Congratulations Textron!
UPDATE:
500 vehicles with an option for 100 more. Service life of at least 20 years? Modernization. Upgrades over that time span. Probable neck down of Canadian armored vehicles to this vehicle and the LAV III and CCV/Leopard 2 .... This is a big fucking deal!
UPDATE 1:
This might be a knock out body blow to Oshkosh. Take over rumors should start flying now. I'm sure BAE, General Dynamics, KMW and maybe even Lockheed Martin are circling....
BAE must be stunned. It had a clean sheet design and lost. I can't wait to read the rationale behind the decision but heads must be getting ready to roll in the strategic marketing house.
Force Protection/General Dynamics. Toast. I didn't think the Timberwolf fit the bill and results bore that out. Fresh blood is desperately needed in that design shop.
Sol I'm not clear on why Oshkosh, with sales of around $10 billion a year, received a "body blow" for losing out on this $700 million Canadian contract?
ReplyDeleteAs for the Textron design it might be interesting to note it's derived from the M1117 which used to be called the ASV-150 signifying it's design history from the V100/150. So the new Canadian vehicle is only a 50 year old design, in some respects.
Textron is in the interesting position of I believe having the only 4x4 LAV that has a lineage based on combat experience these days. It's true that there are a wide variety of 4x4 MRAP type vehicles that have been used in combat but their designs all go back to trucks while, as Lane points out, Textron's goes back through LAV use in Iraq to LAV use in Vietnam.
ReplyDeleteAs the 8x8 vehicles keep getting bigger and more expensive there may be a niche for Textron at the simpler, cheaper end especially if the A-stan wind down gets militaries thinking more along general purpose LAV lines than rather than the MRAP approach.
To be fair, the Textron TAPV isn't a 50 year old design any more than the Piranha V is a 40 year old design (going back to the Piranha I family of the 70s).
Oshkosh is in trouble because their product stream is running dry. the commercial market is damn near non existant and once the JLTV winner is announced you can bet that civilian law enforcement will migrate to that new platform. that leaves only fire fighting vehicles and other type trucks. the future is bleak.
ReplyDeletethey're a take over target and everyone knows it.
what i didn't know until later is that General Dynamics teamed with Oskhosh for this contest. two losses.