More Armor for U.K. Troops
MoD Seeks to Expand Cougar Fleet; Needs Pentagon To OK Vehicle Diversion
Britain will more than double its protected patrol vehicle fleet by adding 148 Force Protection Cougar vehicles, whose purchase is now being negotiated with the U.S. government.
Under what is essentially a mirror image of the U.S. Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) requirement, the British military has already acquired 108 modified Cougars which they call the Mastiff for use in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now the British want more to fill an ur¬gent operational requirement to better protect troops fighting the Taliban in south¬ern Afghanistan, industry sources said.
The British Treasury is clamping down on spending on urgent requirements, but it appears the upcoming Cougar deal has been approved.
But the British requirement for rapid delivery could pose a different kind of problem.
If the British are to get their order quickly, the Pentagon will need to allow Force Protection to divert vehicles from production lines that are already red-hot from building vehicles for the U.S. military. The company has an MRAP deal to deliver more than 1,900 Cougar and Buffalo vehicles.
The Pentagon allowed such a diversion for the first British order, and the British hope it will again allow something similar despite the high U.S. priority on MRAP production.
So far there is no firm order signed for the additional six-wheel-drive Cougars, al¬though a deal may be imminent, industry sources say.
The contract is a government-to-govern¬ment agreement signed as part of the U.S. Foreign Military Sales process.
A British Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesman declined to confirm interest in buying more Cougars.
A Force Protection spokesman said the company had no official information regarding further British interest in Cougar.
The first vehicles were ordered in July 2006, deliveries got under way in late December, and the last of the 108 arrived in Britain for modification in June. As of early September, more than 80 of the vehicles were in service.
The Mastiff is an uparmored version of the Cougar fitted with the Army’s new Bowman tactical communications system and elec¬tronic countermeasures. The modifications were undertaken here.
Most of the early deliveries ended up in Iraq, but as the British draw down their ef¬fort in the Basra region of the country, the requirement has swung toward Afghanistan, where improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have caused several deaths.
One industry source here said Force Protection may also be providing Cheetah light tactical four-wheel-drive vehicles for a British special forces requirement.
The vehicle was displayed at the recent Defence Systems & Equipment International (DSEi) show in London. Ostensibly, that was part of the company’s effort to secure an order from the British for the Medium Protected Patrol Vehicle (MPPV) requirement. But it now appears Force Protection may have had a second requirement in mind when it exhibited Cheetah.
The British in April kick-started the MPPV requirement to purchase 180 mini-MRAP type vehicles of about 14 tons to sit between the Mastiff and the much lighter Pinzgauer Vector patrol vehicle.
Interest in MPPV High, but Some Confusion
The requirement attracted a huge amount of interest, with BAE Systems, Force Pro¬tection, JCB, Krauss Maffei-Wegmann, Mac¬Neilie, NP Aerospace, Rafael and Thales among the possible contenders.
One media report here this week said the MoD had decided to drop the MPPV contest in favor of buying 250 Cheetahs. That’s been denied by the MoD spokesman here.
A narrowing of possible contenders had been expected at about the time of DSEi. That short list hasn’t arrived yet.
Until further clarity is available on the MPPV requirement, there will remain suspi¬cions about the future of a project that still requires funding at a time when the British armed forces are facing serious cuts.
Whether the growing Mastiff fleet, which will number about 250 if the new deal goes ahead, will affect MPPV requirements is unclear.
One defense contractor involved in the MPPV competition said there appeared to be “ongoing discussion at the MoD whether a larger, more protected vehicle was needed or whether they should go for something lighter and more agile. The debate is ongoing, leav¬ing MPPV in a bit of disarray for the moment.”
Others are more confident that MPPV is not on the ropes.
“We think they have a plan. They are test¬ing and evaluating what is in the gap between Mastiff and the Snatch Land Rover and may then decide whether to fund it,” an¬other contractor source said.
Either way, if the British want the first vehicles in service by their stated date of 2009, somebody will have to decide soon on funding.
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