$471M Contract Modification For Manned Ground Vehicle Transition Program

MILTECH

Illustration of the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems.

Santa Clara CA (SPX) Jun 22, 2005
United Defense Industries has been awarded contract modifications worth up to $471 million for the transition effort for Manned Ground Vehicles for the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems.

United Defense was awarded the modifications to its previous Future Combat Systems (FCS) Manned Ground Vehicle (MGV) contracts issued in 2003 by The Boeing Company, the FCS Lead Systems Integrator (LSI) for the U.S. Army.

"United Defense, as part of the FCS One Team, is working to develop and field a family of highly deployable Manned Ground Vehicles that will be key supporting systems linked through the overarching network that will enable the FCS-equipped Units of Action to effectively complete their missions," said Raj Rajagopal, Vice President and FCS Program Director for United Defense.

These modifications augment the original FCS MGV contracts awarded in December 2003 for the development and demonstration of a family of MGVs for FCS. The current modification extends the contract period of performance from FY09 to FY12, and increases the total potential value to $2.57 billion.

The current modifications call for a transition effort intended to mitigate risk while accelerating the fielding of the Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon (NLOS-C) increment 0 vehicles and providing engineering support for the FCS Recovery and Maintenance Vehicle (FRMV).

Overall program prototype quantities have been increased due to an additional quantity of Medical Vehicle (MV), Non-Line-of-Sight Mortar and FRMV prototypes. United Defense is scheduled to deliver an increment of NLOS-C prototypes by December 2008, and develop all MGV prototypes by mid-2010.

This modification calls for key technologies and selected component maturation to be accelerated to enable the FCS program to spiral out mature technologies for early deployment to the Current Force.

Under the FCS MGV contract, United Defense has responsibility for five MGV variants: NLOS-C; Infantry Carrier Vehicle (ICV); Medical Vehicle (MV); Non-Line of Sight Mortar (NLOS-M), and FRMV.

NLOS-C has been identified by the Army as critical and integral to the FCS-equipped Units of Action. The highly successful NLOS-Cannon system demonstrator has been undergoing successful live fire testing and mobility testing at Yuma Proving Ground, and recently fired its 1,000th round.

United Defense is teamed with General Dynamics to lead the MGV development effort, and has formed integrated design teams to develop and demonstrate a family of eight manned ground vehicles featuring a common platform design with common components and subsystems, with unique mission modules and all the variants linked together by networked battle command.

These new vehicles are to be significantly smaller and lighter than the systems they replace and are designed to fit inside a C-130 transport aircraft.

Within the common design team, United Defense has the lead for Crew Stations, Propulsion, Armor, Survivability, Active Protection, Countermeasures, Signature Management and Defensive Armament. United Defense also leads the software architecture and development environment across all elements of MGV design.

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