoming industry days, an industry source told Defense Daily.
Photo: General Dynamics
Responses were due April 1 to a broad request for information (RFI) seeking general information on what improvements industry had immediately available for the Stryker vehicle in several areas: lethality, survivability, logistics, network connectivity and automotive enhancements.
About 75 companies of all stripes responded to the RFI, which is more comprehensive that an ongoing effort to mount a 30mm cannon, automotive enhancements and Active Protection Systems on Strykers deployed to Europe, according to a spokeswoman for the Army’s program executive office for Ground Combat Systems.
A prototype up-gunned Stryker passed a design review earlier this year, the first step in an effort to field a mixed brigade of improved and legacy Strykers in Europe in the short term. Original Stryker manufacturer General Dynamics [GD], won a $550 million contract in late March for Stryker program supply and another $48 million deal in April for retrofitting the Stryker fleet to maintain the appropriate vehicles’ configuration.
Aside from GD, most major defense contractors should be in attendance, as well as systems and weapon providers like Raytheon [RTN], BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin [LMT]. The Army has not made public details about its eventual acquisition strategy or timeline for picking and fielding items from the menu of offerings. Contractors are hoping for more clarity on timeline and requirements from the industry days, the source said.
The Army has scheduled three industry days at the arsenal for interested vendors to pitch technologies for a comprehensive capability upgrade to the Stryker, to include weapons, survivability, automotive improvements and command-and-control systems.
From May 11-13, those and other interested vendors who sign up will get 25 minutes of one-on-one time with Army officials and a half hour to walk around Stryker variants on static display at the arsenal. An infantry carrier variant, one with a blast resistant Double-V hull and another rolling-chassis Stryker will be on display.
All contractors will be asked to provide suggestions for what could make them competitive for future Stryker requirements, according to the Army.