The US Army has received and is analyzing proposals within the framework of the OMFV project. Yesterday, October 17, the portal defensenews.com He reported that five companies had completed the initial stage of "conceptual design", and the US Army conducted a detailed assessment of the early digital developments of promising infantry fighting vehicles.
"This information is now used both in our modeling activities and to clarify requirements. As you would expect, everyone adheres to different approaches," said Brigadier General Glenn Dean, executive director of the US Army Ground Combat Systems program.
Bradley BMP
Image source: defensenews.com
The bidders are Point Blank Enterprises, Oshkosh Defense, BAE Systems, General Dynamics Land Systems and Rheinmetall Vehicles. It is planned that in 2023, after further selection, three participants of the program will remain who will build the first prototypes, and in 2027 a finalist will be selected who will launch serial production of a new generation of infantry fighting vehicles from 2030.
For the first time, the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV, "optionally controlled fighting vehicle") program is known in 2019. According to the description of the program, OMFV should operate on the battlefield together with infantry and is designed for close combat. The key tasks of the new combat vehicle are maneuvering and hitting targets with combined weapons.
The tender for the OMFV was conducted under an accelerated program and included the purchase of up to two types of operational models of combat vehicles. The contract with the finalists of the competition was planned to be signed in 2020, but the US Department of Defense overestimated the capabilities of the developers. Only one bidder, General Dynamics Land Systems, managed to meet the very tight tender deadlines. Therefore, the Ministry of Defense canceled the program, and later it became known that the army had completely revised the requirements for new combat vehicles. Instead of mobility, the survival of the crew and the landing party will be in the first place. The main targets on the battlefield for the new BMP are the same type of enemy vehicles, not tanks.
