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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01 Apr 11. Spartan project going well. The somewhat ‘covert’ MoD project to upgrade the Spartan CVR(T) APC with a new hull, Scimitar turret, band tracks, improved driving position, upgraded drivetrain and suspension and improved armour is going well and on budget, sources told BATTLESPACE. The project, for a reported 130 vehicles at a very competitive price is to provide a larger recce vehicle for Afghanistan with the ability to hold a Section of four men in the rear. It will be interesting to see the viewpoint of this vehicle once it enters service. Unlike the new GDUK Scout, based on the ASCOD vehicle, the CVR(T)has a number of advantages which include an narrower width to enable the vehicle to go where the Taliban 4×4 trucks go (1.3metres), through gateways and up narrow mountain tracks. It is also driver friendly and the troops love the vehicle. Whilst appreciating the need for a new recce vehicle in the future, is the GDUK Scout offering the right answer? It is large and heavy with the inability to take on the terrain described above. How can you have a Scout recce vehicle which cannot recce key terrain? In addition its weight and size will restrict its ability to exercise in the UK. A discussion on Scout would not be complete without discussing CTAI! By its very deployment a recce vehicle is remote and has little or no support. Why does a recce vehicle need a 400mm canon with a panoramic gunner’s sight to engage BMP 2 vehicles and others? The Light Recce role as practiced by the British Army requires the crew to recce and then return to base, not, as the German Army does, engage the enemy. Some suggest that Heavy Recce is coming into favour in some quarters but these may be the same protagonists who see the cavalry as being out of a job once Challenger 2 is prescribed to history. Sources suggest that the Scout project has gone very quiet along with WCSP. Could it be that both of these face the chop? Certainly WCSP, as we reported last week, looks likely, whilst Scout may plough on as a TDP to explore new technologies and networks?

04 Apr 11. General Dynamics Delivers EAGLE BAT Vehicles to Bundeswehr. On 15 March 2011, in the presence of high-ranking representatives, General Dynamics European Land Systems delivered 20 EAGLE BAT (protected ambulance) vehicles to the Bundesamt für Wehrtechnik und Beschaffung and subsequently to the Medical Service of the Bundeswehr on the Medical training regiment’s premises in Feldkirchen/Niederbayern. The vehicles were developed, tested and manufactured on a tight, 14-month timeline in close cooperation between General Dynamics European Land Systems-Mowag, General Dynamics European Land Systems-Germany and other German companies following an October 2009 contract award. The BWB selected the EAGLE IV in 2008 for the “GFF Klasse 2” public procurement program for protected Command and Function vehicles following 2 years of intensive evaluation. As a result of its high protection level, agility and tactical mobility as well as its outstanding reliability and availability, the EAGLE IV is the ideal vehicle for the entire mission spectrum of this class of vehicles. The EAGLE BAT accommod