Soldiers made some minor suggestions, but overall “we had positive feedback about the performance of the vehicle,” Miller added.īob Lennox, GDLS’ vice president of strategy and global growth, told Defense News last fall that the soldier assessment “was very valuable to us. “We got really great feedback on the vehicle from the soldiers that operated it.” While BAE struggled to get its prototypes to Bragg, once there, “everything went great,” Miller said. Soldiers wrapped up that portion of the assessment in early August 2021, according to Jim Miller, BAE’s senior director of business development for combat mission systems, who spoke to Defense News in October that year. The company experienced some prototype production delays due to the coronavirus pandemic, and it delivered systems for the soldier evaluation months later than GDLS. (Photo courtesy of GDLS).īAE Systems’ design is an updated M8 Buford armored gun system with new capabilities and components. General Dynamics Land Systems Mobile Protected Fire Power entry features the AJAX chassis and a turret with the same fire control system as the M1 Abrams tank. GDLS offered a new, lightweight chassis with a high-performance power pack and an advanced suspension, combined with a turret featuring the latest version of the fire control system found in the Abrams main battle tank.

The two prototypes differed significantly. Both teams were selected in December 2018 to build and deliver 12 MPF prototypes.

Later that year, in the fall, the competing light tank prototypes moved into the Army’s limited-user test, which marked the final step before the service would be able to decide on a winner.

In 2021, the systems went through a soldier vehicle assessment with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, during which soldiers were tasked with validating the MPF concept and providing feedback on how the service should develop tactics, techniques and procedures for fighting with this capability. Bush noted the MPF program has undergone several oversight council reviews, and that this time the Army assessed quantities and types of units to which the service would field MPF.

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