In addition to the FMS sales, Gooding also pointed to ongoing FMS discussions with India, describing them as “an interesting ongoing effort” that has included a loan agreement that had sent two guns over to India in the fall of 2010.
Section 2, Battery A, 2nd Battalion, 320th Field Artillery, 1st Brigade Combat Team, fires a 105 mm high explosive round from their M119 Howitzer Nov. 17 during their battery air assault raid. DoD photo
“With India and BAE Systems, we tested those guns to Indian requirements,” he said. “We were out in the western plains near the border with Pakistan and we also tested them up in the Himalayan Mountains, at an elevation close to 13,000 feet and about 50 miles from the Chinese border. It’s no secret that India is very concerned about their borders and protecting their borders. So that’s where they wanted to test these guns.”
FMS cases aside, Gooding said that the M777 program “is very much coming to the end of production and focusing more and more on sustainment of the Triple Seven.”
“We are currently under something called Interim Contractor Support [ICS],” he explained. “That’s a contract with BAE Systems where they are supplying unique parts for the guns.”
In parallel with the management of the unique system parts under the ICS contract, the U.S. government is using its organic supply system to manage and provide many of the “common parts” for the howitzer through the Army’s TACOM at Warren, Mich., and the Marine Corps Logistics Center at Albany, Ga.
“Things like the entire cannon assembly – the gun tube, the breech, and the muzzle brake – are all supplied by Watervliet Arsenal with the spares in the organic supply system,” he stated. “The optical fire control is also government furnished. We have a contract with Seiler Industriesand they supply the optical fire control. The optics have a lot of common parts with the M119 series 105 mm howitzer and the legacy M198 155 mm howitzers.”
U.S. soldiers use motion-capture suits to create simulations for the M777A2 trainer. The new trainer will aid soldiers and Marines by providing an interactive review of the proper procedures on how to safely and accurately perform critical M777A2 crew tasks. Army Material Command photo by Erin Usawicz
Gooding said that the next step in the process will involve a competitive Performance Based Life Cycle Support (PBLCS) contract.
“We have a solicitation out on the street. The timeline is for industry to respond by the middle of December of this year, and we are looking to award that contract in March 2013,” he said.
“The current ICS contract very much mimics what we would do in Performance Based Life Cycle Support [PBLCS],” he acknowledged. “But we don’t have all of the ‘contractual metrics’ in that contract. So the PBLCS is going to take us that next step as we move into sustainment in terms of metrics of supporting weapon systems in the field. But it’s been very successful to date. The readiness has been way up over 95 percent for the fleet and spare parts have been getting out to the weapon systems in Afghanistan. There are a lot more Army guns than Marine Corps guns in Afghanistan right now. But the ability to support those guns in the war and also to support all of the CONUS [Continenal United States] guns that we have has been very successful. And I think PBLCS is going to push us that much further in terms of support and sustainment for the weapon system.”