Army Solicits $49M Small Business Deal for Live-Fire Range Support
The U.S. Army is seeking a single small business prime for a $49 million contract supporting Western Hemisphere Command and U.S. Army Reserve live-fire training ranges, emphasizing technical master gunner expertise over price.
The U.S. Army has issued a solicitation for a single-award, $49 million small business contract to manage and maintain live-fire training facilities under the Western Hemisphere Command Sustainable Range Program. Designed to support both Western Hemisphere Command and the U.S. Army Reserve, the vehicle will issue fixed-price task orders covering key installations, including Fort Campbell and Fort Hunter-Liggett. In addition to facility management, the selected vendor will be tasked with directly refurbishing legacy equipment, such as obsolete Stationary Infantry Target lifter mechanisms at Fort Campbell, ensuring targetry infrastructure keeps pace with active operational standards.
The contract requires a rare hybrid capability set, blending environmental stewardship with deep tactical military expertise. Offerors must supply subject matter experts across land rehabilitation, erosion control, training facility operations, data collection, and federal regulatory compliance. Crucially, vendors must also deploy personnel possessing technical mastery equivalent to an Army Master Gunner. These specialized personnel will inform strategy and conduct assessments across gunnery methodologies, vehicle-mounted weapons systems, and training platform parameters—signaling the Army's intent to closely align range infrastructure with modern vehicle platform capabilities and force lethality requirements.
The Army’s evaluation structure highlights a clear shift toward technical proficiency over low-cost solutions. Proposals will be evaluated via a best-value tradeoff process across three weighted factors: technical approach, past performance, and price. Technical approach stands as the paramount criteria, requiring contractors to thoroughly detail their live-fire operational knowledge and alignment with the Army’s explicit live-fire training investment strategy. Past performance, assessed on recency and relevancy, ranks second, while price is designated as the least important factor. For defense contractors, this weighting underscores that low-price technically acceptable strategies will fail; victory depends on demonstrating operational intimacy with heavy gunnery and sustainable land management.
For defense leaders and small business prime contractors, this opportunity reflects a broader Department of Defense mandate to optimize organic force readiness while maintaining environmental and operational compliance. By consolidating high-end gunnery expertise with facility logistics under a single small business vehicle, the Army is leveraging middle-tier defense capabilities to directly sustain warfighter lethality. Small businesses seeking to capture this opportunity must assemble cross-disciplinary teams capable of handling both heavy mechanical range rehabilitation and tactical strategy before the September 3 proposal deadline. (Source: Washington Technology)
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