Lockheed-Elbit Systems Team to Pursue UK Battle Tank Modernization Contract

Lockheed Martin and Elbit Systems have partnered to compete for a contract to update the U.K. army’s fleet of Challenger 2 tanks.

The U.K. subsidiaries of Lockheed and Elbit Systems will submit a bid to the U.K. defense ministry to extend the British army’s main battle tanks through 2035 under the Life Extension Project, Lockheed said Wednesday.

Lockheed opened a $7.1 million manufacturing facility in Bedfordshire, England, in June and plans to use the building once the Lockheed-Elbit team wins the Challenger 2 LEP contract.

Lockheed said it would combine its experience in armored combat vehicles with Elbit’s obsolescence management and LEP experience for the contract.

Andrew Chuter also reports for Defense News that the Challenger 2 program seeks to update up to 227 main battle tanks for approximately $816 million.

The U.K. defense ministry has set an Aug. 11 deadline for industry proposals for the program’s evaluation phase and expects to select two vendors to perform the two-year assessment phase work, Chuter reports.

The report said the agency expects to award the development and production contract for the Challenger 2 program by mid-2019.

Other teams and companies that submitted offers for the program include a BAE Systems-led consortium, a CMI Defence-Ricardo UK team, Ruag and Rheinmetall.

BAE’s contract pursuit team is comprised of General Dynamics‘ U.K. land systems and international mission systems subsidiaries, Leonardo-Finmeccanica, Moog, QinetiQ and Safran Electronics.