General Dynamics protests ACV award.

Thanks to Jonathan for the link!

via Defense News.

According to John Garner, Advanced Amphibious Assault program manager, some "subfactors" established in the request for proposals played out in the service's decision. Being able to operate well in water and on land were equal to requirements to carry personnel, as well as protection, he said, "so the intent was to balance the capabilities."
But he added, "We did have individual emphasis areas that would give extra credit, so to speak, all the other things being equal, and those emphasis areas were weighted toward the amphibious capabilities of the vehicle because there were some very capable ground vehicles out there, but fundamentally this vehicle has to be an amphibious vehicle."
The ACV 1.1 armored personnel carrier has been a long time coming and "will yield a balanced combination of performance protection and payload all at an affordable price," William Taylor, the Marine Corps' Land Systems program executive officer, told reporters prior to the award on Nov. 24.

I told you that the General Dynamics offering was biased toward the original Marine Personnel Carrier contest.

Additionally the program office has said that the ACV 1.1 and 1.2 were merging...and that corporations wouldn't be punished but rather rewarded for exceeding the threshold capabilities in the ACV 1.1 contract.

So what did General Dynamics do?  They revamped the Stryker, put a big ass swim vane on it and thought that it would be good enough.  The funny thing is that they have a "Marine Corps" section to keep them informed on where things are going.

They should have hired me as a consultant.  I could see them getting their tits smashed from orbit.  BAE/IVECO and SAIC/ST Kinetics were playing for keeps and built vehicles to fulfill the ACV 1.2 requirements while General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin decided to be coy and lazy!  Even if they get the program to do another assessment they won't be able to win the re-do.

They emphasized land performance and didn't do a simple appraisal of where the USMC was going.  They won't be able to afford a different vehicle for ACV 1.2 so that meant the idea of a capable MPC type vehicle with poor swim from ship to shore was a non starter.

Once again the smartest guys in the room were anything but.  A fucking blogger could see this coming and they couldn't.