The US Army has awarded American Rheinmetall Vehicles – a subsidiary of defence prime Rheinmetall – a developmental contract for the Phase 2 Digital Design of its Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) program.
American Rheinmetall Vehicles will execute Phase 2 alongside a group of defence industry partners, including Raytheon Technologies, L3Harris Technologies, Textron Systems and Allison Transmission.
The US Army’s OMFV program is a ground-modernization effort to replace nearly 3,800 Bradley Fighting Vehicles among the US Army’s Armored Brigade Combat Teams.
“This is a great win for American Rheinmetall Vehicles and Team Lynx as a whole,” Matt Warnick, Managing Director of American Rheinmetall Vehicles, said. “With this contract award, we take another important step forward in bringing the kind of next-generation technology solution, partnership and industrial capability the US Army deserves and that Team Lynx is so well prepared to deliver for the OMFV program.”
Team Lynx will work with the US Army on the digitally engineered design and development of the team’s OMFV concept using Rheinmetall’s Lynx KF41 Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) as the point of departure for the design. The team’s solution will provide the US Army with a next-generation infantry fighting vehicle featuring a modular open systems architecture. This is expected to enable rapid insertion of new capabilities as they become available, guaranteeing current and future overmatch.
The Digital Design Phase kicks off the OMFV program and continues through early 2023, laying the foundation for future development and production phases. Competition for Phase 3 (Detailed Design) is anticipated to start in 2023, followed by Phase 4 (Prototype Build and Test), which results in government testing in early 2026.