The Army's Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV): Background and Issues for Congress

Abstract

The Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) is the Armys proposed replacement for the Vietnam-era M-113 personnel carriers, which are still in service in a variety of support capacities in Armored Brigade Combat Teams (ABCTs). While M-113s no longer serve as infantry fighting vehicles, five variants of the M-113 are used as command and control vehicles, general purpose vehicles, mortar carriers, and medical treatment and evacuation vehicles. An estimated 3,000 of these M-113 variants are currently in service with the Army. The AMPV is intended to be a vehicle integration or non-developmental program (candidate vehicles will be either existing vehicles or modified existing vehiclesnot vehicles that are specially designed and not currently in service). Some suggest that a non-developmental vehicle might make it easier for the Army to eventually field this system to the force, as most of the Armys most recent developmental programs, such as the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV), the Future Combat System (FCS), the Crusader self-propelled artillery system, and the Comanche helicopter, were cancelled before they could be fully developed and fielded. On November 26, 2013, the Army issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the AMPV. This RFP stipulated the Army planned to award a five-year Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) contract in May 2014 worth $458 million to a single contractor for 29 prototypes. While the March 2013 RFP established an Average Unit Manufacturing Cost Ceiling for each AMPV at $1.8 million, this was rescinded to permit vendors greater flexibility. The EMD phase was scheduled to run between FY2015 and FY2019, followed by three years of low-rate initial production (LRIP) starting in 2020. The Army currently plans to procure 2,907 AMPVs to replace M-113s in ABCTs at an estimated program cost of $10.233 billion.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 11, 2017
Accession Number
AD1025081

Entities

People

  • Andrew Feickert

Organizations

  • Congressional Research Service

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Armored Personnel Carriers
  • Armored Vehicles
  • Combat Vehicles
  • Command And Control
  • Contractors
  • Contracts
  • Department Of Defense
  • Engineering
  • Evacuation
  • Governments
  • Infantry Fighting Vehicles
  • Medical Evacuation
  • Military Acquisition
  • Self Propelled Guns
  • Therapy
  • Training

Readers

  • Military Science
  • Munitions and Ordnance Engineering
  • Public Financial Management and Budgeting

Technology Areas

  • Fully Networked C3