Non-Subscriber Extract
Dutch-Swedish procurement harmonisation facilitates Kodiak purchase
By Christopher F Foss
23 January 2008
Germany's Rheinmetall Defence has been awarded a contract to supply 10 of its Kodiak Armoured Engineer Vehicles (AEVs) to the Royal Netherlands Army and six to the Swedish Army.
The Netherlands and Sweden have reduced costs on the EUR100 million (USD146 million) order by harmonising their procurement programmes and will be able to share logistics.
"After several turns back and forth, it feels incredibly good to have established this co-operation. International co-operation was the only possibility to pay for this project," said Lars …stlund, project leader at the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV).
The Kodiak's first customer is the Swiss Army, which placed a contract with Ruag Land Systems early in 2007 for 12 vehicles. All of the Kodiak AEVs ordered to date will be based on surplus Leopard 2 main battle tank (MBT) chassis, with the conversion work being undertaken at the Ruag facility in Thun, Switzerland. The Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland already operate the Leopard 2 MBT and the Buffel armoured recovery vehicle, which share a similar chassis.