Interim Armored Vehicle

He called for heavy units to be "more strategically deployable, and more agile with a smaller footprint, and light forces must be more lethal, survivable, and tactically mobile.

"[1] In remarks at Association of the United States Army meeting in October, Shinseki laid out his vision for a lighter, more transportable force.

He expected to make this possible by building future fighting vehicles on a common chassis and using mutually compatible ammunition.

In the interim, Shinseki sought to bring a prototype unit, using commercial off-the-shelf technologies, online by the end of the fiscal year.

The demonstration was intended to inform the Army about what was available as well as assess each vehicle's adaptability to the new brigades and their potential for the insertion of new technology to improve its capabilities.

[9] The U.S. Army outfitted the unit with LAV IIIs borrowed from Canada,[10] which served as the main surrogate for the IAV.

[12] Four teams submitted proposals: In its evaluations, the Army noted that it found neither the wheeled nor the tracked candidates to have any definitive edge over the other.

[21] The service rejected a split buy of the M8 AGS offered by UDPL, citing the system's lower top speed and different maintenance requirements.

"[19] At the same time as the contract award, the Army announced a 16-month schedule slip due to additional development work required on the MGS and fire support vehicle.

[19] In December 2000, UDPL filed a challenge to the contract award, forcing the Army to issue a stop-work order.

In its protest, UDLP said its vehicles would be ready one to two years earlier at about half the cost of GM-GDLS's proposal.

[25] Planned buys as of December 2000:[26] In 2000, the Army studied the differences between light, medium (interim) and heavy brigade combat teams.