BAE Systems to enhance U.S. Air Force EA-37B fleet

Did I pay for them? As a taxpayer for over 45 years – then, Yes!

For as long as I can remember, the vast majority of MoD procurements, certainly in the Land area, have been done by competitive tender. The relatively few that are single-sourced are for very specific reasons – and there is tough scrutiny about those reasons.

When I was at Abbey Wood, then preferred bidder status for a project or programme was awarded to one or sometimes two companies after other competitive tenders had been rejected following rigorous assessment. Example – CR2 LEP (later renamed to CR3) – many tenders were received by MoD who downselected to two companies, BAE and Rheinmetall, awarding them each ‘preferred bidder’ status. They then were granted several £m of MoD money to further work up their proposals by building Technology Demonstrators to be assessed at the next stage.

No company can expect to be designated a preferred bidder for a single project/programme or for a prolonged and random period of time, just because they are a big UK-headquartered company. BAE still has to compete to win work – we are (or were when we were in the EU) obliged to put Requests for Proposals out to European defence companies.

With CVR(T) replacement, the two front runners were GDUK (offering a revised ASCOD design) and BAE (offering a recce vehicle based on CV90). My point is that the main reason many suggest that GDUK won is because of negative views about BAE as a company (mainly held by politicians), rather than any doubts about the specific proposal.
I am sure that creating jobs in a deprived part of Wales had some bearing too. ie many think that it was a political decision to award the Contract to GDUK.

Thanks for the tip about glue, but I am not about to refurbish a submarine!

Hello Sir

You do understand that you are one of the few on here who can offer any insight into MoD procurement, don’t you?

CV90 MK4 is a great piece of kit on the other hand we should all be thankful that we helped the US build an even better ‘ASCOD’ at our expense; what are allies for?

Thanks David. Just in case it is of interest, my 2 years at Abbeywood as a civilian contractor immediately after leaving the army comprised 3 short-term periods of contracted work:

1. Lead Solutions Manager on the Armoured Vehicle Support Transformation (AVST) Project, which sought to transfer more work and responsibility for in-service support from Abbeywood staff (mainly civil servants) to Defence Industry, with the lead equipment being CR2.
2. Deputy Programme Manager for the Operational Vehicles Office overseeing the raft of PM vehs being introduced for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
3. PM for the Casualty Locator Beacon project in the IPT for Dismounted Soldier Systems.

I very much like your comment about CV90 – I agree it is a great piece of kit. I would have been happy to see the CV90 recce variant replacing Scimitar and the CV90 IFV replacing Warrior (if WCSP really had to be cancelled). [Boxer was for the MIV project and has been mis-assigned to AI]

“The M10 Booker, a light tank based on the Griffin II platform, derived from the ASCOD 2, was selected in June 2022 as the winner of the US Army’s Mobile Protected Firepower program”

Good one! But I have not been aware that BAE’s Land equipment is much more expensive than other European defence companies offerings. Some European kit is eye-wateringly expensive ie Boxer…and was BAE’s CV90-based recce vehicle proposal so much more expensive than the GDUK Ajax one?

Hi Graham, I can’t in all honesty quote prices re BAe equipment but I am aware that they are 50-50 partners in the CTAi programme with Nexter and managed to get that weapon mandated by MOD for use in AJAX and WR, so not exactly cut off by UK MOD.
Cheers

Hi Ian, OK. MoD did not fully cut off talking to/working with BAE for a period of time, given that one somewhat minor example.
But MoD did not award the big Ajax contract to BAE, when CV90 had its fans in the army and it could be expected to be developed into a useful recce vehicle, quite quickly and without fuss and drama. [Norway signed for 21 CV90 recce wagons in 2012], and I presume they are in service and proving to be acceptable.

Absolutely agree Graham, the oink in the flyment is the machinations of the MOD and their determination to gold plate everything. I suspect that the readily available CV 90 recces would have been royally f**cked up by them.

Thanks Ian.

There is a reason for the gold plating. It is an attempt to offset the small numbers of equipment now being fielded. (Quality rather than quantity).
When you only order 148 tanks, but the previous post-Cold War order was for 386 tanks, then those 148 had better be just about the best in the world as they have to do more twice as much as its predecessor! Same is surely true for much of RAF and RN kit.

This is very much a theoretical POV as we know that not all our kit has every defensive and offensive system that could be fitted…eg. Phalanx CIWS not fitted on HMS PoW.