SAIC seeks Army armored vehicle contract

Oct. 6 (UPI) -- Science Applications International Corp. announced on Thursday that it plans to develop combat vehicle prototypes for the U.S. Army.

SAIC's prototypes for the Army's Mobile Protected Firepower, or MPF, program are to be designed, developed and built with ST Kinetics of Singapore and Belgium-based CMI Defense.

"As a systems integrator, SAIC can deliver an alternative option to the Army that brings together best-of-breed, non-developmental components to field a new combat vehicle quickly that meets critical requirements," Jim Scanlon, SAIC senior vice president and general manager of the Defense Systems Customer Group, said in a press release. "Rapid delivery of this MPF solution is essential to the Army and our solution is extremely well-positioned to meet these requirements and deliver a modernized vehicle to soldiers."

The new vehicles will feature ST Kinetics' Next Generation Armored Fighting Vehicle chassis and a turret from CMI Defense, Scanlon said.

"ST Kinetics is indeed honored to team up with SAIC again to participate in another major defense program in the United States," said Lee Shiang Long, president of ST Kinetics. "Our NGAFV is an advanced system that is fully digitalized, highly mobile and developed to support networked knowledge-based warfighting."

"A fleet of seven prototypes had been developed and robustly tested over several years. As the NGAFV will be in production soon, this platform brings minimal technical risk and a robust supply chain to the MPF program."