The UK Ministry of Defence has kick-started a program to update the British Army’s neglected Challenger 2 main battle tank fleet with at least three contractors submitting initial proposals to undertake the work, reported www.defensenews.com.
Challenger 2 builder BAE Systems, along with rivals General Dynamics UK and Lockheed Martin UK, have all confirmed they responded by the Jan. 14 closing date to a pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) issued in December by the MoD’s procurement arm, the Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) organization.
Officially called the Challenger 2 Life Extension Program (LEP), the modernization program is estimated to 700 million pounds, and in addition to the tank of the British army, can be extended as the Challenger 2 tanks Army of Oman (the only foreign operator of the tank).
Having considered the applications submitted, DE & S is to give participants two two-year contract on a competitive basis to develop specific technical modernization projects of tanks. 2019 of them should be selected for the project implementation.
The FV4034 Challenger 2 is a British main battle tank (MBT) in service with the armies of the United Kingdom and Oman. It was designed and built by the British company Vickers Defence Systems (now known asBAE Systems Land & Armaments).