Mettle Ops artwork

Artist’s concept of a potential Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle design. (Mettle Ops image)

WASHINGTON: The declared competitors for the Army’s Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle program read like a roll call of big-name, metal-bending defense contractors: BAE Systems. General Dynamics. Hanwha and Oshkosh. Rheinmetall. Until you got to… Mettle Ops?

The Michigan-based, veteran-owned small business has never built a vehicle, acknowledges Mettle Ops program manager P.J. McMullen. But the company, and McMullen personally, have extensive experience in vehicle engineering, he told me, especially with a pair of recent Army contracts studying survivability against a wide range of warheads and other threats. And it’s already brought together a world-class team of experts and partner firms for OMFV: “We feel very good about our team,” he said, though he’s not yet naming any names.

Arguably most important: Mettle Ops is the kind of outsider the Army wanted to encourage when it issued a formal Request For Proposals this year. After just one firm, General Dynamics, responded to an earlier RFP in 2019, the service rebooted the program in 2020 and went out of its way to ease requirements on industry to participate. In particular, instead of demanding companies produce a full-up prototype at their own expense, as it did in 2019, the Army is now asking for purely digital “concepts” for how companies would design and build the vehicle.

What’s more, McMullen told me, “this solicitation…. had an emphasis on small business involvement” that went far beyond the usual pro forma requirements for small business participation. Instead, he said, this time the Army seemed to have a strong “desire to engage more small businesses, because of the innovations that can come out of small business.”

Precisely because Mettle Ops is small, it can’t build everything in-house the way a big manufacturer might, McMullen said. Instead, it’s always forced to bring together teammates and make their tech work as an integrated system of systems. That’s exactly the approach the Army wants for OMFV and other future programs: a modular open systems architecture that can plug-and-play new technology from any vendor that meets common interface standards, allowing easy and affordable upgrades to keep up with changing threats.

But can Mettle Ops really pull together a team to build a physical prototype, which will be required in the next phase of the competition, Phase III, beginning in 2023?

“We’re not just doing phase II and walking away,” McMullen told me. Mettle Ops has a wide range of partners with manufacturing capabilities, he said, “several of them that can take this vehicle and build… an actual prototype.”

Now, having partners that can manufacture armored vehicles isn’t the same as being an Original Equipment Manufacturer yourself.

“We’re going in and playing with very large traditional OEM companies… many of whom already have vehicles that they’ve built,” McMullen acknowledged. “Mettle Ops has not built any vehicles.”

But, he said, “we feel our approach provides those options for growth and modularity because we are working with the technology providers, rather than have everything developed in-house.”

Mettle Ops OMFV Press Release by BreakingDefense on Scribd

“We realize that we may be considered an underdog from a traditional ground vehicle design and acquisition standpoint,” says a Mettle Ops press release, “but that is not going to stop us since our approach will provide the US Army with options for growth and modularity. We are really hoping the USG [US Government] gives Mettle Ops a shot at OMFV.”

That is to say: Army, Mettle took you at your word about wanting unconventional solutions from non-traditional firms. Now it’s on the service to give them a fair chance.

The Army will pick up to five teams for concept contracts this year and will narrow down to at most three companies to build prototypes in 2023.