The withdrawal of a second contender to supply both Armoured and Tactical Bridging Systems for the British Army’s TYRO project, means that UK military bridge designer and manufacturer WFEL is now the sole bidder.
The firm say that Project TYRO aims to provide UK Heavy Forces with Close Support Bridge (CSB) and General Support Bridge (GSB) capabilities for the British Army’s Royal Engineers (RE) to cross wet and dry gaps, both on the battlefield and in emergency and disaster relief situations.
“The TYRO requirements are for Close Support Bridges (CSB) to be deployed, launched and recovered from armoured vehicles (AVLB) and a wheeled launcher (WVLB) and for the General Support Bridges (GSB) to be self-deployed, providing MLC 100 (Tracked) capability in order to support unrestricted crossing by UK Heavy Forces. The Assessment Phase (AP) of Project TYRO has already been successfully completed by WFEL, with the Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) being issued in September 2020. Negotiations for the Demonstration & Manufacture phase will now commence in the summer of 2021.”
According to the WFEL website:
“The bridging solutions offered by WFEL include the DSB Dry Support Bridge – which can be fully deployed by only eight people and a single launch vehicle in under 90 minutes – for the GSB requirement; to meet the CSB requirement, WFEL offers KMW’s LEGUAN Bridge. The LEGUAN’s fully automatic, horizontal bridge-laying capability provides increased stealth with a low silhouette during a five-minute bridge launch and will be adapted to be launched and recovered from the MoD’s already in-service TITAN armoured bridge launchers and a new wheeled bridge launcher.”
The KMV horizontally launched bridge will certainly change the Operating Procedures over the current scissor bridge design, but having seen it in action at DVD in 2019, it is certainly impressive, and a joy to look at it in regards to the way the mechanical and hydraulic systems operate. As the the DSB, well it is a 1st class bridge and if MOD are sensible, they will ensure that it comes on the RMMV 10×10 variants so that there is some commonality with the MAN Support Vehicle fleet. It would be madness to select a different base vehicle manufacture when… Read more »