Jane Edwards
South Korea-based armored troop carrier developer Hanwha and Oshkosh, a maker of military trucks, have partnered to pursue the U.S. Army’s Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle program that seeks to replace the service’s M2 Bradley infantry vehicles, Breaking Defense reported Monday.
The Oshkosh-Hanwha team joins the other four confirmed industry groups that have submitted bids for the Army’s OMFV program.
In October, Rheinmetall‘s U.S. defense arm initially named Raytheon Technologies and Textron Systems as members of Team Lynx, which also includes Allison Transmissions, to compete for the Army program. American Rheinmetall Vehicles recently added L3Harris Technologies to the group.
BAE Systems teamed up with Elbit Systems of America to develop a platform for the Bradley replacement initiative, while General Dynamics partnered with Applied Intuition and AeroVironment on the program.
Michigan-based Mettle Ops has also participated in the competition, the report noted.
The service plans to award concept development contracts to up to five teams and then select up to three groups by 2023 to finalize their designs and develop prototypes. The service expects to choose the final winner in 2027 and move the vehicle to the operational phase in 2029.
The Army dropped the solicitation for the OMFV rapid prototyping phase in January 2020 and came up with a new strategy for the program four months after. A final request for proposals for the concept design phase was issued in December.
