The Army is mapping out an upgrade program for its Vietnam-era M113 armored troop carrier that would again pit the two largest combat vehicle manufacturers against each other in a contest for survivability and affordability.
BAE Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems fought intensely over a lucrative contract to replace the M113 for combat units at the brigade level and below, a deal BAE won in December 2014 with its Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle.
But a new upgrade program could give General Dynamics another shot -- and a senior company executive said a prototype is generating Army interest.
The upgrade effort would focus on vehicles mostly for engineering and field artillery units above the brigade level. While BAE has not previously won this work, a 2016 Army analysis of alternatives obtained by Inside Defense declared BAE's AMPV the only suitable option to fill that gap.
BAE is the prime contractor for the M113 and owns a host of technical data that could be used to develop its own upgrade prototype, but the company maintains its AMPV remains the best option for soldier survivability and savings to the Army in the long run.
Though BAE and GDLS are the largest companies likely to compete, other contractors might also seek to enter the mix. And the new M113 upgrade program could potentially disrupt BAE's AMPV program should the effort falter or prove unaffordable.
Meanwhile, the Army in June released a request for information to the National Advanced Mobility Consortium -- of which BAE and GDLS are members -- to test the waters. Both companies advised Inside Defense they intend to respond to the solicitation.
Upgrade vs. replacement
The M113 is considered unsuitable for today's combat environment, especially against roadside bombs. Army leaders refused to run the vehicles “outside the wire” in Afghanistan, and the service has embarked on an effort to replace approximately 3,000 of them in armored brigade combat teams at the brigade level and below.
Lt. Gen. Mike Murray, the Army’s deputy chief of staff (G-8), told Inside Defense the proposed M113 upgrade for echelons above brigade represents “an interim solution until we can get to the optimal solution.”
The Army is “looking at multiple options to replace the M113 at EAB,” he said.
The current fielding plan for BAE's AMPV is limited to the brigade level and below, with the first unit equipped in fiscal year 2022 and an estimated completion date of FY-36. According to Murray, the service is considering both short- and long-term solutions to the issue of M113s in echelons above brigade, and no fielding time line has yet been established.
“While the AOA did indicate the AMPV is the best pure-fleet solution, the amount of time and resources it would take to achieve a pure-fleet solution for both [armored brigade combat teams] and EAB units would likely push fielding into FY-40 and beyond, which is not a suitable course of action,” Murray said.
The Army’s FY-18 budget request includes $253.9 million in European Reassurance Initiative funds from the Overseas Contingency Operations account to procure 65 AMPVs and associated equipment, training and support. Asked why the Army did not pursue funding for M113 replacements in echelons above brigade, Murray said: “The Army recommended, and the Department of Defense agreed, that we needed to field our newest and most capable systems forward in Europe and that we needed to get them there as quickly as possible. Because there has been no official decision on whether or not AMPV will be the replacement for the M113 at EAB, we have not programmed funds against it as a program of record nor requested ERI (OCO).”
Meanwhile, the Army's FY-18 budget justification documents show that the service has big plans for the M113 upgrade program in the event it finds a suitable design.
The service has requested $15 million in research, development, test and evaluation funding in FY-18 to begin “design, fabrication and testing of engineering change proposals” to develop an “affordable solution for upgrading the M113s to enhance protection, survivability, mobility and power generation to support the current and future network systems,” according to the documents.
The Army expects to issue a request for proposals for the program in FY-18, with a planned competitive contract award in the third quarter to no more than two vendors.
“Vendor(s) will complete vehicle design and fabricate vehicle modifications for testing,” the documents state. “Overall program schedule could be accelerated if vendor designs are mature.”
The Army's justification documents show a growing budget for the research and development portion of the program: $23 million in FY-19, $50 million in FY-20, $50 million in FY-21 and a final $50 million in FY-22 for a total of $173 million.
The program would then transition to the Army's procurement budget as a “carrier modernization” program.
Army analysis upended
Until recently, the Army had identified only one vehicle that met all its requirements for M113 units above the brigade level: BAE's AMPV.
The Army conducted an analysis of alternatives for the replacement of M113 vehicles at echelons above the brigade level during FY-15 and FY-16 and found that, out of 212 vehicles tested, the AMPV was the “most effective pure-fleet solution” able to meet requirements ranging from force protection to mobility, according to a copy of the AOA obtained by Inside Defense.
“The AOA results identified the AMPV as the only viable pure-fleet solution for EAB M113 replacement with force protection, survivability, and mobility performance similar to the forces they support,” the AOA states.
The report adds that “there are potential trade options based on types of EAB units” given their mission requirements.
Still, “considering the combination of all factors and findings, the AMPV exceeded the performance of other evaluated vehicles, to include” the Stryker family of vehicles built by GDLS, according to the AOA.
In the the Army's view, the AOA is outdated and trumped by new vehicle prototypes that have come to its attention and were not included in the 212-vehicle analysis. “The AOA did not address several solutions we believe are now available,” Murray said.
GDLS prototype surfaces
Though Murray declined to identify which new vehicle design has turned the Army's head, GDLS told Inside Defense it has developed a prototype M113 upgrade that has garnered significant attention from the service.
Mike Peck, director of enterprise business development at GDLS, said in an interview he believes the Army released the M113 upgrade RFI because senior leaders saw a prototype the company developed internally and has yet to display publicly.
“We’ve had some of the Army leadership out to our place over the last six to eight months, and they’ve seen what we put together,” he said. “And so it’s an upgrade concept, an idea that they thought was interesting. So I think that might have triggered them to do this RFI. I think that prompted the Army to say, ‘Maybe there’s a solution that we didn’t even think existed. And so maybe we can do something as an interim fix until we get AMPV out to all the other vehicles outside of the armored brigade combat teams.’”
Peck said GDLS knew the M113 upgrade would have to be more survivable than the current design, but also much cheaper than an AMPV.
“This has to be low cost, no matter what it is,” he said. “I would think if you’re going to talk about what I would call an interim fix, to get you to an end state that you really, really want to get to, you just can’t spend a whole lot of money on it.”
Peck said the Army could not be expected to bring M113s to a facility and “completely remanufacture them.”
“That would be ludicrous,” he said. “That would drive the cost way up. So it’s got to be something that can be applied in a fairly normal fashion, we’d think. And so, I’m guessing the cost would have to be well under a million dollars.”
Though Peck declined to address specific technologies on the company's prototype, he described the demonstrator's broad characteristics.
“Underbelly, obviously, is the big one,” he said. “That’s the reason they didn’t want to take [M113s] out in the field in the first place. That’s the reason they developed AMPV, was to fix that protection piece for soldiers. So you’d have to at least address it to some degree, to make it better than it currently is. How much better? Good question. But at least, I would say, the equivalent of the current combat vehicle fleet the Army has. So that is . . . fairly protected.”
Peck said the prototype would also improve the vehicle's performance.
“These are old vehicles,” he said. “So whatever you do has to make it maintainable and reliable. Because there’s 2,500 of them out there; you can’t have that be a maintenance drag on you while you’re doing other things. So you’ve got to improve the reliability, and you’ve got to improve the survivability. And I think those are probably the two key things.”
BAE 'surprised' by Army
BAE spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said her company intends to respond to the RFI, but continues to assert that a pure-fleet AMPV solution would best serve the Army.
Mitchell added that BAE was “surprised” by the M113 upgrade RFI after the Army announced its decision to divest the vehicle.
“The AMPV line is up and running in York, [PA], and we maintain that AMPV is the best solution for our soldiers and, in the long run, that AMPVs are the best value for the Army,” she said.
When asked if the company had an M113 upgrade prototype ready, Mitchell said “BAE Systems will build a prototype if required based upon [independent research and development] technologies we have developed and experience in producing over 80,000 M113s.”
Mitchell said it was BAE's understanding the Army has set the unit cost for the M113 upgrade program between $500,000 and $550,000 per vehicle.
BAE, however, is concerned the Army's price target for the M113 upgrade is lower than what the requirements will likely cost.
“The product from a cost-limited program will be much less capable and less protected than an AMPV, and it is unlikely that an M113 can be upgraded to meet AMPV requirements at any cost,” Mitchell said.
In the event the Army has to waive specific requirements, especially in the area of survivability, for an upgraded M113 to perform above the brigade level, some contractors may lobby Congress to intervene by either stopping or stalling the program.
A history of conflict
This is not the first time BAE and GDLS have tussled over a chance to replace and upgrade the aging M113 fleet.
GDLS once sought to win the M113 replacement contract by leveraging its wheeled Stryker, even going so far as to create a tracked variant of the vehicle and protesting the Army's solicitation as biased against wheeled vehicles. BAE offered a design that is essentially a Bradley Fighting Vehicle without the turret.
Ultimately, GDLS declined to compete for the AMPV in 2014 because of the Army's requirements, though it did lobby Congress to impose a "mixed-fleet" solution between tracked and wheeled vehicles, arguing a Stryker-like ambulance variant would give soldiers a smoother ride if they were suffering from traumatic brain injuries. The Army issued a report stating wheeled ambulances and medical evacuation vehicles were unsuitable to support heavy units because they could not cover the same terrain as tracked vehicles.
GDLS, through lawmakers, also unsuccessfully sought to delay the Army's award to BAE.
The program caused such a stir on Capitol Hill that, at one point, Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI) simultaneously supported the Army's strategy to move ahead with the program and also GDLS' efforts to halt it.
At the time, officials from the Army and Congress likened GDLS' pursuit of a wheeled solution to a "scorched earth strategy" because the company's efforts not only displeased the service, but, if successful, would have derailed a vital vehicle program. -- Tony Bertuca and Courtney McBride