Draft Common Tactical Truck RPP delayed

Discussions over the structure of the prototyping effort for the Army's future heavy tactical truck have delayed the release of a draft request for prototype proposals, Doug Bush, the Army acquisition executive, told reporters Feb. 17.

“I would call it a minor, minor pause,” Bush said.

The prototyping effort’s scale and the subsequent transition to a production program are the focus of the discussions, he said.

A draft request for prototype proposals in the Common Tactical Truck program was originally scheduled for release by Feb. 11, according to an Army listing. But an update posted last week said the RPP was delayed, with no new expected release date.

The program intends to announce a new release date and whether the delay to this draft will change the effort's development schedule by the end of this month, Alvin Bing, project manager for heavy tactical vehicles, wrote in an email last week to Inside Defense.

“We hope to have more information to relay to industry at the 2022 [National Defense Industry Association] Tactical Wheeled Vehicles Conference slated for Feb. 28 - March 2,” Bing wrote.

Ongoing funding discussions at Army headquarters will affect the program’s development schedule, he wrote.

The Common Tactical Truck program seeks to merge five existing tactical vehicle chassis into a single platform with five variants. The Army has announced plans to give up to five companies prototyping awards, and one company could receive a follow-on production effort worth $5.1 billion.

An updated version of the CTT’s Abbreviated Specification document, which lists the Army’s desired capabilities for the vehicle, was released to industry this week, according to an Army notice. The first draft of that document was released in October.