Web Page sponsored by MILLBROOK

Millbrook, based in Bedfordshire, UK, makes a significant contribution to the quality and performance of military vehicles worldwide. Its specialist expertise is focussed in two distinct areas: test programmes to help armed services and their suppliers ensure that their vehicles and systems work as the specification requires; and design and build work to upgrade new or existing vehicles, evaluate vehicle capability and investigate in-service failures. Complementing these is driver and service training and a hospitality business that allows customers to use selected areas of Millbrook’s remarkable facilities for demonstrations and exhibitions.

Tel: +44 (0) 1525 408408

www.millbrook.co.uk/military

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24 Mar 11. ARINC Engineering Services, LLC today announced its NGWC wireless mesh solution for tracking military assets has been successfully demonstrated and favorably reviewed by the U.S. Army Sustainment Command (ASC). ARINC and two partners, Cubic Global Tracking Solutions (CGTS) and Lunarline, conducted a Proof-of-Principle (PoP) demonstration in February by tracking 200 vehicles through the Army’s Camp Arifjan Wash Rack in Kuwait, a primary trans-shipment point for U.S. materiel. The companies were notified of their success March 3. The NGWC solution, based on advanced mesh network technology from Cubic, has been developed and demonstrated under a series of task orders from the U.S. Army Logistics Innovation Agency as part of the Agency’s Next Generation Wireless Communications for Logistical Applications (NGWC) program.

25 Mar 11. The German Army has received the first Boxer vehicles that will be deployed with the 292 Jägerbattalion unit in Afghanistan by August this year. The armoured personnel carrier (APC) version of Boxer can carry seven infantry soldiers along with the driver, gunner and commander. The Boxer is a German-Dutch multirole armoured fighting vehicle, designed to accomplish a number of operations through the use of installable mission modules. The 30t vehicle will offer a high level of protection and mobility. About eight APCs have been delivered to the infantry school to start training of the German unit. (Source: armytechnology.com)

25 Mar 11. A joint venture company dubbed Mars, formed to work as the architect of the French Army’s Scorpion modernization program, will be independent of its parent companies, Chairman Jean-François Pellarin said March 25. Nexter Systems, the Safran group’s Sagem and Thales hold, respectively, 37.5 percent, 25 percent and 37.5 percent of the joint venture, which was created July 15. The decision to form a separate company was to ensure “independence and autonomy,” Pellarin told journalists. The new company will operate as a separate legal entity, its 30-strong staff holding work contracts for Mars and covered by confidentiality obligations. The government’s pick of the joint offer by Nexter, Safran and Thales for the 21m Euro ($29.7m) architect’s contract drew criticism in some quarters, amid fears the companies would skew the design of the system-of-systems to favor their own products in the later stages of procurement. The use of a private-sector company to design the overall system architecture is a first for the French Army and reflects an attempt by the Délégation Générale de l’Armement procurement office to decrease risk from the program, the Mars executive said. Industry has a detailed knowledge of the technology and the cost of implementation, and it could give estimates on the total cost of ownership, including support. Scorpion is based on the Army’s acquisition of two new armored vehicles, the véhicule blindé multi-role and the engine blindé de reconnaissance et combat, and the modernized Leclerc 2 tank and système d’information de combat Scorpion, and the program seeks to cut the Army’s ownership costs. The Scorpion program aims to deliver to the Arm