puma

GCV Contractors To CBO: You Graded The Wrong Vehicle

By

BAE Systems and General Dynamics, the companies developing the Army’s new Ground Combat Vehicle, struck back at the Congressional Budget Office over a CBO report arguing the GCV would be inferior to the German Puma troop carrier. The contractors’ essential argument: CBO based its scoring on an out-of-date concept for what GCV would be, and the prototypes now in development are a lot better.

“CBO stated they are using ‘GCV Concept after Trades’ from the original Army AoA (Analysis of Alternatives) delivered in March, 2011. This might account for the poor qualities given the GCV in the study,” General Dynamics Land Systems spokesman Pete Keating told Breaking Defense this morning. “The GCV requirements today and the two contractor offers are significantly different vehicles from the Army conceptual vehicles in the 2011 AoA.” Keep reading →

Published April 3, 2013 at 1:10 PM

CBO To Army: Scrap Ground Combat Vehicle, Buy German Puma (BREAKING)

By

[updated] WASHINGTON: The Army’s proposed Ground Combat Vehicle would offer less combat power, at a higher cost, than buying the German-made Puma already in production or even just upgrading the Army’s existing M2 Bradley, according to the Congressional Budget Office. CBO issued a report today assessing different alternatives to upgrade Army heavy brigades‘ infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), tank-like war machines with tracks and turrets designed to carry troops into combat.

[Click here for the GCV contractors BAE and General Dynamics critiquing the CBO report] Keep reading →

Published April 2, 2013 at 4:45 PM

Army Chief Wants Grey Eagle Drones In All Divisions, But Can’t Buy More

By

LAS VEGAS: As the Army institutionalizes robotic systems that began as ad hoc expedients for Iraq and Afghanistan, the Chief of Staff wants drones in every combat aviation brigade and every division — even at the price of spreading them thinner across the force.

The Army’s first company of Grey Eagle UAVs, a variant of the Air Force’s Predator, is still on its first deployment to Afghanistan. (Platoon-sized elements of Grey Eagles have been supporting Special Forces in Afghanistan for longer). A second company is flying in the system’s Initial Operating Test & Evaluation, and a third has just started to receive its personnel. But Chief of Army Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno has already directed the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) to plan a reorganization that would to put a Grey Eagle company in every Army division — without spending more of the service’s diminishing resources. Keep reading →

Published August 8, 2012 at 7:00 AM