$19.6M to MacGregor for TAVTS Seabasing Interface
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MacGREGOR USA Inc. in Cedar Knolls, N.J., is being awarded a $19.6 million firm-fixed-price contract for the detail design, fabrication, installation, and documentation of the Test Article Vehicle Transfer System (TAVTS). The TAVTS will demonstrate the transfer of vehicles between a Large Medium-Speed Roll-on/Roll-off (LMSR or Ro-Ro) ship, and a surrogate for the Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) ship, which will be designed and bought for the US Navy as a key Seabasing component. The 2 primary components of the TAVTS are a self-deploying ramp system that will be installed on a surrogate MLP that can move around, and a self-deploying sideport platform that will be mounted to an existing LMSR ship – either a T-AKR 300 Bob Hope Class, or T-AKR Watson Class.
Work will be performed by Hagglunds subsidiary MacGREGOR in Chesapeake, VA and Cedar Knolls, NJ; and with MacGREGOR USA affiliates in Poland, Sweden, and Norway, and is expected to be complete by November 2009. This contract was competitively procured with proposals solicited via Federal Business Opportunities, with 2 offers received by the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) in Washington, DC (N00024-08-C-2222).
Reader and US MSC veteran Lee Wahler comments that they have serious challenges ahead of them:
“MacGREGOR collected many millions to build and install the swinging boom cranes on many sealift ships. Now they will be paid to design fixes to those ships (2nd rqmt) because the principal design failure was that the MacGREGOR ramps were not self-deployable (and of course the big expensive swinging boom cranes which the MacGREGOR ramps needed, do not work to quickly with any lesser loads – as proven by USNS Martin OT&E). Now they are going to fix the ramp interface problem, by putting some contraption (1st rqmt) on the already over-designed MLP… Pls remember that ship designers’ have been trying to fix the ramp interface problem for decades – unsuccessfully.”
Additional Readings
- Information Dissemination (March 17/09) – The Amphibious Ship Plan Evolves Towards FY 2010
