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LONDON — Eight European armored vehicle builders have responded to a Danish Ministry of Defence invitation to bid for a family of armored personnel carriers to replace its fleet of aging M113s.
The competition pits equal numbers of tracked and wheeled contenders against one another for a requirement of between 206 and 450 vehicles. Around 360 machines spread across six configurations is the most likely procurement number, said industry executives.
An unspecified number of contenders will be down-selected in the next few months ahead of vehicle trials starting in Denmark in March 2013, the procurement arm of the MoD said in a statement.
Only General Dynamics European Land Systems (GDELS) has a contender in wheeled and tracked sectors.
BAE Systems Hagglunds, FFG Flensburger, Rheinmetall Landsysteme and the Santa Barbara arm of GDELS have submitted proposals for tracked vehicles.
Wheeled vehicle suppliers ARTEC, the Mowag arm of GDELS, Nexter and Patria also have submitted bids.
The winning vehicle is expected to be under contract by around the end of 2013, industry executives said.
The Danish military is looking for six different configurations of the winning design: infantry, command and control, ambulance, mortar, engineering, and mechanical.
The Danes already are operators of BAE’s CV-90, and the Swedish arm of the company has bid its new Armadillo version of the tracked machine for the Danish competition.
