Ramona Adams
The U.K. defense ministry has chosen separate teams led by BAE Systems and Rheinmetall Landsysteme as “preferred bidders” for the assessment phase of a program to modernize the British army’s main battle tanks, Defense News reported Wednesday.
Andrew Chuter writes the U.K. defense ministry aims to finalize two contracts by the end of the year to launch a 24-month, $65.4 million assessment program that will modernize up to 227 Challenger 2 tanks.
Each contractor will receive $28.7 million with an additional $8.7 million for unspecified work, Chuter reported.
The report said the teams will develop a prototype based on their respective proposals under the two-year assessment phase of the estimated $802 million U.K. battle tank modernization effort.
BAE’s team consists of General Dynamics, Qinetiq, Leonardo-Finmeccanica, Moog and Safran while the Rheinmetall-led consortium includes BMT, Pearson Engineering, Supacat and Thales UK.
Lockheed Martin and Elbit Systems‘ team, CMI Defence and RUAG also submitted proposals for the program.
