BEHAVIORIAL ACQUISITION


FIGURE 4


lethality requirements for a mechanized infantry vehicle that more resembled an armored tank.


In subsequent reviews with Army senior leaders, the potential weight of the Ground Combat Vehicle and excessive requirements were highlighted. However, the Army pushed ahead and approved the requirements—heavily affected by a diffi- culty in making trade-offs. Te technical maturation and risk reduction contracts seemed to be based primarily on a need to protect the planned and programmed resources from the old Future Combat Systems Manned Ground Vehicles program (schedule-driven). In 2014, three years into the development effort, the Army canceled the Ground Combat Vehicle program because the vehicle was going to be too big and heavy and had an excessive number of requirements.


In recent years, after several failed attempts of initiating the Next Generation Combat Vehicle because of aggressive requirements and a lack of interest by industry, the Army is trying again—this time calling the Bradley replacement the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle.


Te Optionally Manned Fighting Vehi- cle program plan is presented in Figure 4. Te program is leveraging the newly established middle tier of acquisition path- way and begins not with a milestone A or B, but with an acquisition decision memorandum from the milestone deci- sion authority. After the prototyping phase, a materiel-development decision will continue the design effort and start build and integration efforts. Te program plan specifically avoids using the technical maturation and risk reduction and engi- neering and manufacturing development phases of a major-capability acquisition. Again, as with the Ground Combat Vehi- cle program schedule, the Army plans to


94 Army AL&T Magazine Spring 2022


OPTIONALLY MANNED FIGHTING VEHICLE


The Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle program leverages the newly established middle tier of acquisition but is susceptible to the same behavior acquisition biases that contributed to the failures of the predecessor Bradley replacement vehicles. (Graphic by USAASC)


achieve the milestone C within seven years of program initiation. Interestingly, the program uses the terms “characteristics of need” to describe the requirements to competing contractors rather than more traditional terms like key performance parameters.


Te Optionally Manned Fighting Vehi- cle program is susceptible to the same behavior acquisition biases (planning fallacy, overoptimism bias, recency bias, and difficulty in making trade-offs) as contributed to the failures of the prede- cessor Bradley-replacement acquisition efforts. How can the design and develop- ment of a mechanized infantry vehicle be optimized for troop transport and protec- tion, lethality and remote autonomous operations simultaneously? Unfortu- nately, the answer is that it can’t—this will require difficult requirement trade-offs to avoid the planning fallacy and overopti- mism bias. A vehicle that is optimized to protect the crew and dismounted troops


being transported would be an inefficient combat vehicle for lethal autonomous operations (too big and heavy).


It appears that recency bias has also played a significant role in the Option- ally Manned Fighting Vehicle program planning. Is the Army more interested in riding the autonomous vehicle hype wave? Or does the Army have other priorities like proving that major-capability acquisition can be done differently or innovatively in the newly established Army Futures Command?


Te Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle acquisition strategy leverages the middle- tier of acquisition pathway to avoid forming a program of record to enter the engineering and manufacturing develop- ment phase after a successful milestone B. Te Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle program will use middle-tier authorities to rapidly prototype vehicles for experi- mentation and demonstration and then


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