Detroit Arsenal, Mich. (Feb. 25, 2020) -- Today, the Army released its list of the nine desired characteristics for the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) program, focusing on survivability, mobility, growth, lethality, weight, logistics, transportability, manning, and training.
The characteristics will be refined through a cooperative and iterative process with industry, digital design competitions and Soldier touch points to inform and sharpen OMFV final prototypes for testing.
"Industry feedback on the proposed vehicle characteristics, not a defined set of requirements, from both large and small vendors is critical as we continue to move forward on the program," said Brig. Gen. Ross Coffman, the Army's director for the Next Generation Combat Vehicle Cross Functional Team.
The effort to gather input on the desired characteristics is being conducted in conjunction with the market survey issued earlier this month.
"We want to understand industry's ability to meet the desired characteristics so we can determine what trades may be necessary, while simultaneously allowing industry the freedom to be innovative and creative in producing a transformational increase in warfighting capability," added Coffman.
Providing industry the trade space to meet the desired characteristics will ensure the development of a stable base platform, and provide a platform with significant growth for space, weight and power (SWAP). It will also provide the Army with an open architecture that supports the integration of maturing subsystems.
OMFV, as part of an Armored Brigade Combat Team (ABCT), will replace the Bradley to provide the capabilities required to defeat a future near-peer competitor's force. The Army is seeking a transformational increase in warfighting capability, not simply another incremental improvement over the current Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
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