The Army's use of an alternate acquisition pathway to develop its new light tank required General Dynamics Land Systems to invest in materiel ahead of time and harness insights from soldier testing to win a production contract, company officials said.
The Army used the Middle Tier of Acquisition pathway, a tool it has said is central to fueling its modernization push, to develop Mobile Protected Firepower before awarding General Dynamics a low-rate production contract in June. General Dynamics completed its first vehicles during the MTA segment of the program in time for testing to begin in January 2021. But BAE, the other competitor for the contract, did not deliver its first prototype until March of that year, amid delays to other combat vehicles built at its York, PA, plant.
General Dynamics moved quickly in order to meet the Army’s schedule demands, said Tim Reese, the company’s director of U.S. business development. “We ordered materiel and challenged our suppliers even before we were under contract,” Reese said during the leadup to the annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army.
Kevin Vernagus, General Dynamic’s program director for Mobile Protected Firepower, said the company has seen the Army and the Defense Department take on more rapid prototyping efforts in recent years, as they did with MPF, requiring companies to move quickly.
“The schedule was so aggressive, we had to move out ahead of contract award at our own risk, at our own investment,” Vernagus said. “And so that was one of the things we did to be successful in that program.”
Army acquisition executive Doug Bush has spoken about the success of the Middle Tier of Acquisition pathway, which enables the Army to conduct rapid prototyping efforts with industry and collect soldier feedback while maturing technologies.
“The MPF program did exactly what the Army asked, which was to complete the competitive and accelerated rapid prototyping effort with multiple soldier touchpoints and test events,” Bush said when General Dynamics won the contract. “Mobile Protected Firepower is a benchmark, in my view."
The soldier touchpoints and testing conducted by General Dynamics and the Army during the MTA phase helped inform the low-rate production version of the light tank, Vernagus said.
The MTA version of the vehicle, he said, had bolt-on side skirts covering its tracks and suspension system that soldiers would have to lift off and remove to perform maintenance.
“To get access to that every time the soldiers would have to remove these four or five bolts and carry these heavy pieces of metal off the vehicle to get access to that, and so their feedback was that was burdensome and could be made better,” Vernagus said.
Because of that feedback, the current version of the tank has hinges instead of bolts on the skirts, he said.
Other necessary changes uncovered during testing prompted General Dynamics to make improvements to the vehicles’ armor, cooling system and hatches, Vernagus said.
The Army transitioned out of the MTA phase as it made a decision to move forward with production. General Dynamics is under contract to produce up to 26 light tanks and is expecting the Army to execute another option on the contract next year, which is worth up to $1.14 billion for 96 vehicles.
The service’s acquisition objective currently stands at 504 vehicles, according to budget documents, although an Army official previously said it could ultimately be “slightly” different from that.