BAE Systems Awarded Concept Development Contract for Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle Program

The U.S. Army has awarded BAE Systems a contract for the concept development phase of the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) program. During this phase, BAE Systems will further develop a design that will meet – with ample growth and adaptability – the Army’s needs for lethality, mobility and survivability on future battlefields. BAE Systems, along with teammate Elbit Systems of America, will explore crew automation, active protection, and other transformational combat vehicle technologies and turret solutions that will deliver the advanced warfighting capabilities the Army needs for the future.

BAE’s press release features a shadowy silhouette of a previously unseen vehicle. It bears some family resemblance to the Bradley and its modernized offshoot, the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV), but it is distinctly different from either. BAE Systems has chosen a turret made by Israel’s Elbit, the UT30 Mk2, for the prototype it is offering for the OMFV program of the US Army. The OMFV program is for replacement of the M-2 Bradley fighting vehicle. The company has also been extensively involved in the Israeli military’s Carmel project to develop advanced armored vehicles with sophisticated sensors feeding a cockpit of the kind that OMFV would probably require.

“Our Soldiers on the future battlefield should set the pace of the fight and dominate in lethality, survivability, and mobility through technology,” Jim Miller, director of business development at BAE Systems, said. “The conceptual design phase allows us to demonstrate how we marry future technology with our integration and production experience to deliver a new level of capability to our troops on an ever-changing, interconnected, multi-domain, joint battlefield.”

BAE Systems’ OMFV design will provide a highly maneuverable and survivable solution for the U.S. Army’s Armored Brigade Combat Team (ABCT) to engage in close combat and deliver decisive lethality. BAE Systems’ solution will accommodate a host of targeting systems that will share threat and target data across the ABCT team, and will help protect soldiers as they get to the fight. BAE Systems‘ OMFV concept is an integrated system of systems based on a Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA). Preliminary design work on the contract will take place in York, Pennsylvania; Sterling Heights, Michigan; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and San Jose, California.