By Ann Roosevelt
The Army yesterday issued a revised request for proposals (RFP) for the its planned new Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) in the ground combat vehicle (GCV) program that now offers potential bidders cost targets and requirements in priority order, officials said.
“We’ve issued affordability targets,” Col. Andrew DiMarco, Ground Combat Vehicle project manager, said in a roundtable yesterday. For example, there’s “a range of $9 million to $10.5 million per vehicle for the average unit manufacturing cost, to be used (by contractors) as part of their trade space to balance their solutions and the proposals they bring to the table.”
The initial target per operating hour is $200 as part of the life-cycle costs, he said. This will be refined as the program moves through the technology development phase. This per hour cost falls midway between current Bradley per hour operating costs on the low side and Abrams per hour costs on the high side.
The Army wants industry to consider operation and maintenance costs in all the trades they continue to make and refine costs. “It shapes where they’re heading,” DiMarco said.
The Army is still fully committed to the program. It canceled the initial RFP in August and proceeded to consult and discuss the program within the Army and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, particularly the acquisition, technology and logistics personnel, and held an Industry Day to ensure an achievable and affordable acquisition.
The GCV IFV is the Army’s modernization effort replacing the canceled potential $87 billion manned ground vehicle (MGV) portion of the Future Combat Systems program (Defense Daily, April 7, 2009).
The service has been refining the GCV program and its requirements since the MGV cancellation.
Ahead of the RFP cancellation, teams led by General Dynamics [GD], BAE Systems, and SAIC [SAI] submitted proposals for the Technology Demonstration phase.
The new RFP is a fixed price incentive fee contract, whereas the earlier effort was a cost-plus fixed fee effort.
The service plans a 24-month Technology Demonstration phase, a potential four-year engineering and manufacturing development phase followed by Milestone C and production and fielding. The service may choose one contractor for production and fielding. The timeline is aimed at fielding the vehicle in seven years as initially planned.
The new program has a ceiling per contractor of $450 million for the technology demonstration phase. The incentive fee would split 80 percent to the government if the cost comes under the negotiated ceiling capped at $450 million, with 20 percent to the contractor, DiMarco said. If the cost comes over the cap, the contractor picks up 100 percent.
This is a significant difference from the earlier RFP, DiMarco said. “We think it’s in tune with where the department (of Defense) is taking us, as well as meeting department objectives and Army objectives.”
Proposals are due Jan. 21, with as many as three contracts planned for award about April 2011.
DiMarco said the Army is asking industry to look at and try to use as much mature technology as possible to drive down cost and reduce the time to design, fabricate, test and deliver systems on a seven-year timeline.
“Force protection is the overriding operational concern we have to balance against,” said Michael Smith, director of Mounted Concepts and Requirements Development at the Maneuver Center of Excellence.
The need for the new GCV IFV hasn’t changed, and is driven by the Army requirement to conduct full spectrum operations, he said. The vehicle must be adaptable, and through configuration changes be able to adapt on the fly in an operational theater as needed, while having the potential for growth in terms of size, weight, power, and cooling.
The IFV must have lethal system or systems, have network connectivity for situational awareness and carry a squad–nine combat loaded infantry soldiers ” to a position of advantage on the battlefield, so they can do combined arms maneuver and execute wide area security operations,” he said.
This is a significant departure from the past, where the Bradley and Abrams focused on maneuver battle; the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles were developed for current operations, Smith said. The GCV IFV requirements call for modular and scalable armor so the platform can be tailored to better align with the operational environment.
Writ large, the IFV non-negotiable requirements involve force protection, vehicle survivability and adaptability to the evolving threat to operate across the full spectrum of operations.
The mix of non-negotiable requirements and requirements in the trade space allows contractors to propose the best solution, from their perspective, to answer service requirements and priorities.
The fleet size is not established yet, but DiMarco said the initial requirement is 1,874 for the IFV. The eventual target is to replace all Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles.
Smith said, “we’re open to everything. We hope to get the best value for the dollar that meets all the requirements.”