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The Army’s Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) Program: Background and Issues for Congress


bob7947

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This is a Congressional Research Service report on the Army's replacement for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and its history.  It is a system acquisition.  Take a look at the history of the system and see if you can identify why problems occurred.  At least one will scream at you.

A version of the requirements are on p. 2.  I don't know if they are current or not.  There is a current brief acquisition strategy discussed on p. 14.  It's going to take about 10 years to field this system.  Now, the question.

Would you accept the job as Program Manager on the OMFV?  

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Very ambitious technical requirements. Not promising.

The 171-page concept design phase RFP is now available at beta.SAM.gov. Just search for OMFV. DOD still lacks the simplicity gene—there are 74 attachments. They plan to award up to five firm-fixed-price contracts, incrementally funded.

Typical bureaucratic source selection. They want "narrative" "approach" proposals, of course. DOD can't be taught and never learns. "Speed of relevance" my ***.

Given our country's dependence on contracts and contractors, competitive proposals "best value" contracting as practiced today is going to be the death of us.

No, I would not accept the job as program manager on the OMFV. They'll get someone to do it. There will probably be three or four of them over the course of the next six years.

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1 hour ago, Vern Edwards said:

They plan to award up to five firm-fixed-price contracts, incrementally funded.

@Vern EdwardsSincere question: what benefits does the government receive when funding a FFP contract incrementally? As a contractor, we always hated that, because it caused us to devote more program control folks to the program that would otherwise be the case. What is the government getting in return for (presumably) paying for the additional program control/finance personnel?

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Being the kid on block, maybe I am off here but:

FAR 10.001(a)(2) - "Conduct market research appropriate to the circumstances-

                               (i) Before developing new requirements documents for an acquisition by that agency;"

FAR 11.002(a)(2) - To the maximum extent practicable, ensure that acquisition officials-

                               (i) State requirements with respect to an acquisition of supplies or services in terms of-

                                  (A) Functions to be performed;

                                  (B) Performance required; or

                                  (C) Essential physical characteristics;"

Market research is a tool to understand what the market is capable of and then us it to define the requirement based on those capabilities. They seem to have missed that as they cut out 4 of of the expected 7 of the competition pool from the get-go.  

They are for sure ambiguous:

Capture.PNG.3c21d77993a9d82885a7a1beabf11818.PNG

Optionally manned and Capacity - Not sure why they were worried about the crew size if they were getting out with the rest of the troops for the remote to take over?

Transportability - "ready for combat in 15" must mean that how long it take to turn on the engine right?

Protection - Guess they want this thing battle tested for space ship fire 30 years in advance. 

Growth - "Preplanned product improvement" - There that space ship fire armor in 2043. Maybe it should be able to swim as well. 

Lethality - "While moving and/or stationary against moving and/or stationary" - Don't think you can be moving and stationary at once...

Sustainability - "Breakthroughs in power generation and management" - There's one of those ray-gun things we want it to be ready for. 

 

Sorry if I am having too much fun, but it seems like there are to many dreamers in the room and not enough practical thinkers present. 

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Those look like the performance and sustainability objectives that would be described in the solicitation.

As for the “moving and/or stationary”, I can see scenarios where a target or multiple targets could could be moving, stationary or both moving and stationary. Not so sure about the vehicle itself, other than moving or stationary but so what?

Some of the various technologies have advanced much in the past couple of years (e.g., driverless, remotely driven, etc. systems). As for the accuracy of the guns , I remember watching a film in the Spring of 1966, demonstrating the main gun aiming system on an experimental Tank, traveling very fast over rough terrain, showing the crosshairs fixed on the distant Foshay Tower (a tall building)  in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota.

We were on a high school seniors tour of the Science and Engineering Departments of the University of Minnesota. The film showed the end of gun camera view with and without the aiming system activated.  It was either a Honeywell or 3M film. That’s before desktop computers. Lasers and masers were relatively new. One of the demos at the U if M was a basic laser.

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Seems to me that this hypothetical future combat vehicle is intended to be all things to all combatants in all scenarios. I'm guessing the performance requirements listed above came out of a committee -- or, more specifically, it was the result of many committee meetings and briefings up and go-backs.

 

Quote

A committee is the only known form of life with a hundred bellies and no brain. - Robert Heinlein

 

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