The Army will take ownership of its first Armored Multipurpose Vehicle (AMPV) in time for Christmas, which will allow an intensive reliability test campaign on the M113 personnel carrier replacement to begin before March.
Nine of the first 29 prototype AMPVs are in various stages of production on the company’s York, Penn., production line. The first to be complete is nearing final assembly and should be ready for delivery in mid-December, according to James Miller, director of business development for BAE systems.
Once 10 are delivered, the vehicles will undergo a rigorous reliability test campaign in preparation for a milestone C decision on whether to begin low-rate initial production (LRIP) in summer of fiscal 2019. If and when the Army places that initial order for LRIP vehicles, BAE is ready to fire up its production line, Miller said.
“We are actually building the prototypes on our production line and that allows us to prototype production,” Miller told reporters Tuesday at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual expo in Washington, D.C. “We can work the flaws out of the production line and make sure the production line is ready to go. When we go to a LRIP contract we can just turn the lights back on and go to work.”
The Army plans to buy a total 2,897 AMVs to replace its aging and increasingly obsolete fleet of M113 personnel carriers. That number will replace all 113s currently in use by the Army’s armored brigade combat teams. A study is underway to determine what will be done with the 1,500 or so M113s in use at echelons above brigade.
The vehicles – even the most electrically taxed variants – were designed with a 20 percent power generation growth margin that will allow integration of emerging technologies, Milner said. There are no specific plans to integrate active protection systems onto AMPV, but the program office is watching closely as PEO GCS tests non-developmental missile shields on Bradley, Abrams and Stryker, Milner said.
“We have the capacity to mount it, it is just a matter of finding the right system,” Milner said.
AMPV also is designed to accept the WIN-T increment 2 equipment that links the vehicle to the Army’s combat communications network. The initial vehicles will roll off the line configured for WIN-T2, not the version that will soon be fielded that is repackaged for a smaller footprint to save space on other combat vehicles. LRIP vehicles will be configured for integration of the repackaged WIN-T.
“We had the space before and this will give us more space,” Milner said. “WIN-T repackaged form also will not require a coolant system to reside within the vehicle, which is great for us because we can pull the coolant system off the mission command vehicle.”
Ten of the engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) prototypes will begin a 19-month test plan in early 2017, said Col. Mike Milner, AMPV program manager for Army Program Executive Office Ground Combat Systems. It will entail about 21,000 miles of reliability testing in parallel with 7,500 miles of contractor testing by BAE.
The Army will also perform a “full suite” of live-fire test on all five AMPV variants from EMD and the second group of LRIP vehicles, Milner said. The vehicle will come in medical evacuation, medical treatment, mission command, 120mm mortar carrier and general-purpose variants. Performance testing will be conducted at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., and Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., and the electronic proving ground in Fort Huachuca, Ariz.
Compared to the Army’s dismal history of developing and fielding ground vehicles, AMPV has quietly met cost and production schedules. It remains on schedule and under budget as it reliably plods through development milestones and prototype construction.
“The Army is very focused on cost and schedule with this program,” Milner said. “Those are the two key things we are looking at here. We want to get this capability out in the field as soon as possible to our soldiers and start divesting ourselves of M113s.”
BAE was awarded an (EMD) contract in 2014 to build 29 prototype vehicles. The program cleared milestone C in December 2014 and its critical design review 18 months later. The absence of drama can be attributed to using a Bradley derivative for the baseline AMPV, Milner said.
“In doing that, we created a vehicle that is significantly better than what we have in the field today,” Milner said. “From a survivability and force-protection standpoint this is one of the most survivable and protected vehicles within the ABCT.”
The requirement for armored mobility in Europe, coupled with the smooth performance of the program, has created a simmering desire within the Army to accelerate AMPV through LRIP to full-rate production. Miller said BAE could handle an increase in production rate.
“Capacity-wise, we designed this line at the speed the Army sets,” Miller said. “That’s our job, to do what the Army asks us to do. As we prototype and go through and set up our production line, we have a target in mind that is set for us. But we know full-well that the Army could speed it up or slow it down. So we designed our production line in kind of a modular way that can grow rapidly. It could shrink if it has to. We can adjust to the pace the Army sets, with great confidence.”
Milner said the Army has the stomach to accelerate production but not the budget. Once the program hits full-rate production, BAE should churn out and deliver about 180 per year.
“Right now the Army is facing some pretty difficult financial times in terms of its modernization budget. We’re able just to keep everything going at their pre-planned rates,” Milner said. “The Army would like to build things faster. It makes them cheaper and also allows us to get into production, get out of production and invest that money back into the beginning of the life cycle.”
“If more money were to come into the portfolio, I think the Army would be more than willing to start building them faster,” he added.
Correction: This article originally misidentified the production facility where AMPV is built. The vehicles are produced at BAE Systems’ York, Penn., facility.