RE: RE: RE: US Award...News Expected ShortlyIt gets confusing and incestuous with the bidders to meet the Military contract specifications and contracts. They will work with many manufactures to add value to their proposal for various technologies. They will also work with multiple sub-contractors to provide a specific component as well. Different components related for blast protection like seating can be integrated by a different OEM than the add-on armor or integrated armor protection. There are many companies such as Armor Holdings, Armorworks, Force Protection, Plasan, DEW etc that are involved for various specialties.
From the look of Cymat's global clients list, they seem to have a fair bit of ground covered for various potential things, so it appears it is not necessarily an all or nothing business strategy approach with multiple US OEMs, an Israel OEM, Malaysian OEM, Canada, US, NATO associations. The one thing that really sounds unique is the V-Hull design which the US Pentagon really harps about as a requirement. The main contractors talk about V-Hull ie. General Dynamics for the LAV/LAV-H, and is also featured on the Cymat website. The V-Hull requirement is certainly common to both the US and Canadian Requirements with the GDLF vehicles and others if US makes it mandatory. I believe that General Dynamics is offering options to have same upgrade capability for its existing LAV platforms as well as a new vechicle LAV-H. If both can incorporate a V-Hull design involving Smartmetal (Retrofit or New) that would cover a large base, blast attenuation seats could be another possibility.