The Ministry of Defence has formally opened early market engagement with industry for its future Light Mobility Vehicle programme, signalling the next phase of work to replace long-serving platforms such as Land Rover and Pinzgauer across the Armed Forces.
A tender notice published by Defence Equipment and Support confirms that the Land Mobility Programme Team has issued a calling notice for engagement on the Light Mobility Vehicle project, known as LMV UK2. The engagement is intended to test market appetite, explore technical and commercial challenges, and build a clearer picture of what industry can realistically deliver ahead of a full procurement.
The programme is expected to run for up to six years, with an indicative value up to £750 million. Delivery is currently planned between April 2027 and April 2033, suggesting a phased introduction rather than a single, large fleet replacement.
According to the notice, LMV is expected to deliver multiple options built around a common wheeled utility platform. That base vehicle would then be adapted to cover a range of warfighting and support roles across the joint force, improving commonality, reducing logistics burden and modernising a capability that in some areas still relies on platforms designed decades ago.
DE&S says the early engagement will allow the Army and wider Defence to better understand current market capabilities, including specialist and four-wheel-drive vehicles, and how these might be adapted to meet operational requirements. The approach reflects a broader trend within UK defence procurement toward shaping requirements alongside industry earlier, rather than locking in specifications before understanding what the market can offer.
The Light Mobility Vehicle sits within the wider Land Mobility Programme, which aims to rationalise and modernise the Army’s vehicle fleet, balancing protection, mobility, cost and deployability. Replacing legacy light vehicles is seen as a priority as the Army adapts to dispersed operations, greater reliance on sensors and uncrewed systems, and sustained activity across Europe and beyond.
Is a modified Ineos Grenadier an option, or are we looking at a vehicle designed from a pure military standpoint? Regardless I’ll be there to pick up a cheap Defender when they all get dumped on the market!
We’re looking at another 10 years of meetings probably.
Anyone care to translate this into English? Are they simply asking who would be interested in participating? If so, what’s the point in that exactly?
We are going to spend lots of money on consultants, buy something that kinda works but also doesn’t and spunk billions more in parts. Then buy a land cruiser.
Spartan, it’s standard procedure. Once you know who is interested you can invite them to an Industry Day of briefings and demos, and later send them an Invitation To Tender.
What shocks me is that this has not happened years ago! What have they been doing, the LMP is hardly new???
Why are you shocked mate! Remember Patria? Letter of intent for 2000, Babcock agrees to build them!so where is the actual order🤔
I’ve assumed since that they’re waiting for maximum grandstanding effect by including it in the DIP.
🙄
That or the Type 32 effect, create potential order hype in a panic ahead of major event that has no positive news or orders to be announced, then hope it disappears into obscurity.
Remember when as part of the light protected part of LMP, JLTV could have been ordered in 2017 after US approval yet it disappeared and nothing has happened since and won’t for years, from program start , the actual delivery will be heading towards 1.5 to 2 decades for an MRAP with so many available options for a relatively simple armoured vehicle.
Morning John.
I agree. It shows there is no money, it’s being deferred to spend on other things.
12 billion plus on Boxer Ajax for example.
It shows the problem with underfunding and trying to replace everything at once, but the issue still would remain that these programs are taking so long to deliver that you can’t really just fund them one at a time as you’d have such long cycles between modernisation efforts, it’s currently glacial. If the U.K. is to have such a small force it should atleast be extremely well equipped for what it is.
I’ve seen plenty of support for Foxhound 2 for the LMP part of the program but realistically they need more affordable that they could equip at scale, at this point the Patria Cavs seems like a unrealistic dream for the medium/heavy segment, considering the time it’s taking to replace the significantly cheaper very old Land Rovers and the LMP program which had the JLTV as a possibility being 8 years ago and nothing since.
It’s hard to see how a country with such a large population and budget is struggling so badly with equipping its forces as everyone has underspent for decades.
It’s Normal when undertaking a procurement to first engage with the market.. first it allows you to find out if there is an actual market place of potential providers.. then you can chat to them, tell them what you are after and how much money you have.. then if they don’t all die laughing or head of for an early lunch you know that someone will be able to sell you something you want and can afford…
Yes, but we were at this stsge almost a decade ago! As John mentioned. It’s getting silly now.
Indeed, to be honest I suspect this all comes down to our favourite subject Ajax and then boxer.. essentially the army blew all its vehicle budget on one thing then one more thing… hindsight is lovely but just imagine what the army could have got if it had not blown 11 billion on those two projects…
The budget likely has never been sufficient for modern platform costs, the time to deliver means you simply can’t be running single vehicle acquisitions at a time as it would take half a century to modernise with how long programs take now.
On the other hand how are program costs being spread across such long periods but the army is still struggling acquire multiple programs at a time even though the in year costs should be far more reasonable with programs taking around 15 years to deliver. Those funds should also have already been protected from way back yet no actual new funds since ? If Ajax had have been delivered on time they’d have been in service for a while and likely paid off, them being delayed shouldn’t have changed funding for other projects that should have come in subsequent funding years, but those funding years seem to have disappeared.
Oh goody, four working groups over a ten year soan should see us right then 🙂
please something off-the-shelf 🤞🏻🙏🏻
Very much so.
It will be off the shelf, then be handed off to pimp my ride to receive modifications and upgrades, due to unlimited budgets.
Babcock’s General Logistics Vehicle for the win. Toyota chassis for reliability & cheap spares. 4×4, 6×6 & flat bed. Could easily be electric hybrid. Made in the UK. Builds on Landrover heritage.
* prototypes already running as shown on YouTube.
Great more meetings, wish lists and bugger all for a min of 2/3 years. Just like every thing else all show and no go. The MOD really are good at this saying a lot, but doing the some total of nothing. Year of meeting to buy some thing thats over priced, does work now and then but not how the Army wanted to work and replace working kit with a lot less vehicle that get through spares like nothing else.
I can not wait to see what over priced 10 years late junk we buy and end up stuck with that is bespoke but crap, ie Ajax, buy off the self for once.
I suppose asking the MOD to run an immediate competitiion between the GLV and the Defender and then picking the best for each scenario would be too simple?
wasn’t JTLV previously selected for this requirements?
JLTV would have been in the light ‘protected’ mobility class, the names all come across quite similar and he programs have been convoluted. This is more Landrover/Pinzgauer replacement, rather than Foxhound and similar MRAP class vehicles.
In that case just buy a load of Toyotas /Hilux and get on with it. Everyone and their dog knows these are the best general workhorses going
Ford Ranger probably more likely than Toyota Hilux.
Toyota Landcruiser 70 series – job jobbed
Please MOD, just get on with it 🙈
Have you seen the state of the Landrovers on the motorway network recently.
Fortunately the majority of UK forces are using pickups already and so surely the decision can’t be that hard to make.
It would be good if we could get this procurement right for a change. The army has about 5,000 Defender 90/110 on its books plus 100 or so Pinzgauers and some of the Iveco jeep things things that didn’t work out too well, so there is scope for a good order and economy of scale.
The main thing is that it needs to be a robust vehicle that is capable offroad, light enough for air transport and pretty straightforward to maintain and repair. It will likely need 2 versions, a 4 x 4 for general use and probably a 6 x 6 to take over from Pinzgauer as the artillery tractor for the L118 towed gun, unless the army plans to mount the gun on a wheeled vehicle in the future.
The problem will be if mission-creep gets on the agenda. Can we make it better armoured for crew protection? Can we fill it with sensors and ISTAR kit? Can it be a specialised command vehicle, with a load of comms and EW kit? And so on. There is a danger that the replacement for Defendet turns a relatively simple and robust vehicle into a complex, pricey one to meet all manner of perceived needs.
One hopes that the staffs have learned about the dangers of over-specification from the Ajax fiasco.
I don’t mind the many meetings and studies that will be needed to get the spec right, that is an essential starting point for any new military kit. We should buy a proven off’the-shelf v3hicle and keep modifications to a minimum. Spec to competition shouldn’t need more than 18 months really, There aren’t that many contenders, particularly if we want UK manufacture, which we should.
Info’s has sort of shot itself in the foot by moving manufacture to France. JLTV was ruled out a couple of years ago as too pricey for the TUL/TUM role. TheToyota variants look usefull. I had great fun with a Ford Ranger as a very capable building truck, but we need to wean ourselves off US kit.
For ‘Info’s’, read Ineos…
Let’s see this procurement stuff up.
6 years to find a new Light Mobility Vehicle… really? Why??
How about buy the JLTV A2, or the HMMVW Sabre, or the KNDS Dingo III all ‘off the shelf’ vehicles. Right, that’s that sorted.
By the sound of it a golf cart battery powered with solar panels on the roof then shouldn’t be too difficult to adapt those already in use.