Defense Daily®

Incumbent BAE Seeks To Build Marines’ Next Amphibious Vehicle

Modern Day Marine Military Expo Daily

© 2015 by Access Intelligence, LLC. Federal copyright law prohibits unauthorized reproduction by any means and imposes fines of up to $150,000 for violations.

Sponsored By:

Speic

al S

how

Issue

Defense Daily®

▶ Continued on page 3

By Dan Parsons

The Marine Corps has scrapped, for a time, its two-decade, $4 billion search for a planing amphibious tracked vehicle in favor of an immediate upgrade to its amphibious assault vehicle (AAV).

For the first time, all the competing companies are displaying their ship-to-shore Marine rifleman carri-ers in the same place at the same time: Modern Day Marine in Quantico, Va.

BAE Systems, which manufactures the current amphibious assault vehicle (AAV), is up against General Dynamics [GD], Lockheed Martin [LMT], Science Applications International Corp. [SAIC] and Advanced Defense Vehicle Systems and Singaporean company St Kinetics are also competing for contracts to build the first increment of vehicles, called ACV 1.1.

The Marine Corps plans to buy about 204 ACV 1.1s at a unit cost of up to $7.5 million. Later iterations could include more advanced weap-ons, communications and command-and-control equipment. It should carry at least 10 Marines, be able to self-deploy from a ship from 12 nau-tical miles offshore, close on the beach at a speed of at least 6 knots and provide the survivability of an Abrams M1A1 main battle tank.

The service in November plans to downselect to two vendors that will each create 16 vehicles.

All the competitors were notional entrants into the Marine Personnel Carrier program, which gave rise to the current incremental ACV acquisition strategy. BAE’s Deepak Bazaz, director of amphibi-ous vehicles, said the company has built in the ability to expand and significantly improve the reliability and mobility of its initial ACV offering and not necessarily give up on amphibious operations.

Lockheed Martin originally offered the Havoc 8x8 armored modular vehicle it developed with Finnish company Patria over the past four years, though the two have since split. Lockheed Martin has promised to unveil its new vehicle – and its new partner – on Tuesday at Modern Day Marine in Quantico, Va. GD will display its Amphibious Combat Vehicle demonstrator at Modern Day Marine.

“General Dynamics’ ACV is built for the U.S. Marine Corps’ global mission,” the company said in a statement. “The ACV is designed to meet current and future needs and incorporates leading-edge Light Armored Vehicle (LAV) technologies for survivability, land mobility, amphibious capability and payload ver-satility.”

Singaporean Company ST Kinetics has redesigned its 8X8 Terrex armored personnel carrier into an amphibious vehicle that was recently unveiled at the Defence and Security Equipment International exhibition

BAE’s ACV 1.1 offering

SPECIAL MODERN DAY MARINE OFFER: SAVE $300 ON A SUBSCRIPTION!

Defense Daily gives you the ability to obtain market intelligence that is critical for you to remain competitive. It is the only publication that covers everything of significance that is happening in the defense market. We combine immediacy and accuracy with comprehensive coverage. Capture need-to-know news direct from the Pentagon, NASA, Capitol Hill, Homeland Security, Wall Street and the White House.

Defense Daily focuses on the health of programs and how they are influenced by changes in acquisition strategy, requirements, and legislation. We also report on the financial health of defense contractors, providing substantive write-ups on their quarterly earnings.

When you subscribe, you are guaranteed to receive the latest information and news on:

• The programs that Congress will be funding.

• Who has been awarded the latest defense contracts – and who is subcontracting.

• Emerging market trends and key industry developments.

• The countries that are making decisions to make multi-billion dollar orders.

• How all of the new technologies and government policies will affect programs and bottom lines.

Visit www.defensedaily.com and use discount code MDM2015 in the store to save $300.

If you prefer to order by phone, call 1-888-707-5814 and mention code MDM2015.

Defense Daily, a division of Access Intelligence | 4 Choke Cherry Road, 2nd Fl | Rockville, MD 20850 | Tel: 1-888-707-5814 | Email: clientservices@accessintel.com

www.defensedaily.com

www.defensedaily.com©2015 Access Intelligence, LLC. Federal copyright law prohibits unauthorized reproduction by any means and imposes fines up to $150,000 for violations.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2015 Page 1 58th Year, Volume 267, No. 53

No Air Force Participation In Fiscal 2017 F-35 'Block Buy,' Officer SaysBy Pat Host

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.--Though the Air Force is interested in a eventual multi-year "block buy" of F-

35A conventional variant aircraft, it won't be able to participate in one by fiscal year 2018 due to budget

"misalignment," according to a key officer.

F-35 Integration Office Director Air Force Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian on Monday cited two reasons for this

misalignment: one is the Air Force has just about solidified its budget for FY '17 and would have to "crack" it

open to find the money necessary to participate in a FY '18 F-35 block buy.

The second reason, Harrigian said, is the continuing resolution (CR) currently hanging over the heads of

Congress and the federal government. He called this a "perfect example" of the budget misalignment preventing

a F-35 block buy in FY '18. The fiscal year ends Sept. 30 and lawmakers don't seem anxious to pass

authorization and appropriatons bills for FY '16. One consistent theme here at the Air Force Association's (AFA)

Air and Space conference has been service leaders hammering a potential CR as damaging to the Air Force.

"Naturally, we're interested in (the block buy)," Harrigian said. "There's certainly some benefit that would be

realized should we be able to execute that. Our challenge clearly though is the fiscal constraints that we're under

right now."

Under Secretary of Defense For Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) Frank Kendall said in May the

Pentagon planned on seeking congressional approval for a three-year block buy of F-35s that could help drive

down prices of the aircraft. The buy would span FY's '18-'20 and include up to 150 jets per year. Both

international partners and foreign military sale (FMS) customers would be eligible.

By consolidating three years of orders into one contract, F-35 prime contractor Lockheed Martin [LMT] and

its suppliers could achieve economies of scale and produce aircraft more efficiently, which, in turn, cuts the cost

of the plane for customers. Kendall predicted "double-digit savings" were likely if a deal could be reached

(Defense Daily, May 29).

F-35 Program Grappling With Parts Management In Latest ALIS Software VersionBy Pat Host

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. --The F-35 program is grappling with a parts management issue in its currently

fielded version of the aircraft's Automated Logistics Information System (ALIS) software, according to key

www.defensedaily.com

©2015 Access Intelligence, LLC. Federal copyright law prohibits unauthorized reproduction by any means and imposes fines up to $150,000 for violations.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2015Page 1 58th Year, Volume 267, No. 54

Yearlong CR Would Force Air Force to Break KC-46A Contract with Boeing

By Valerie Insinna

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. —The Air Force has set Sept. 25 as the new first flight date for its KC-

46A refueling tanker, but a long-term continuing resolution (CR) could spell more trouble for the

program, its program executive officer said on Tuesday.Under the current schedule, the KC-46A program will hit a Milestone C decision in April 2016,

after which it is scheduled to award contracts to Boeing [BA] for the first two lots of low-rate initial

production aircraft, said Air Force Brig. Gen. Duke Richardson, program executive officer for

tankers."LRIP Lot 2 is fiscal year 2016 funding, so if we get into a CR situation, it will create a very large

problem for this program” in that it will not be able to award a contract as planned for 12 aircraft, he

said during a speech at the Air Force Association’s Air and Space Conference.

Under the terms of its contract, the Air Force could buy anywhere from eight to 11 aircraft during

LRIP Lot 2 and pay a penalty to Boeing. However, buying fewer than eight aircraft would result in

the contract being broken, and a yearlong CR would only allow for the purchase of seven aircraft, he

told reporters after the briefing.“This contract that we have is a very nice contract in a lot of ways, but it's also fairly stringent in

terms of what it requires of the government,” he said. “It requires funding stability and requirements

stability. Up to this point we have delivered both.”Throughout his speech, Richardson stated that the service is struggling keeping the program on

schedule, not with the performance of the aircraft.Under the current contract, Boeing is required to deliver the first 18 tankers by August 2017.

Richardson said he was “cautiously confident” that the company would meet the “required assets

available” deadline, but noted that technical issues have eaten away all of the slack built into the

schedule.The service is preparing the first fully equipped KC-46A aircraft, called EMD2, for its inaugural

www.defensedaily.com©2015 Access Intelligence, LLC. Federal copyright law prohibits unauthorized reproduction by any means and imposes fines up to $150,000 for violations.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2015 Page 1 58th Year, Volume 267, No. 55Boeing Declines Divesting United Launch AllianceNATIONAL HARBOR, Md.--Boeing [BA] is not currently interested in divesting United Launch Alliance (ULA)--to Aerojet Rocketdyne [AJRD] or anyone else."Divesting ULA is not in our thinking at this time," Boeing spokesman Todd Blecher said Tuesday in an email. "We are committeed to remaining a leader in the space industry and ULA is a big part of that."

Blecher said Boeing has informed Aerojet Rocketdyne of its position on the rumored offer. Reuters reported Sept. 8 that Aerojet Rocketdyne submitted a $2 billion offer to acquire ULA from parent companies Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Boeing. Lockheed Martin spokesman Dan Nelson on Wednesday declined to comment on the reported offer.Aerojet Rocketdyne Vice President of Advance Space and Launch Julie Van Kleeck on Tuesday declined here at the Air Force Association's (AFA) Air and Space conference to confirm or deny the

report during a briefing with reporters. Aerojet Rocketdyne did not respond to a request for comment by press time Wednesday. ULA earlier this year rebuffed an Aerojet Rocketdyne overture to acquire the data rights to the Atlas V rocket, which ULA will eventually retire in favor of its next-generation Vulcan launch vehicle, of which it is teaming with Blue Origin.One space expert believed the strategy behind the rumored offer for ULA was to make it use Aerojet

Rocketdyne's AR-1 engine, of which the company is shopping for a customer. Shortly after the rumored offer made news, Blue Origin announced it signed an agreement with ULA to expand their

production capabilities for Blue Origin's BE-4 engine that will power the Vulcan next-generation launch vehicle.Nevertheless, Aerojet Rocketdyne is continuing its pursuit of additional work with ULA. Van Kleeck said Tuesday the company's AR-1 could go on the Vulcan. Aerojet Rocketdyne last year signed an agreement with ULA to provide a competitive cost estimate, schedule and risk management plan for the AR-1 engine as well as the RS-68, RL-10 and solid rocket motors (Defense Daily, Sept. 30).

SPECIAL MODERN DAY MARINE OFFER: SAVE $300 ON A SUBSCRIPTION!

26716

www.defensedaily.com

Special Show Issue Page 3Defense Daily®

in London. SAIC is offering a version of the Terrex and outlier ADVS is offering an amphibious version of the 8X8 Desert Chameleon. “As much as anything, what started this whole ball rolling is the senior leadership seeing demonstrations [of the MOC

offerings] as well as some of the test results,” Bazaz said. When Marine Corps leadership saw the capabilities of the wheeled vehicles being offered for MPC they restructured the

acquisition strategy. ACV 1.1 will take advantage of non-developmental vehicles that have room for power, armor and mobility upgrades. The eventual ACV 2.0 vehicle, which is anticipated to be tracked, will come in out years, perhaps as far as the 2020s.

The Marines are looking for a vehicle that can carry at least 10 riflemen, though a squad consists of 13 troops. BAE’s offer-ing carries an entire squad and two days of supply, the thinking being that when Marines hit the beach in combat, it is better to transport an intact squad than force Marines to search for their units under fire Bazaz said.

“Rather than splitting the squad up, which the Army doesn’t like to do, the Marine Corps doesn’t like to do, we can keep the rifle squad together so that when they come on the beach, they’re connected rather than trying to find everybody they are supposed to be with,” he said.

BAE’s vehicle features a 690 horsepower engine that can achieve about 6 knots through moderate seas. It has the ability to improve performance by about 20 percent, or an additional 100 horsepower, he said.

The current requirements for ACV 1.1 are largely taken directly from the MPC program, with improvements for amphibious mobility, troop carrying capacity and survivability. The Marine Corps already has conducted sea-worthiness trials, terrain negotiation and blast trials on the base MPC vehicles. The four or five companies planning to vie for ACV 1.1 have therefore had an opportunity to make improvements on their initial designs.

“We were able to leverage a lot of the testing,” Bazaz said. “Having all this testing really helped boost our confidence in the offering that we have. It is truly an amphibious vehicle because it was built with amphibious operations in mind. Then we modified it to meet some of the unique requirements.”

The majority of improvements were done during the MPC program, before the vehicles were called into the big leagues, he said. The companies already were anticipating the announcement the Marine Corps made in March, that they would likely purchase a single vehicle that could immediately fulfill their needs for a ship-to-shore squad carrier and then be upgraded to meet ACV 1.2 requirements. Those include higher water speed, self-deployability and recovery and higher troop capacity.

BAE’s offering already has demonstrated the ability to launch and return to the well deck of a Navy amphibious assault ship. Tracked vehicles are better suited to exit and board ships, but the drive trains of the various vehicles are designed to allow the wheels on each side to be powered either independently or as a unit, therefore mimicking the mobility of tracks, Bazaz said.

With five vehicles the Marine Corps has already exhaustively tested, Bazaz said the winner likely will be able to demonstrate superior amphibious capability to a Marine Corps that needs to launch far at sea from a ship and travel to shore from beyond the range of ballistic anti-ship missiles.

“Unfortunately, if you’re designing from a land vehicle, as some of our competitors are, you don’t necessarily have some of the luxuries to be able to move centers of gravity in vehicles that are already in production,” he said.

Oshkosh Ordered To Halt JLTV Work Pending Lockheed Martin’s Protest

By Dan Parsons

The Pentagon has ordered Oshkosh [OSK] to cease work on the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), pending a protest by losing competitor Lockheed Martin [LMT].

Oshkosh on Aug. 24 won an initial $6.7 billion contract for low-rate initial production of the JLTV, besting incumbent Humvee manufacturer AM General and Lockheed Martin. The full program for more than 55,000 trucks is worth an estimated $30 billion.

Oshkosh’s light combat tactical all-terrain vehicle (L-ATV) beat out incumbent Humvee manufacturer AM General and a Lockheed Martin-BAE Systems team for the enormous contract to build the first 17,000 of more than 55,000 JLTVs for the Army and Marine Corps.

GD’s ACV 1.1 offering

Special Show Issue Page 4

www.defensedaily.com

Defense Daily®

Lockheed Martin has since filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which will file a report on the protest within 30 days. The GAO must issue a decision on the protest within 100 days of a protest being filed, which would be around Dec. 18, though it could either uphold or dismiss Lockheed Martin’s protest any time before that date.

Contracting officers are required to halt work on a contract after being notified of a protest to the GAO, an Army spokes-man said in a statement.

“The JLTV program office has been notified by GAO of a filed protest, and a stay of contract performance has been issued,” the Army said. “The program will continue to fully comply with applicable regulations, and we remain confident that the JLTV program is well positioned to provide our soldiers and Marines a substantial capability improvement while remaining affordable for America’s taxpayers.”

By request, all three JLTV competitors were briefed on the performance of their vehicles following the contract award. AM General decided it would forego a protest and instead focus on maintaining and modernizing the Army and Marine Corps’ remaining Humvees, which number more than 160,000. The company almost immediately was rewarded with a $428 million contract to build ambulance-configured Humvees for the Army.

In the wake of Lockheed Martin’s protest and based on its own briefing on the government’s decision, Oshkosh insisted it had been fairly awarded the JLTV contract.

“The U.S. Army conducted a thorough and highly-disciplined evaluation for the JLTV production program to reach a clear conclusion: the Oshkosh JLTV is the most capable vehicle for our troops, and the best value for the American taxpayer. Oshkosh is honored to be chosen for this critical program,” said Oshkosh spokeswoman Jennifer Christiansen.

“Following the U.S. Army’s debrief to Oshkosh regarding the results of the evaluation, we are more confident than ever that the Department of Defense’s decision to award the JLTV contract to Oshkosh will be upheld,” she said in a statement to Defense Daily. “ Ultimately, and most importantly, our nation’s brave Soldiers and Marines will get the best vehicle to keep them safe during future missions. Our employees stand ready to begin executing this critical program to produce these life-saving vehicles for the Army and Marine Corps.”

Marine Corps Strengthening Cyber Space Operations, Organization

The Marine Corps’ senior leadership in July blessed a number or recommendations to improve how the service meets its operational needs for cyber security and the larger mission of information warfare, including making changes to how it acquires capabilities more rapidly to meet challenges in the cyber domain, according to a Marine Corps official.

In April, when the Marine Corps stood up its Task Force Cyber at the direction of Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford, senior leaders “recognized that there were some things institutionally that we need to do to get after being more prepared to meet cyberspace operational needs,” Col. Gregory Breazile, director of the Marine Corps C2/Cyber and Electronic Warfare Division, told Defense Daily in an Aug. 20 telephone interview. The task force, which is led by Breazile, spent four months reviewing, prob-lem framing and war gaming a “laundry list of tasks” with four main ones: how the service commands and controls its networks on the Marine Corps enterprise network, cyber manpower needs, rapid acquisition of cyber capabilities, and organizing better at the headquarters level to support future information warfare, he said.

In July, Dunford hosted another executive meeting of the service’s leadership to hear the findings and recommendations of Task Force Cyber, which led to various decisions on the “way forward” in cyberspace to get the Marine Corps “moving in the right direction,” Breazile said.

The cyber workforce is one of the most challenging areas for the Marine Corps to find its way forward, although the same can be said for the rest of the Defense Department and federal government.

Breazile said that service has struggled, and continues to do so, to find some of the highly skilled people it needs for certain cyber security roles. All the military services are having this difficulty due to competition from the commercial sector where these people can make a lot more money, he said.

The Marine Corps is trying to tackle this challenge through better pre-screening and coursework but also marketing the fact that the personnel it hires for these jobs “are going to do things they can’t do in the civilian world,” Breazile said. Still, he said, “we’re not doing very well up to this point.”

In the area of acquisitions, Task Force Cyber made 26 recommendations to improve the process to speed up acquisitions and better educate the acquisition workforce, including the ability to develop approved products lists and…to reach out and use other contracting vehicles outside of the service” if it’s an emergency, Breazile said. “We’re putting together a cyber acquisition playbook for our acquisition force so they know, ‘hey, this is an urgent need for cyber and it’s not just an urgent need, it’s an emergency and we’ve got to go do this now.’ What are all the steps we can go about for getting that capability the fastest? And

www.defensedaily.com

Special Show Issue Page 5Defense Daily®

so we’re in the development of those products right now.”“Even on the fast end of the traditional acquisition process, it takes over a year [to obtain] IT capabilities,” Breazile said.

“In this space if we find vulnerabilities that are unacceptable we need to get them patched and taken care of as soon as possible, we can’t wait a year.”

To strengthen the organizational structure at the headquarters level following the recommendations of the task force, the service is dual-hatting the commander of Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace to include the title of assistant deputy commandant for Information Warfare under the deputy commandant for Combat Development and Integration, Breazile said. The task force had decided that there should be a three-star deputy commandant for Information Warfare, but fell back on the dual-hatting arrangement at the two-star level knowing that the new position isn’t “going to happen anytime soon,” he said.

The new arrangement is still being organized in terms of roles and responsibilities and how to “interface” with the existing capability-based assessment process, Breazile said. The goal is that when the service begins long-term budget planning next year through the FY ’19 Program Objective Memorandum (POM), the new alignment “can have more influence in our POM process for the future of the Marine Corps,” he said.

As Task Force Cyber began working its assignments, it found that the Cyberspace Command didn’t “own all of the authorities across our enterprise” and that the service overall was “fractured” in how it managed these authorities, Breazile said. “We didn’t have a clean directed authority for cyberspace operations that they could direct other peer commands to take or the bases to take.”

Those high-level permissions are now consolidated within Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace.“We’ve put them in control of the entire enterprise so they truly have to operate and defend the network mission,” Breazile

said.In addition to its recent efforts around operations and acquisitions, the Marine Corps in March stood up its own cyber

range that it is using to rapidly assess its IT assets and weapon systems.The cyber range has already been used to test some of the service’s major command and control systems, including an

assessment of its aviation C2 system in two days versus eight or nine months previously, Breazile said.

Post JLTV, World Wheeled Vehicle Market Looks SlimBy Dan Parsons

With the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program to replace the Army and Marine Corps’ Humvee fleets decided, truck manufacturers are looking overseas for potential customers.

Those companies, like Lockheed Martin [LMT], AM General, BAE Systems and others will find it difficult to market purpose-built vehicles to diverse countries that are set to award fewer contracts for fewer vehicle programs, David Hiley, associate principal of U.K.-based Renaissance Strategic Advisors, said.

The number and range of platforms on offer has increased dramatically as countries and markets that traditionally imported vehicles are ramping up domestic production, Hiley said at the annual Tactical Wheeled Vehicle Conference hosted by the National Defense industrial association. But worldwide military spending is on the decline at a time when vehicles are both technically more capable and therefore more expensive per unit.

“The net result of that is a desire by governments to improve their own indigenous industrial capability,” he said.The lasting effect of the U.S. government’s decision to award Oshkosh [OSK] the $30 billion contract for more than

55,000 JLTVs is unknown. So far neither losing competitor--Lockheed Martin and AM General--has filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office. Each has 10 days to do so and then another 30 days to deliver a detailed report of their arguments. Both companies have not said whether they intend to do so.

AM General, which built the Humvee, said it was “reviewing the governments decision and are considering all available options.” Lockheed Martin said the same in a statement to Defense Daily.

Even with the introduction of JLTV, the Humvee isn’t disappearing, though there likely will not be any more upgrade or service life extension work available over the next 15 years that sizeable numbers are in service with the U.S. military, said Marine Col. Andrew Bianca, deputy commander of program executive officer, land systems.

“I do not see any Humvee modification or improvement plans in the near future,” he said at the conference. The Army is buying 49,000 JLTVs and the Marine Corps, which has 18,500 Humvees is buying only 5,500 JLTVs.

Worldwide there has been a similar reduction in truck fleet sizes because fewer vehicles can do more missions and are gen-erally more capable than previous generations of tactical wheeled vehicles, he said. Fewer programs for industry to compete over means the market is smaller overall and competition will be fierce, he added. But there will be contracts available for capability upgrades to existing fleets and service-life extension programs.

“There really is no homogenous international market,” Hiley said. “You’re really talking about 30-60 countries, each with

Special Show Issue Page 6

www.defensedaily.com

Defense Daily®

different cultural, political and technical background, which faces different threats.”There are certain trends that permeate throughout that very diverse market, he said. Many foreign nations share the same

desires as the U.S. military, including improved crew protection“Protection and survivability is the predominant requirement that is trumping many of the others,” he said. “The target set, the

range of targets and threats facing these vehicles is much broader than that for which they were originally designed and intended.”The international experience fighting the coalition war in Afghanistan showed the need for tactical wheeled vehicles to

operate in harsh terrain that traditionally has been the domain of tracked troop carriers, Hiley said. Smaller and smaller vehicle platforms are being required to provide onboard power generation for dismounted troops, network connectivity, the ability to support command and control systems and data management.

Other common requirements of international truck programs including transportability by aircraft with the vehicle in an operational configuration “have fallen by the wayside” as militaries favor armor and crew protection over mobility,” he said.

“All of these requirements, of course, are trumped by…cost control,” he said.

Oshkosh JLTV Prevailed Despite Loss Earlier In Program

By Dan Parsons

A close watcher of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program could be forgiven for discounting Oshkosh [OSK] as the eventual winner of the $30 billion contract to replace Army and Marine Corps Humvees.

The company, then partnered with Northrop Grumman [NOC], in 2008 was denied entry to the program’s technology demonstration (TD) phase.

Losing out on the TD phase might have been exactly what enabled the veteran truck manufacturer to come back and win the initial $6 billion contract to build 16,901 JLTVs for the Army and Marine Corps, said John Bryant, senior vice president for defense programs at Oshkosh.

Oskosh was teamed with Northrop Grumman for its TD offering, which was a diesel-electric hybrid vehicle, which com-bines a generator with the vehicle’s engine to provide internal and external power in forward deployed scenarios. Bryant believes that such a forward-looking fuel-efficient technology “did not fit particularly well with the government’s desires.”

While the government was test driving the tech-development vehicles, Oshkosh decided to bide its time and watch not only the results of the Army tests, but its evolving requirements, Bryant said.

“That actually offered some opportunities for Oshkosh, because we were on our own so we could execute Oshkosh’s normal product development process,” he said.

The company’s independent development process mirrors the commercial automotive industry, involving a rapid proto-type-to-production timetable than typical government-funded development programs, Bryant said.

“It allowed us to evolve multiple generations of our L-ATV that we probably couldn’t have done--I won’t call it the con-straints of a government contract--if we were under a government contract, we would not have had the freedom to optimize the design and evolve it through multiple generations as rapidly as we did.”

Oshkosh, therefore, was ideally suited to enter the EMD phase of the competition with a vehicle that was designed in tan-dem with government testing, that had already integrated learned requirements, without having to retool its design in response to the testing, Bryant said.

“The vehicle we proposed, during EMD, when we engaged in 14 months of government testing, we were essentially proving to the government that which we already knew,” he said.

The company self-funded efforts to make the L-ATV lighter while at the same time providing better crew protection–met-rics that are often at odds. They also were able to drive cost out of the vehicle, though Bryant would not disclose the per-unit cost because of the looming threat of a protest from one of the non-contracted competitors.

Between the TD and EMD phases, Oshkosh redesigned, improved and/or replaced its suspension system, its core crew protection system and the vehicle’s integrated communications systems.

Oshkosh built the 22 EMD versions of the JLTV on its existing production line that cranks out both heavy and medium tactical vehicles for the Army and Marine Corps.

Defense Daily (ISSN 0889-0404) is published each business day electronically by Access Intelligence, LLC • Managing Editor: John Robinson, jrobinson@accessintel.com • Business: Calvin Biesecker, calvinb21@aol.com • Congressional/Navy: Valerie Insinna, vinsinna@accessintel.com • Land Forces: Dan Parsons, dparsons@accessintel.com • Air Force Reporter: Pat Host, phost@accessintel.com • Editor Emeritus: Norman Baker • Director of Marketing: Kristy Keller, kkeller@accessintel.com • Publisher: Thomas A. Sloma-Williams, tawilliams@accessintel.com • SVP: Jennifer Schwartz, jschwartz@accessintel.com • Divisional President: Heather Farley, hfarley@accessintel.com • SVP Information Technology: Rob Paciorek • President & CEO: Don Pazour • To advertise in Defense Daily contact Jamila Zaidi at jzaidi@accessintel.com. For site licenses and group subscriptions, contact Jamila Zaidi at jzaidi@accessintel.com. For new orders, contact clientservices@accessintel.com or +1 (301) 354-2101.

Ask about

the NEW

Government

Attendance

Grant Program!

Save 10% as a Modern Day Marine AttendeeRegister now for the 2015 Open Architecture Summit

to save 10% – use discount code MDMVIP!

November 4, 2015 | Grand Hyatt Washington | Washington, D.C.

8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. Keynote Presentation

9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. Flag Officers Panel: Implementing Open Architecture on Programs

10:30 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. Networking Break

10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. Panel 2: Collaborating to Forge Common Standards in Space and Avionics

12:15 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. Keynote Luncheon

1:40 p.m. – 3:10 p.m. Panel 3: Coupling Open and Secure: Open Architectures in the Cyber Domain

3:10 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Networking Break

3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Panel 4: Open Architectures in Electronic Warfare

5:00 p.m. – 5:05 p.m. Closing Remarks

The eighth annual Open Architecture Summit plans to provide attendees with the latest technology trends and developments, as well as the newest business opportunities in the application of open architecture solutions in defense and national security acquisition.

Here’s a sneak peek of the 2015 Open Architecture Summit Agenda

Secure your spot now to save 10% with discount code MDMVIP.

Government and military employees can apply for the new Government Attendance Grant program to receive a grant to cover the registration for the Open Architecture Summit.

Contact Elana Lilienfeld at elilienfeld@accessintel.com for more information.

26715