EUROPE
LAND
25 Nov 11. MBDA to set up industrial capability for the demilitarization of complex munitions. On 3rd November 2011, NAMSA (the NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency) awarded MBDA the contract for the destruction of 36,000 complex munitions. Under this contract MBDA, calling on its wealth of experience in the missiles and missile systems domain, undertakes to establish within two years and within national territory a facility to process classified munitions in accordance with the very strict regulations that apply to defence safety; namely operational reliability and respect for the environment. In particular, MBDA will be responsible for the disposal before 2017 of more than 1,000 missiles, 22,000 M26 rockets (the rockets formerly deployed in Multi Launch Rocket Systems or MLRSs), each containing 644 sub-munitions, and 13,000 155-mm grenade shells, each containing 63 sub-munitions – hence more than 15 million sub-munitions. The munition processing plant will be installed at MBDA’s Bourges Subdray site in central France. This activity represents an investment of around €12m and should create about 20 direct jobs. In order to win the contract and establish a high added value facility in France, MBDA has brought together the best skills available on the market – with ESPLODENTI SABINO and AID in Italy, and NAMMO in Norway.
21 Nov 11. Meggitt has received a modification contract from the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) for the upgrade of the British Army’s dismounted close combat trainer (DCCT). The £13m contract extension involves future integrated soldier technology (FIST) enhancements to 59 DCCT systems, including three simulators. The simulators include an underslung grenade launcher sight, a thermal sight and a commander’s target locator. Meggitt will provide associated ballistics and round effects for SA80/UGL rifle simulators thereby helping them to accommodate new thermal sights. The DCCT simulators support basic to advanced marksmanship and small unit tactical training using computer-generated imaging and digital video technology. The system is also in use by the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several Middle Eastern nations’ armed forces. (Source: armytechnology.com)
22 Nov 11. The French geographic Institute IGN (Institut géographique national), acting as the contracting authority on behalf of the Direction Générale del’Armement (DGA) of the French Ministry of Defence, has contracted Thales and Cassidian to carry out the second phase of the TopoBase Défense Operation. The goal of this operation is to produce data to feed into defence geographical databases. The contract confirms the position of the Thales-Cassidian partnership as a leader in the domain of very high-level geographical data. The preparation and conduct of military operations require the Armed Forces to be able to rely on a cartographic reference that is pertinent and accessible to everyone in order to achieve an accurate shared assessment of the operational situation. For this reason IGN selected the Thales-Cassidian consortium with Thales acting as the prime contractor for the TopoBase Défense Operation. The purpose of the contract, which has a duration of six years, is to supply the Armed forces General Staff with digitised geographical data required for the operation of numerous weapon and information systems. The use of data from the TopoBase Défense Operation, which guarantees consistency of geometry and format, also contributes to system interoperability.
SEA
29 Nov 11. Altran Praxis, the international specialist in embedded and critical systems engineering was awarded a contract from BAE Systems Mission Systems to design and build the Safety Electronic Unit (SEU) for the UK MoD’s Spearfish torpedo upgrade programme. This innovative project brings together all of Spearfish’s safety control into a single embedded system, the SEU. This will enable easier introduction of new performance upgrades to Spearfish, reduce thr