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Bowman on way to Iraq amid tenability doubts
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| 11 April 2005 |
By Tony Skinner JDW Staff Reporter
London
As the British Army's 12 Mechanised Brigade deploys to Iraq this month equipped for the first time with a core Bowman tactical communication capability, doubts linger about the tenability of the system.
Plans to install the Bowman system in the brigade's Challenger 2 main battle tanks and Warrior infantry combat vehicles in time for it to take over responsibility of Operation 'Telic' on 6 May were abandoned after problems with the reliability of the system's in-vehicle intercom.
Now an industry source close to the £1.9 billion (US$3.4 billion) Bowman project has revealed that the weight and size of the high-capacity data radio have also created major issues. Prime contractor General Dynamics (GD) UK has been attempting to install the system in the first batches of 4 x 4 Panther multipurpose light vehicles (MLVs) and Terrier combat engineer vehicles (CEVs) for the British Army.
The source said the amount of equipment going into the vehicles to convert them to the Bowman system was creating problems and concerns had been raised about the heat that the system generates. "There is more equipment going in than is being taken out," he said. "That has made the platform conversion far more complicated than first thought."
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