By: Andrew Chuter, October
26, 2016
LONDON — Britain’s Ministry of Defence has taken its
first formal step with industry toward buying a mechanized infantry vehicle
(MIV) for the British Army, but there are concerns the request for preliminary
information released in the last few days is more aimed at making the case for
a straight government-to-government purchase of the German-built Boxer vehicle
rather than the first move toward holding a competition.
Release of the questionnaire, known as a preliminary market
engagement, has eased industry fears they will be shut out of a chance to
supply up to 900 of the eight-wheel drive armored vehicles, but
executives here say the door remains firmly open for a G2G deal with the
Germans.
“I welcome the release of the document but it is not a
commitment to a competition. The British Army has been quietly pursuing a G2G
deal involving Boxer for months, and if you were a cynic you might wonder if
this is just an exercise in underpinning the business case for the German
option rather than the first step to an open competition” said one industry
executive who asked not to be named.
That’s a sentiment echoed by other executives Defense News spoke
to.
Contractors have until Nov 22 to respond to the market
engagement document issued by the Defence Equipment & Support arm of the
MoD.
A ministry spokesperson said the market engagement was an
opportunity to “explore the options available to us.”
“While no decision has been taken on the acquisition strategy
for MIV, our approach is competitive procurement wherever possible,” the
statement said.
A decision on whether to go single-source or run a competition
for the multibillion-pound contract is not expected to be made public until the
second quarter of 2017.
Boxer is a joint German-Dutch program built by ARTEC, the
Rheinmetall/Krauss Maffei Wegmann joint venture, for the two nations' armies.
The British military has visited the Dutch and German armies to
run the rule over Boxer operations but the vehicle has not been formally
evaluated since the last time the UK was looking for an eight-wheel drive
vehicle as part of the FRES utility vehicle program eventually won in 2008
by General Dynamics with the Piranha 5.
That program was eventually cancelled after the company and the
MoD failed to agree on contract terms.
The British were earlier part of the Boxer program but pulled
out at the development stage, in part because the vehicle couldn’t be deployed
in the C-130 Hercules, the only airlifter available at the time
The Boxer opened its export account recently with an order from
Lithuania for 88 machines.
ARTEC partner KMW did not respond to a request for a comment.
BAE, General Dynamics, Iveco, Lockheed Martin UK, Nexter, Patria
and ST Kinetics could all be among the contractors considering bidding for the
MIV if the opportunity arises.
Some of the potential bidders are already in talks to form
partnerships.
Lockheed Martin told Defense News it is “in discussions with
Patria on the MIV program. The two companies are already partnering to
meet a Qatari requirement and unveiled a Lockheed Martin UK-made CT40 turret on
a Patria armored modular vehicle at a recent defense show in Britain.
Lockheed Martin said the vehicle-turret combination was
successfully demonstrated in Qatar earlier this year.
BAE Systems doesn’t have an eight-wheel drive vehicle of its own
but a spokesman said the company “continues to develop our relationships with
leading 8x8 prime contractors to determine how we might contribute to their
respective MIV solutions.”
“We will consider whether to respond to the Preliminary Market
Engagement notice,” he said.
The spokesman said BAE “understands that it [the MIVprogram] has
been funded and the requirement is maturing, but is not yet fixed.”
A second industry executive said there were rumors that the case
to purchase the Boxer had twice failed to get the approval of the MoD’s Joint
Requirement Oversight Committee.
The market-engagement document apparently requests companies
responding to the questionnaire to supply operational data for their vehicle;
suggesting that only in-service, off-the-shelf platforms will be considered.
The document also asks for details about how their vehicle can
be reconfigured for different versions. That’s left some executives to wonder
whether their contender is being benchmarked against Boxer.
One of the unusual aspects of the Boxer is a modular design
which allows the vehicle to be quickly reconfigured to match operational
requirements.
It is expected a first batch of around 300 vehicles could be
ordered in time to enter service around 2021 with as many as 800 to 900
eventually being purchased.
The vehicles, predominantly armored personnel carriers, but with
others versions like command-and-control and ambulances also included, are
required principally to help equip two new strike brigades being formed by the
army.
The brigades, part of the Conservative Government's 2015
strategic defence and security review restructuring of the army by 2025, are
designed to be able to deploy rapidly over long distances.
General Dynamics is already building 589 tracked Ajax
reconnaissance vehicles and other variants in a £3.5 billion production deal
awarded in 2014.
Two national newspapers here have run stories in the last few
days highlighting the British interest in doing a deal with Germany and raising
concerns that the government here could pay heavily over the odds by not
running a competition.
Industry executives here said that aside from being more
expensive, the Germans would be unable to match the jobs and UK work content of
their rivals. That, they said, needs to be an important consideration for a
post-Brexit defense industrial strategy.
Privately, German executives at armored vehicle briefings given
earlier this month by Rheinmetall and KMW said they reckoned that with local
assembly, vehicle testing and some component supply, at least 50 percent of
added value would be located in the UK.
Original:
defensenews.com
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