The US Army has shortlisted five teams to proceed to the second of its four-stage competition to replace its M2 Bradley fighting vehicle.

Dubbed Optionally manned fighting vehicle (OMFV), the service selected teams led by Point Blank Enterprises, Oshkosh Defense, BAE Systems Land and Armaments, General Dynamics Land Systems, and American Rheinmetall Vehicles, with each team awarded approximately US$60m ($A81.5m) each to progress their design concept.

Point Blank Enterprises has teamed with Keshik Mobile Power Systems to offer what it describes as an innovative design with a modular and technology-agnostic open systems approach for power, information, and physical architectures. BAE Systems and Elbit Systems of America have teamed to explore crew automation, active protection, and other transformational combat vehicle technologies and turret solutions for the program.

American Rheinmetall Vehicles has teamed with Textron Systems and L3Harris to propose a design based on the Lynx IFV also on offer for Australia’s LAND 400 Phase 3 IFV requirement. General Dynamics Land Systems is reportedly offering a development of the M2 called ‘Next Gen Bradley. Oshkosh Defense has teamed with Hanwha Defense to propose a version of the Redback IFV also being offered for LAND 400 Phase 3.

“The concept design phase reflects the (US) Army’s effort to structure a program which incentivises industry innovation and provides the analytical underpinnings for the development of an abbreviated capability development document,” US Army program executive officer for Ground Combat Systems, Brig Gen Glenn Dean said in a release.

Following the current concept design phase, the US Army intends to hold a detailed design phase competition up to FY2023, and award up to three contracts to progress to a detailed design process which will involve building and testing prototypes. A Milestone C production decision is scheduled for the end of FY2027.