Army

£3.5 Billion Contract Signed for Advanced New Armoured Vehicles

David Cameron has hailed the signing of a £3.5 billion contract for almost 600 new armoured vehicles as a "major investment for the Army's capabilities".

The contract for 589 Scout Specialist Vehicles, being signed at General Dynamics in Oakdale, south Wales, is the largest single order placed by the Ministry of Defence for armoured vehicles for more than 30 years.

Delivery of the first vehicles is expected in 2017, with a training establishment and first squadron due to be equipped by mid-2019 and a brigade ready to deploy by the end of 2020.

In a speech made to members of staff, members of the Army and the MoD, Mr Cameron said the investment was possible only due to "difficult decisions" made by the Government to reduce the deficit. Mr Cameron said:

"I'm absolutely delighted to be standing in front of one of these vehicles, a £3.5 billion order, something that's going to be at the heart of our Army for years, even decades to come."

"It's part of an overall picture. Because of those difficult decisions, we see with the Royal Navy the new aircraft carrier, the Type 45 destroyers, the Astute submarines, the most advanced submarines anywhere in the world.

"If you look at our Air Force we've got the A400M coming into service, we've got the new Voyager aircraft, the Typhoon performing magnificently, the Joint Strike Fighter to come, and I think today the Army can see that they will not be left behind in this vital equipment programme that will give us the most advanced, the most deployable armed services of a country of our size and scale.

"This is a major investment in the Army's capabilities and I'm very proud to be doing that today."

During the visit, Mr Cameron met apprentices and experts working on the vehicles and toured the General Dynamics site. He said the contract, the biggest single contract for armoured fighting vehicles for the British Army since the 1980s, would secure 1,300 jobs in the UK and sustain 300 posts in Wales. He added:

"We're seeing here the new key vehicle for the Army. It's going to be an enormous investment with more than 1,300 new jobs across the UK, 300 in Wales."

"There will also be all of the spin-off benefits - the investment in technology, the services, the partners and great for Wales' industrial base and for Welsh industry."

The high-tech Scout vehicles will be the Army's "eyes and ears" on the battlefields of the future, the MoD said.

The Army's most senior officer, Chief of the General Staff Sir Peter Wall, said: "The Scout family is a transformational programme that will refresh our armoured capability and ensure the Army remains a first-tier manoeuvre force.

"It provides advanced intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance capabilities and will be the 'eyes and ears' of commanders on the battlefields of the future. With digital links to all of our other systems it will be able to fulfil a wide range of combat roles."

General Dynamics said the Scout provides a "highly-agile, tracked, medium-weight armoured fighting vehicle, providing British troops with state-of-the-art best-in-class protection".

Each vehicle has capabilities including acoustic detectors, a laser warning system, a local situational awareness system, an electronic counter-measure system and a route-marking system.