The Army is in the market for a new light tank to accompany infantry brigades into combat and the service is not prepared to wait around during a protracted development program.
A contract award for Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF) should occur this time next year and the winning vehicle manufacturer or industry team is expected to deliver vehicles within 15 months of that date, according to Maj. Gen. David Bassett, program executive office for Ground Combat Systems (PEO GCS).
“Everybody can talk a good game, everybody can walk the [show] floor and everybody’s stuff is ready, but this is put-up or shut-up time,” Bassett said during a press conference at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual expo in Washington, D.C.
“Industry has got to bring us mature designs capable of moving rapidly in this prototype development phase,” he said. “Give me a bid sample this spring and then be prepared to deliver vehicles within 15 months of contract award.”
Industry responses to the draft request for proposal (RFP) published in late September are due Oct. 12. The new MPF program office will take stock of the comments and incorporate some into the formal RFP that should be published in the middle of November, said David Dopp, project manager for Mobile Protected Firepower.
Bassett has set an aggressive schedule for MPF with proposals due next spring followed by a contract award in early fiscal 2019, which begins Oct.1, 2018, “as soon as we can get dollars,” Bassett said. Industry should deliver prototype vehicles 15 months after a contract is in hand and an evaluation unit should have hands on them for testing within six months, he said. That schedule is contingent on Congress providing adequate funding, he added. The program cannot get off the ground under a continuing resolution.
“By next spring we should be testing bid samples on this program,” Bassett said. “Part of the reason you’re not seeing more MPFs on the floor is because industry is preparing, right now, to get those into our proposal evaluation. I haven’t started paying them, yet. But industry has started on the MPF program today.”
Without a final RFP, the Army’s exact requirements for MPF have been targets of speculation for about a year – at least since the program was officially articulated by service officials at last year’s Association of the U.S. Army annual meeting.
Now PEO GCS has established the MPF program office under Dopp and is more forthcoming with exactly what it wants in what most involved have called a “light tank” for lack of a better description.
“I don’t want to say it’s a light tank, but it’s kind of like a light tank,” Dopp said.
The tracked vehicle should have a 105mm gun, which is the original caliber carried by the M1 Abrams tank before it was up-gunned to a 120mm cannon. A driving requirement for the MPF’s size is that two should fit on a C-17, which should put it between 25 and 35 tons.
Requirements likely will include reactive armor and active protection systems (APS) to provide sufficient crew protection at a lower weight than traditional armor.
“It has similar firepower, but it’s not going toe-to-toe with a tank, but it’s for the infantry,” Dopp said. “It goes where the infantry goes. It breaks through bunkers. It works through targets that the infantry can’t get to. It’s a smaller version for the things that a tank does.”