Supacat has been awarded a contract by Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land (RBSL) to upgrade chemical and radiological sensing equipment on the British Army’s fleet of ‘Fuchs/Fox’ CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) surveillance and reconnaissance vehicles. The contract is part of the overall £16m UK MOD contract awarded to RBSL is October 2020 to upgrade and sustain the British Army’s fleet of Fuchs/Fox vehicles. RBSL is completing the engineering work required to upgrade the vehicles with the latest generation of sensing capabilities, with Supacat conducting the physical integration work. The vehicles will be modified at Supacat’s facility in Dunkeswell, Devon, over an estimated one-year period.
Supacat’s engineers and vehicle technicians will complete the integration work, meaning the contract will help sustain valuable jobs and skills for the UK and the company. Originally designed and developed by Rheinmetall, the British Army’s Fuchs/Fox vehicles have since been adapted into a protected platform equipped with automatic systems and sensors for detecting nuclear radiation, CBRN agents and other toxic substances. This latest contract will help modernise the fleet further and ensure operational readiness and effectiveness of the UK CBRN reconnaissance fleet. The contract is the latest collaboration opportunity between Supacat and RBSL as Supacat grows its Engineering Services business to support global primes in the UK and Australia where it operates.
Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land (RBSL) is a defence engineering company specialising in the design, manufacture and support of military vehicles used by the British Army and international customers. RBSL sustains a skilled workforce of more than 520 employees across the UK. This includes over 250 engineers based at sites in Telford, Washington, Bovington, and Bristol. In addition to manufacturing Boxer vehicles under the UK MOD’s Mechanised Infantry Vehicle (MIV) programme and upgrading Challenger 2 vehicles under the Challenger 3 programme, RBSL also provides continued support to the British Army’s in-service armoured vehicle fleets and other land platform projects, including the Fuchs upgrade.
Phil Applegarth, Director of Supacat, said:“This contract demonstrates how our relationship with RBSL provides comprehensive engineering expertise to the UK MOD, by increased agility through RBSL collaborating with an SME. Our engineers are able to bring extensive experience in delivering fully integrated, battle-proven vehicle systems, as demonstrated by the HMT platform (Jackal and Coyote) to maintain this critical UK MOD capability.”
Supacat is the world’s leading specialist in the design and development of high mobility defence vehicles with over 1000 specialist, battle-proven vehicles delivered into service globally. Part of SC Group, it is an innovative engineering and design company providing global, defence focussed products and services with offices in the UK and Australia. Its agility and speed enables Supacat to provide and fully support high performance solutions in short timescales. The UK Ministry of Defence has previously procured Supacat’s Jackal and Coyote vehicles
