Detroit Arsenal, Michigan – The U.S. Army announced today the awarding of five contracts for the Army’s upcoming Self-Propelled Howitzer Performance Demonstration. The contracts were awarded to: American Rheinmetall Vehicles, BAE BOFORS, Hanwha Defense USA, General Dynamics Land Systems, and Elbit Systems USA. The contracts were awarded under Other Transaction Agreements (OTA) and the total award value for all contracts is approximately $4 million.
The Self-Propelled Howitzer Modernization (SPH-M) effort, formerly known as Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA), improves self-propelled howitzer lethality through increased range and increased rate of fire, using mature technology to improve mobility, survivability, reliability, supportability, and lethality.
“In October 2023 the Army made the decision to close out the ERCA Rapid Prototyping effort as we determined further maturation and redesign of the 58-caliber cannon was required before we could transition into an acquisition pathway,” said Maj. Gen. Glenn Dean, program executive officer, Ground Combat Systems. “As part of the new strategy, we are exploring a range of options within the U.S. and internationally in order to leverage mature and available industry solutions to fulfil critical capability gaps within the Army.”
The performance demonstrations will begin in November 2024, and they will inform multiple SPH-M lines of effort as identified in the Army’s Cannon Transformation Strategy.
“The performance demonstrations will support the Army’s pivot from development to procurement of a mature, available and non-developmental system,” said Dean.
The Army intends to complete all vendor performance demonstrations by the end of 2024 with the goal of determining if operationally suitable solutions exist to progress into a follow-on competitive evaluation that may lead to a future production contract.
For more information, contact Ms. Ashley John at 586-405-5570 or ashley.f.john.civ@army.mil.
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