Thales UK welcomes the announcement on MIV at DVD18
Thales was very excited to attend the DVD 18 event last week where we demonstrated our range of capabilities and products which help enable STRIKE, which can add significant effect to the Mechanised Infantry Vehicle (MIV) Boxer when it comes into service in 2023. See a full list of what we had on show.
The British Army intends to make an initial purchase of over 500 Boxer vehicles, as announced by Defence Minister Stuart Andrew at DVD18, saying that British suppliers have now been given the green light to bring forward concrete plans for the project, which is set to support at least 1,000 UK jobs.
With this announcement, Artec, the consortium who lead on the production of the troop carriers, have been given the go-ahead to invite industry to bring forward actual contractible proposals for work on the vehicles. A big step towards making a purchase, the news means that Artec will now ramp up work to complete their supplier selection process before returning to the MOD with a formal proposal next year.
The Artec joint venture which consists of Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, have partnered with a consortium of UK Defence Companies, including Thales UK, in order to offer the Boxer 8x8 Armoured Vehicle solution into the MIV programme, via the OCCAR framework. Thales’ work will help bring a focus on Jobs in the UK with UK production of the Boxer creating and sustaining highly skilled jobs at Thales sites in Glasgow, Belfast and Bristol, as well as sustaining many more jobs throughout our supply chain in Scotland and across the UK.
Artec believes that the MoD will find that BOXER offers excellent value for money and will provide an off-the-shelf capability that fully satisfies the requirements of the MIV program. Thales UK, as part of this consortium, is confident that this Battle Wining capability can be delivered to meet the MOD’s challenging timelines in order to achieve operational readiness of the first UK Strike Brigade by 2025.
This contract will also help position Thales to better support ARTEC in the export market. Throughout the world Land Forces rely on Thales’ vehicle support solutions for all mission types with more than 50 National Land Forces being currently equipped by Thales.