84--Advanced Combat Helmet Generation II (ACH GEN II)

This Special Notice is not a request for proposals. Contractors shall not submit proposals in response to this notice. Advanced Combat Helmet Generation II (ACH GEN II): The Army Contracting Command- Aberdeen Proving Ground is issuing this Special Notice to provide advance notification of long lead requirements under the ACH GEN II solicitation. Specifically, offerors will be required to submit helmets to Aberdeen Test Center (ATC) for testing, therefore must establish an account with ATC. See following for more details. Estimated Solicitation Issue Date: On or about 16 October 2015 with all documents, attachments and amendments posted at the FedBizOpps website located at the following address: https://www.fbo.gov. No hard copies of the RFP will be issued. All respondents shall be responsible for obtaining the documentation from the website listed above. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this requirement is 339113, Helmets (except athletic), safety (e.g. motorized vehicle crash helmets, space helmets), manufacturing, with a size standard of 500 employees. Requirement: a. Program Executive Officer (PEO) Soldier is seeking to decrease Soldier burden through the procurement of the next generation of Soldier equipment with a level of performance at a lower weight than legacy equipment. The objective of this procurement is continuous technology refreshment by replacing the legacy ACH with a lighter weight variant. The ACH Gen II is a protective helmet consisting of a shell, suspension system, retention system, and helmet cover. The ACH Gen II helmet is a Critical Safety Item (CSI). The ACH provides protection from several common modes of battlefield injury including projectile penetration and blunt force trauma. ACH projectile penetration resistance includes combat-demonstrated protection from the most prevalent conventional fragmenting munitions and improvised explosive devices. The ACH also provides verified protection from the most widely proliferated service handguns in the world. Blunt force trauma protection includes the ability to attenuate the acceleration response of a Soldier's head to less than 150 g (where g is the constant rate of acceleration due to earth's gravity at sea level) in accordance with AR/PD 14-01, para 2.11. The maximum allowed ACH GEN II weight by size is: 2.499 lbs. (small), 2.601 lbs. (medium), 2.813 lbs. (large), and 3.298 lbs. (extra-large). This weight includes all principle helmet components as defined above. b. To meet this requirement, the Government intends to award a single award, five (5) year Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract on a tradeoff basis. The contract minimum will include First Article Testing (FAT) with subsequent production deliveries. The contract maximum is anticipated to be up to one hundred thousand (100,000) helmets. c. During the solicitation phase, Offeror's shall submit a proposal with up to two (2) helmet designs; offerors are required to submit their samples to Aberdeen Test Center (ATC) for testing in accordance with the Request for Proposals (RFP). The testing report from ATC shall be submitted with the proposal to demonstrate how the Offeror's helmet meets the ballistic and non-ballistic performance requirements outlined in the solicitation. d. Offerors are required to establish a testing account with ATC in order to submit samples during the solicitation phase. Offerors may go to the website and submit a Request for Test Services at: http://www.atc.army.mil/rfts.html. Offerors are cautioned that establishing an account with ATC can take approximately 30-60 days.