The opportunity to sell thousands of medium and light tactical vehicles to SOCOM has attracted almost all major US military vehicle manufacturers to last months’ Modern Day Marine 2012 expo (MDM) in Quantico, and is bound to repeat here at AUSA this week. Some of these requirements address certain ‘special application’, particularly combat rescue. Others are needed to replace vehicles worn down by years of use in harsh conditions.
SOCOM looks at purchasing several types of vehicles, some high mobility vehicles of the All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) class for which a contract award is expected in few months. Others are aimed to replace the HMMWVs with a new Ground Mobility Vehicle (GMV 1.1) – SOCOM is after about 1,300 such vehicles. With an RFP expected for January 2013 and a contract in January 2014.
The vehicles on display at MDM were representative of the different applications, and hint on the different approaches and priorities each competitor is focused on. These vehicles included the SRTV from HDT, Spectre from GDLS and Flyer displayed by Flyer Defense and GD-OTS and the new S-ATV from Oshkosh. Polaris displayed the MRZR and ArmorWorks also displayed another model of the Polaris, configured into the LVATV. At AUSA more competitors are showing their vehicles, including a team by Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems, competing for the GMV 1.1 program the debut of the Hyena fast attack recon vehicle from ArmorWorks.
The following topics are covered in our preview:
