WASHINGTON, Aug 22 (Reuters) - General Dynamics Corp has won a contract valued at up to $562 million over the next seven years to build ground vehicles for U.S. Special Operations Command, the Pentagon said Thursday.
General Dynamics, builder of M1A1 Abrams tanks, beat out privately held AM General and Navistar International to win the order for new Ground Mobility Vehicles 1.1.
The Pentagon said the contract, which runs through September 2020, was an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity agreement that would allow Special Operations Command to submit separate delivery orders as it needed more vehicles.
Under the contract, General Dynamics will provide the new vehicles, which can be transported on Boeing H-47 helicopters, along with associated manuals, spare parts, training and other equipment, some of which is to be bought separately by the U.S. government.
General Dynamics said the contract would expand the company's relationship with the military's special operations community, an important customer base, and building on its work on an earlier program called Expeditionary Fire Support System.
The vehicles will be built mainly at General Dynamics' St. Petersburg, Florida site, and in Ladson, South Carolina at a facility that General Dynamics acquired when it bought Force Protection several years ago.