By Ann Roosevelt
Army officials are concerned about completing the buy of High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), after incumbant BAE Systems lost a competitive rebuy of the Family of Tactical Vehicles (FMTV) to Oshkosh Corp. [OSK], leaving a procurement gap for the launcher built on an FMTV chassis that offers soldiers and Marines the precision firepower of the family of multiple launch rocket system (MLRS), an official said.
The HIMARS system, first fielded in 2005, has deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
The combat-proven HIMARS can fire all variants of the Guided MLRS (GMLRS) rocket and Army Tactical Missile System missiles. Lockheed Martin [LMT] produces HIMARS and GMLRS.
The Army’s concern comes because while the HIMARS launcher was not part of the FMTV competition, BAE was producing the chassis that Lockheed Martin uses to build HIMARS.
Col. David Rice, Army program manager for Precision Fires, Rocket and Missile Systems, said the FMTV award to Oshkosh put the HIMARS program “in an immediate bind.”
“Where we are in the program right now, we’re have two more years of procurement that lead to two more years of production,” Rice said.
There is about a 14-month gap between the contract award and actually receiving the first articles, he said. The government supplies the BAE FMTV chassis to Lockheed Martin in Camden, Ark.
The HIMARS chassis delivered to date have the Improved Crew Protection cab. That design is proprietary to BAE.
The cab was a user requirement, and the government worked with BAE to design and build the cab, Rice said.
“We were in a crunch once Oshkosh got that award–we can only buy chassis in the year funded to buy them,” Rice said. The first year of procurement is taken care of, with the help of the tactical vehicles office, which was able to get the HIMARS program “on the Army’s last buy of FMTVs from BAE for penultimate year of procurement.”
“We’re still in a crunch for the very last year of procurement of those chassis,” he said. Since fiscal year 2011 is yet to begin, advance authority to procure the systems is needed.
“We’re working that action right now,” he said. “It will put us in a bind if we’re not able to get the last 44 chassis from BAE.”
Some options include, buying the data rights from BAE, but it’s expensive, and “I can’t afford it,” Rice said. Another option is looking at the Oshkosh cab, and when it would be ready to deliver, what would be different, would the difference be militarily significant and put soldiers at risk.
“This situation has really opened a big Pandora’s box,” Rice said.
Yesterday, Army and Lockheed Martin officials were at Lockheed Martin facilities in Camden–where HIMARS and a family of munitions including the GMLRS are produced–to attend ceremonies for the delivery of the 10,000th GMLRS. GMLRS’ reliability rate exceeds 98 percent and, to date, more than 1,500 rockets have been successfully fired in combat, the company said.
Scott Arnold, vice president for Precision Fires at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, said, “This production milestone was made possible through the commitment of our hardworking employees here in Camden…”
Col. Tony Daskevich, Army Capability Manager for Field Artillery Rocket and Missiles, said in a teleconference yesterday the GMLRS is a “tremendous asset for us in current operations [and it is] just the latest system evolved over past 30 years to meet the needs of the warfighter, and continues to do so in Iraq and Afghanistan today.”
Lt. Col. Anthony Gonzales, commander, 1-14 Field Artillery (HIMARS), said he was grateful for the opportunity to thank the people who build the rockets and HIMARs.