# Suite of Survivability Enhancement Systems - EMD — Program Element 0604852A

**Program element:** 0604852A  
**Component:** U.S. Army  
**Appropriation:** 2040 — RDT&E, Army  
**Budget Activity:** 5 — System Development & Demonstration  
**Vintage:** President's Budget PB2027  
**Canonical URL:** https://hitchintel.com/programs/0604852A

## Summary

U.S. Army requests $78.3M in FY2027, sustained across the five-year plan. In the FY2027 defense authorization, the House funded it in full; the Senate funded it in full; House appropriators funded it in full. TACOM/GVSC Warren, Michigan leads the industry work.

## Funding profile

| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Actual | 75.0 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 75.2 |
| FY2027 | Request | 78.3 |
| FY2028 | Outyear | 79.3 |
| FY2029 | Outyear | 79.9 |
| FY2030 | Outyear | 79.5 |
| FY2031 | Outyear | 80.3 |

> Estimate types are not summed — the profile mixes actuals, enacted law, the request, and outyear projections.

## Congressional marks (FY2027)

| Stage | Marked ($M) | Change ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| Request | 78.3 | — |
| House NDAA (HASC) | 78.3 | +0.0 |
| Senate NDAA (SASC) | 78.3 | +0.0 |
| House Approps (HAC-D) | 78.3 | +0.0 |

> FY2027 NDAA authorization marks, as of 2026-07-27. Not appropriations or final law.

## Projects (1)

| Project | Title | FY2025 actual | FY2026 enacted | FY2027 request | Move |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FE8 | Vehicle Protection Suite | 75.0 | 75.2 | 78.3 | +4% |

> Projects are the summable leaves: the program element total is their sum, never added to it.

### Project FE8 — Vehicle Protection Suite

Current ground combat vehicle platforms and tactical wheeled vehicles lack the ability to effectively detect, track, divert, disrupt, neutralize, or destroy incoming direct or indirect fired threat munitions. Current solutions to defeat these threats, Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA) and Slat armor, do not provide preemptive or active protection and impose secondary blast hazards to crew, dismounted soldiers, and adjacent vehicles and equipment. The Suite of Vehicle Protection Systems will develop, mature and integrate solutions onto multiple ground combat vehicles and tactical vehicles to increase the protection of the Army's ground systems from both current and next generation direct or indirect fired threat munitions. The Vehicle Protection Suite (VPS) Project (FE8) will design, mature, integrate, update, evaluate and field combinations of active, reactive, and passive protection capabilities. VPS will leverage both Horizontal Technology Integration (HTI) principles and the Modular Open System Architecture (MOSA) with the Army's Vehicle Protection System Base Kit (VBK) and VPS Intelligent Protection Engagement Response Software (VIPERS) to develop tailored Survivability Sets specific to platforms. VPS Survivability Sets will mitigate existing protection gaps and allow for rapid future technology insertion that mitigates and defeats evolving threats while minimizing the impact to current capabilities hosted on Army ground combat and tactical vehicles. The protection capabilities will leverage technologies across a spectrum of survivability mechanisms including detection avoidance, threat detection, threat intercept, and threat mitigation. The total cost of the Soft Kill Active Protection System (APS) Middle Tier of Acquisition effort is $134.28 million RDT&E from FY25 to FY28, which is a subset of the Project FE8 Vehicle Protection Suite funding.

**Named R-3 performers** (share of this project's FY2027 R-3 total, so they need not reach 100%)**:** TACOM/GVSC Warren, Michigan (9.7, 12%).

| Activity (R-2A) | FY2025 | FY2026 | FY2027 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vehicle Protection System Base Kit Integration of Non-Developmental Items (NDI) and Developmental Technologies | 39.4 | 23.7 | 12.0 |
| Survivability Improvements | 25.9 | 41.8 | 56.6 |
| Vehicle Protection Suite Government Engineering and Program Management | 9.7 | 9.7 | 9.7 |

> R-2A activities carry the prior, current and budget year only — no five-year plan. Coverage is partial, so count them, never total them.

## Where the FY2027 request goes

| Category | Share | $M |
|---|---|---|
| Industry primes | 12% | 9.7 |
| Other / unspecified | 88% | 68.7 |

**Top named industry performers:** TACOM/GVSC Warren, Michigan ($9.7M, 12%).

> R-3 exhibit contract funding, not USAspending obligations.

## Mission & acquisition strategy

Current ground combat vehicle platforms and tactical wheeled vehicles lack the ability to effectively detect, track, divert, disrupt, neutralize, or destroy incoming direct or indirect fired threat munitions. Current solutions to defeat these threats, Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA) and Slat armor, do not provide preemptive or active protection and impose secondary blast hazards to crew, dismounted soldiers, and adjacent vehicles and equipment.

Vehicle Protection Suite (VPS) will evaluate, mature, and integrate onto multiple combat and tactical vehicles (Abrams, Stryker, Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) and Bradley) combinations of detection avoidance, threat detection, threat intercept and threat mitigation. VPS will execute trade studies and feasibility assessments to identify future technology insertion opportunities. These trade studies will assess how the Army adjusts operationally with the additional survivability capabilities and inform future formation protection requirements. The trade study and feasibility assessments will look at emerging threats and identify capabilities used to protect against evolving threats.

## Related program elements

- [0203735A — Combat Vehicle Improvement Programs](https://hitchintel.com/programs/0203735A) (Army)
- [0302060F — Looking Glass Next (LG-N))](https://hitchintel.com/programs/0302060F) (Air Force)
- [0604741A — Air Defense Command, Control and Intelligence - Eng Dev](https://hitchintel.com/programs/0604741A) (Army)
- [0207136F — F-16 HARM Targeting Sys](https://hitchintel.com/programs/0207136F) (Air Force)

## Source & machine access

- **Source:** FY2027 Department of the Army RDT&E Budget Justification, Exhibits R-2/R-3, PE 0604852A (PB PB2027); FY2027 NDAA committee marks (as of 2026-07-27).
- **MCP:** `mcp.hitchintel.com` — `budget_get_program_element(pe="0604852A")`.

*HitchAI is an independent intelligence service, not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Defense. Budget figures are requests/estimates, not obligations.*