The Army has pushed back the deadline for proposals for upgraded medium tactical vehicles so companies that wish to challenge the incumbent manufacturer can have a closer look at legacy trucks.
Originally due at the end of January, submissions for the Family of Medium Tactical Vehicle (FMTV) model A2 are now due in early May. Contract award is now projected for second quarter of fiscal year 2018, Col. Dan Furber, the Army’s transportation system project manager, told Defense Daily in an emailed statement.
“In order to ensure a fair competition, the Army took great care to ensure each potential offeror could examine existing truck models and technical data, which the Army owns, in order to develop a competitive proposal,” Furber said.
“The consistent pursuit of fairness in a robust competition required a short delay, in order to provide potential offerors more time to understand the current vehicle baseline. We look forward to initiating the source selection process in the very near future.”
The Army in October issued a request for proposals (RFP) for FMTV A2, which is an upgrade to the A1P2 model that allows bolting varying levels of armor to the cab and chassis. Truck manufacturers – including potentially Navistar International [NAV], AM General and Mack Trucks – that have been locked out of the program are expected to pitch designs that could unseat incumbent Oshkosh Defense [OSK]. Mack Trucks is part of Sweden’s Volvo Group.
“The Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles A2 program remains an important effort to buy-back lost performance capability in our Army’s workhorse by modifying the design to improve its suspension, powertrain, power, and network capabilities,” Furber said. “The effort provides us the opportunity to fold important advancements into this platform’s future production, as we rebalance the truck to accommodate necessary protection and modern C4ISR systems.”
Opening FMTV to competition caught some in the tactical truck industry by surprise, though Oshkosh is being tight-lipped about why the Army decided to open the program to competition or its plans to retain incumbency. Oshkosh won the program from former incumbent BAE Systems, which had bought the company that made the trucks before it.
“With regards to the FMTV A2 program, we understand this truck and its mission today – because we build them,” an Oshkosh spokesperson told Defense Daily in an April 19 email. “We also understand the missions it now needs to perform – because we build the US government’s heavy, M-ATV, and light tactical wheeled vehicles too.”
“We build these trucks today and can integrate these capabilities onto the FMTV right now,” the spokesperson added. Oshkosh won the FMTV contract in 2009, and has since produced more than 35,000 of the trucks and trailers.
In an interview at the International Defense Exhibition in Abu Dhabi earlier this year, Vice President for Business Development Jennifer Christiansen confirmed Oshkosh is working to improve the existing FMTV design to meet the Army’s new published requirements.
Asked whether the company was aware of the Army’s intention to reopen the competition, she said Oshkosh “had the same optics on that as everyone else.”
“We’re obviously in the middle of a very competitive opportunity there,” she said. “We are going to be very responsive to the Army’s requirements for those enhancements. As the incumbent, we are very proud of the vehicle we build for the Army today. The quality and the efficiency we have gained over the past few years since we won that program has been incredible.
“We are just building off of that foundation, the knowledge of the platform and the expertise we have gained from building so many FMTVs already,” Christiansen added. “We will package that up – both our technical knowhow and our incumbent position into a really compelling proposal for the Army.”
The Army plans to award one seven-year firm fixed price and cost-plus fixed fee contract that involves five base order years with two one-year options. In order to maintain the testing schedule, the first FMTV A2 test vehicle must deliver to the Army 450 days after contract award, according to the RFP.
The Army plans to order 285 light MTVs in three variants, 2,116 MTV trucks in 13 variants and 23 trailers in three variants. There are 17 existing variants within the FMTV fleet, all built on a common chassis.