A LUV Update
Back at it again because I am destined to do this forever
Welp. Here I am again.
I wasn't planning to talk about LUV again for a while, indeed, I thought I had LUV pretty much done. We had our writeup, waiting on an RFP. All was well to leave it alone.
Then they went and changed the project on me…
So, what's going on?
As first reported on September 7th by the CBC, and the legendary Murray Brewster, the LUV project had recently undergone a massive change to the layout and timelines of the program.
Lets start with the biggest change to the project, that both LUV-Light (LUVL) and LUV-Heavy (LUVH) will now be split into two separate phases.
LUVL will be procuring ~425 COTS vehicles to replace the current fleet of Milverado. This is unchanged from the current LUV estimates, other than giving a more official amount compared to the 400-450 estimate. This will be done through a Standing Offer (SO).
What is a standing offer, you may ask?
A Standing Offer is a pre-negotiated agreement between the government and a supplier, which establishes the terms and conditions for future purchases of goods or services over a set period.
It doesn’t guarantee any specific orders but allows the government to procure these items quickly when needed, under the agreed-upon pricing, terms, and conditions.
The current SO is to be issued next year, while the LUVH has been delayed, with its RFI pushed back from Spring to Fall.
On top of this, the new expectation is that LUVH will start deliveries around ~2030, a year later than the current estimate of 2028/2029, at an increased cost ranging from 750 Million to upwards if a Billion dollars.
The old LUV estimate of ~500 million was already several years old and out of date, so this new estimate lines up well with the average defence inflation of ~20%.
So, what am I thinking?
LUV was first launched in 2017. It will be in the works for thirteen years before the first delivery of LUVH takes place.
It has had four seperate RFI and an ITQ. One of the main competitors, the Roshel Senator, didn't even exist when the project was launched.
Obviously, this is a disappointment for me. I have been an outspoken critic of LUVs inability to get off the ground, and the amount of time it has taken to get this far.
The rising cost was inevitable with how long the project has taken. There was little we could do about it, outside of speeding up the procurement process (Which ain't exactly easy) to award contracts before projects get stuck in procurement hell.
At the same time though, I can understand why the project has been split, and wish it was done sooner.
The art of bundling
LUV isn't one project. This is a common theme among Canafian defence.
We tend to lump several things together into one megaproject that, in theory, should allow multiple capabilities of similar nature to be effectively acquired quicker and with taking up less resources.
It's best to remember that procurement is a complex beast, one that is underfunded, understaffed and wrapped together by a confusing mess of policy and litigation.
I don't want to jump to far into procurement, which deserves its own piece for me to talk fully on. Instead, I'll focus on a few key points.
Defence procurement is made up of several key players beyond the DND.
This includes Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) whom acts as the central purchasing agent for federal departments, including the DND for projects over five million dollars, the max amount that the DND is allowed to approve in-house.
Then, there is Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada (ISED). ISED ensures that major defence procurements generate positive economic outcomes within Canada, particularly through the Industrial and Technological Benefits (ITB) policy.
The ITB policy requires that companies awarded defence contracts invest in Canadian businesses and technologies, creating jobs and driving economic growth.
All of this, in turn is under the watchful eye of thr Treasury Board. The Treasury Board is responsible for ensuring that these projects align with government priorities, are financially sustainable, and provide value for money. The board reviews project proposals, evaluates their cost estimates, and assesses risks before granting financial authority to proceed.
It also ensures that defense projects are managed efficiently and that they comply with federal policies and regulations.
These four core departments, thiugh not limited, must all come together to ensure a defence project moves through the pipeline, especially for projects in value of over a hundred million dollars.
This wouldnt be as bad, if there was an effective system of cooperation between everyone. The current system is full of redundant roles, complex rules and pages of regulation that tend to slow projects through getting approval by each of the departments necessary to sign off on a purchase.
By putting several projects together into a ‘bundle’, the DND can, in theory, Move several capabilities through the pipeline at the same time, without having to go through this complex system of actors and approvals.
Another similar project to this, GBAD, is also two projects put into one, combining both a VSHORAD and SHORAD system into one procurement.
It helps that all the qualified suppliers for GBAD have the capability to supply both the upper and lower levels of GBAD without issue, something LUV lacks.
Was it a good thing to split the project?
Of course, this method doesn't always work out even on the best of days. You are fundamentally limited if you are only aiming to award one supplier to fulfill all the capabilities in a bundle.
If we take GBAD as an example, the expectation is that only one of the qualified will supply both requirements. While this might generally be fine, there is a point where one must ask, are sacrifices being made?
Do we prioritize who has the best SHORAD system, even if their VSHORAD is a lesser quality to one of the other bidders? Is it right for the army to accept systems they don't prefer merely to push through a bundled capability?
There's also a debate on if it truly is effective in pushing through acquisitions. Despite the idea, bundled projects don't move any faster than normal, and often time either get broken up in the end, or become overly complex to the point of being delayed.
To use another example of a recent project, the Night Vision System Modernization was also broken up earlier this year, comprising FIVE seperate capabilities, the NVSM is an example of a bundle that has rightfully been split up.
For LUV, the problem was clear at the onset. Of the four Qualified Suppliers, only one, AM General, could provide both LUVL and LUVH with existing products.
Providing both the Hilux based Chieftain and the JLTVA2, AM General was uniquely set in having two seperate products that met both requirements.
Roshel. Our heavy fabourite and Canadian heartthrob, while teasing and likely able to offer a LUVL, has yet to provide us with any example of this illusive offering.
The current Senator line is beyond the COTS demands of LUVL, and while Roshel could offer something off the Super Duty chassis, they've yet to show it.
Oshkosh has no LUVL. It does not exist. They have nothing to offer on this catagory and, assuming that the bundle remained, would be unable to fully compete without a potential partnership that didnt materialize.
On a similar front, while I'm sure they could provide for LUVL, I have doubts in Armatecs ability to provide for the upper tier of LUV. Maybe it's because, despite my valiant efforts and messaging, I've been unable to find any vehicle they have ever offered, or any info that could point to their LUV offering.
Likely, they plan to offer an uparmored COTS vehicle for LUVH, what I don't know. You can put anything here amd it is a valid guess, because there is literally zero information on what they might bring to the table.
And that in part is the issue. This bundle was unsustainable from the start. While many companies offer a LUVL or LUVH platform few offer both.
It's unreasonable to expect, especially as most of the major LUVH manufacturers offer almost no LUVL solution, that such a bundle was anything more than a pipedream to achieve without sacrifice.
This further throws another question. If there had been no LUVL requirement, would a company like Thales with the Hawkei, at one point a heavy favourite, have made it through? Were there companies whom were eliminated merely for being unable to provide both requirements?
It's unlikely, given Oshkosh made it through, but it raises the issue. Even if they didn't need to meet both, and LUV was fine with selecting multiple suppliers of thr four, one must ask if it was even worth it? Or would our time have been better spent with two seperate projects from the start?
We don't have answers to this, obviously, but the point here is that simply bundling things because they're loosely similar doesn't work when the manufacturer isn't there to provide the bundle you wish.
Of course, this is an issue I have raised for a while now, and truthfully, LUVL shouldn't have existed this long in the first place.
LUVL and Continuous Acquisition
It's best to remember what LUVL is at its core. LUVL wants a commercial vehicle to replace our 2004 vintage Silverados. The project has little requirements, in that all it really wants is a Crew Cab that has potential for future hybridization.
Essentially, we want a green pickup. That's all it is.
While I don't want to rant to much, I can think of no better example of procurement failure in the fact, after seven years and an attempt to bundle it with a larger Light Utility Vehicle project, that we are still only now looking at a standing order to acquire, what is essentially, a pickup truck.
Seven years….
Perhaps one of the simplest vehicles one could acquire, something that should be bought on a yearly basis, and here we are still stuck in pipeline hell trying desperately to move it forward as our fleet of twenty year old Silverado breath a desperate breath, struggling for parts, wishing the sweet relief of scraping.
They should have been replaced seven years ago, not starting a replacement project, and in an ideal world we wouldn't need to even worry on it.
One might hear the term Continuous Acquisition thrown around from time to time. It is a term I have used before, though I don't think I've ever explained.
Continuous Acquisition is a strategic procurement process where a military regularly purchases small quantities of equipment, vehicles, or technology over an extended period Instead of large, one-time acquisitions.
The primary purpose of Continuous Acquisition is to maintain a modern, capable fleet by gradually replacing outdated or worn-out equipment with newer models, thus avoiding obsolescence.
This method ensures that a military remains up to date with the latest advancements in technology without the need for massive budgetary outlays in a single acquisition. It also offers flexibility, allowing for adjustments based on changing operational requirements or new developments in technology.
This has been discussed off and on the last few years, and somethinf Canada's recently defence policy, Our North, Strong and Free, has referenced.
LUVL is a prime example of somewhere this strategy can work, with a low cost COTS vehicle that requires no militarization, a continuous acquisition strategy ensures we can cycle out older vehicles easily and effectively through small purchases of say ~20 vehicles a year.
It's something we should be ensuring with this current acquisition, that our future COTS fleet is slowly and gradually cycled through to ensure that we aren't left with another situation such as we are in now, with barely serviceable twenty year old trucks that can hardly function as needed.
The current bundling addiction is designed to be a solution to our issues, yet instead acts more of a symptom, a desperate attempt to get things through an ever hostile and complex system of our own creation.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul, as they say. Forcing sacrifices that we shouldn't have to make, amd creating issues that can take literal decades to fix.
Of course, we will continue to bundle because what other choice is there? The fact is that this is a small part of the wider procurement crisis we are locked in, and one thatwr are poised to have to deal with for the extended future.
BONUS: Noah's LUVL picks
Okay, now that the technical stuff is done, let's talk about what we might see for LUVL.
Of course, we don't know how the Standing Offer will work, but I am under the assumption that this will be an open competition that will not just include the four qualified suppliers laid out in LUV.
Assuming that this is once again reopened to new bidders, LUVL offers a literal infinite possibilities. For now though, we will focus on vehicles that fit the following requirements:
• COTS
• Crew Cab
So sadly, my lovely Babcock GLV proposal is out. It would have been funny, especially because I know it gets people going, but sadly the Brits have failed us again.
There is quite literally a hundred companies who could fulfill these two simple requirements, be them direct manufacturers, such as GM or uparmoring companies, such as the Canadian based INKAS, whom is specialized in modifying and armoring COTS vehicles, such as the Hilux and Tundra.
The GM LUV is one of those platforms that most seemed neutral on. There's nothing wrong with it in theory, it is a slightly modified green Chevrolet Silverado Heavy-Duty, just as the Milverado before it.
Manufactured in Canada, it was specifically advertised to meet the requirements for LUV, and promised to be more of the same, just not twenty years old.
There's nothing wrong with that, obviously. LUVL isn't much more than this. It would be a fine solution as wanted.
There was a decent push by GM on the LUV, thoufh the company failed to push past to the Qualified Suppliers list, something that also surprised me.
It seemed liek the near perfect lower-end vehicle on paper. It is essentially a modernized Milverado, manufactured in Canada, with a large supply chain, so long as the support contract isn't garbage (LOL. LMAO even) and we can get them reasonably serviced.
Of course, it's not the only option. One could also argue that a Ford Super-Duty based LUVL, paired with the Ford based SENRAP could also be a winning combo, combining a single family of chassis that is set to begin manufacturing at Fords Oakville plant starting in 2026.
Of course, I would be amiss if I didn't mention the Hilux
Of course, the Hilux is the one platform of the Qualified Suppliers that was designed to fulfill the LUVL requirements.
Everyone loves the Hilux. It's perhaps the most combat-proven truck we got, from the deserts of Chad, to the battlefields of Syria. The Hilix has decades of Combat under its belt, and is the most loved option I've seen for LUVL.
The memes of it I could exploit if it wins would be legendary. Of course, because this is Canada, the Hilux suffers from a much less developed supply chain than GM or Ford, along with little in the way of domestic support.
However, this is the Hilux we are talking about, and there are to many hilarious options with it to deny.
I for one believe any Hilux purchase should include a 6x6 variant, such as that proposed by Hiload in the U.K. It would serve little actual purpose, but would amuse me greatly.
There are lots of Hilux variants out there, modified and manufactured by a number of companies. Funny enough, just yesterday, U.K. based Supacat released their Medium Utility Vehicle, based off the Hilix chassis.
Available in both 4x4 and 6x6 configurations, The 4×4 and 6×6 configurations have a gross vehicle mass capacity of 5 tonnes and 6.5 tonnes respectively. They features a flexible load bed and a payload capacity of 3.5 tonnes.
The two configurations measure 5.45 m and 6.45 m in length respectively. They also come with a range of options including self-recovery winch, remote weapons station, weapon mounts, smoke grenade launchers, ballistic armour, and forward- and rear-facing infrared (IR) cameras
If the current line of Hilux is to expensive for the cheap out there, or if you are one of the ancient ones of Army.ca desperately clinging to your Iltis, may I offer an alternative, the Hilux Champ.
Look at it. You know you love it. What more do you need? What more could you want? Why wouldn't you want one? It's perfect, even if it doesn't meet the one minimum requirement.
Of course, I could sit here for several hours and lay out any number of platforms, Isuzu, Nissan, Hyundai… This isn't counting smaller companies, such as the totally okay Canoo or companies such as INKAS, whom specialize in modifying and unarmoring existing commercial vehicles.
Legitimately, assuming an open process, LUVL could have dozens of potential bidders, depending on hoe the SO is laid out.
Of course, it'll be hard to push out the GM LUV here, given it's ITB advantage, proven platform, and the ease of sticking with the Sikverado platform.
Of course, deep down, I can't help but root for the Hilux to finally take its place. 😋
Curious to know why you think Babcock’s GLV would be eliminated or not make it as a front runner? (Besides competing against GM which could manufacture its Silverado in Oshawa Plant)
All this while the ARes RCAC continues to languish in skyrocketing VORs. Dark days haha.