Army Gives Industry Creative License to Modernize Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV)

Video Above: The Army asked industry to invest, innovate and push ahead of the technical curve for Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicles

By Kris Osborn – President & Editor-In-Chief, Warrior Maven

The U.S. Army is giving industry a lot of creative leeway when it comes to engineering the service’s new Bradley replacement infantry carrier, the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV).

There are a broad set of parameters when it comes to what the Army wants the new vehicle to incorporate, yet much of the actual designs, technologies and weapons configurations are being left up to industry innovators.

“We want to learn from their designs. We established what we believe are the best requirements. There are some things we think should be mandatory and other things which are left as open options for industry as trade space. When we get this in the hands of soldiers, we can compare performance costs and get the best equipment for soldiers. We are paying companies to come up with the best version of their idea,” Maj. Gen. Ross Coffman, Director, Next Generation Combat Vehicles Cross Functional Team, Army Futures Command, told reporters at the 2021 Association of the United States Army annual symposium.

Of course the vehicle will need to operate with a robotic capability, meaning the technological ability to perform unmanned missions, yet the Army has not specified exactly how many soldiers each individual vehicle will transport or what kinds of exact weapons capabilities it will incorporate. For example, the Army may arm its new infantry carriers with a 30mm cannon or a 50mm cannon, or simply equip the vehicle with a turret that is able to quickly exchange between the two as required by a mission.

OMFV (Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle) Teams

There are currently five industry teams working intensely to refine digital designs sufficient to meet Army criteria, yet many of the offerings will simply be proposals or “suggested’ Ideas for the Army to consider. Some of the vendors will arm their