UK Buys More MRAP Vehicles

November 20, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Contract Awards, England, Navistar, logistics, production program 

Navistar was awarded a contract by the Ministry of Defence to build MRAP vehicles. See the Chicago Tribune for the report. Like the US military the UK has put increasing amounts of funding into their MRAP fleet. The major threat in Iraq and Afghanistan remains IED and mines and the MRAP is designed to minimize the damage from these attacks. Even though Iraq may be winding down there is still a requirement for vehicles to support operations in Afghanistan.

Royal Navy awards test contract

September 3, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Contract Awards, England, QinetiQ, S&T, SETA, development program 

The British Ministry of Defence and Royal Navy awarded QinetiQ a contract to provide test and ship design support. QinetiQ used to be the part of the British military providing test services they are contracting to get access to facilities they built and used for several decades. This fifteen year, $300 M contract will allow ship and submarine models to be tested in QinetiQ’s tanks.

See Telegraph.uk.com for more on this contract.

UK invests in ammunition production

The UK Ministry of Defence signed an approximately $4 B contract with BAE systems to buy ammunition, explosives and also to rebuild the former Royal Ordnance factories. BAE had bought the formally Government owned ammunition production sites in 1987 and have slowly closed down capacity. BAE had been looking at selling off this part of the company, but this long term contract with the UK military should stop that in the near term. As part of the contract BAE will invest in modernizing and upgrading the factories.

The story is in the Times.

The UK buys refit on their C-130s

L3 was awarded a contract by the UK’s Ministry of Defence to perform replacement of the outer wings of three C-130 aircraft. The contract is worth over $18 M. The actual work will be done in Canada. Like many European companies expanding in the US market; it also behooves US ones to work there. Especially with so much originally American equipment being used by the UK, Germany and other NATO countries.

For the actual press release see MarketWatch at the Wall Street Journal Digital Network.

Australia seeks to save money on software

July 4, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Australia, IT, Microsoft, logistics 

The Australian Ministry of Defence is reviewing ways to save money through improvements to its liscensing agreement with Microsoft. See a short article here. Like many large organizations, government and private, the MoD has invested in MS products - windows, office and project - to run things. They probably buy thousands of licenses and any efficiency there will save money in the long run.