Stryker ADM

Late last week, InsideDefense.com reported that the service was poised to purchase 337 Stryker vehicles that have been converted from standard flat-bottoms to more protected double-V hull configurations, while also making the DVH a fleet-wide requirement:

Heidi Shyu, the Army's acquisition executive, signed off on the purchase last week, and also set requirements to put DVHs on every Stryker in the service -- currently nine brigades' worth. At present, the Army has two Stryker brigades outfitted with DVHs and the purchase of 337 will be the third. The cost of the buy was not reported.

General Dynamics Land Systems, the contractor for the Stryker, is expected to carry out the DVH conversion work at Anniston Army Depot, AL, and the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center in Lima, OH.

One defense official said the new, fleet-wide requirement for DVH should be viewed as a coup for GDLS, which has lobbied the government for more than a year to buy more vehicles. "The money isn't there to put a DVH on every Stryker right now, but it is a now a requirement," the official said.

A second defense official noted that at a time when the Army's premier vehicle modernization program -- the Ground Combat Vehicle -- has become endangered by ongoing budget uncertainty, the Stryker DVH could be viewed as a positive developmental effort that yielded real results in the field.

We now have a copy of the acquisition decision memo signed by Shyu.

While on the subject of documents, we also have a searchable version of the Senate Appropriations Committee's fiscal year 2014 defense spending report.