That said, I agree that we seem to be doomed to indifference when it comes to this sort of “cutting edge” work. I submit that one of the reasons is that as a culture we have always rather looked down on trade – and engineering is part of trade in the opinion of some of the bright lads who opt to go into the city or open up a stylish antique shop in the West End. When I think of some of the grey-men who are in senior posts in the UK defence industry or who are senior engineers in companies that are running these contracts it makes me despair. There is often a real lack of inspiration or operational knowledge and too many projects are run by people with strong vested commercial or departmental interests.

I also believe that there are not enough entrepreneurial types in the UK who are prepared to back small businesses in the defence sector. Further upstream there has been a marked lack of interest in sustaining the defence industrial base in this country as compared with the US. I was involved in a number of projects where the team I led had developed new solutions to old problems – but we were told quite specifically by the MOD not to send in any unsolicited tenders for this equipment as it would rock the boat. The system jogged along with the old and expensive proposals rather than try the new approach.

The costs of modern equipment are frequently dominated by man-hours, an expensive item in this and other developed nations. Can anyone explain to me why a large corporation should stint itself on man-hours when bidding ? Competition is not enough of an answer in my view. If you cut development time you can cut costs as it is simply impossible to spend that many hours of work in a project that takes six months rather than two or three years to complete. That said, one has to recognize that regulations are partially to blame of course; health and safety, RAM-D etc all take time to complete – and must make some other nations laugh when they see the millstones we string around our own necks.

Your comment about cost the cost of the Alvis 4 in comparison with the Bangladeshi vehicle is understandable – but not realistic. Take a good look at the Unibuffel and you see all sorts of rather nasty compromises in build quality and materials. The design is the older South African model where an armoured box is bolted to a high chassis frame with a one-man cab for the driver. Many of the components are probably either all second-hand or sourced from within stocks already in store – in which case was the cost a true reflection of the actual cost of materials ? And the labour costs ? Given that they were built in the army workshops I wonder what labour wage rate they used.

As an indication, and given that the Unibuffel is probably based upon an older Unimog chassis (possibly the 416 series), the cost of a sensible Unimog chassis which meets Euro-regs today would be well over 125,000 pounds for starters. That alone blows away the prospect of a 30K vehicle. The base price of the modern Cougar is about 450k dollars, which compares favourably with the base price of a modern 6×6 armoured vehicle at about one million apiece. (As an aside, if you go for a mil-standard engine and drive train as opposed to a commercial system, you easily treble the costs.)

And one should not oversimplify the pricing structures of defence contracts which frequently include onerous warranty terms and comprehensive spares and support packages. Not sure what sort of warranty, spares or field support you would get for your 30k UNibuffel !

But – going back to the earlier point, it demonstrably the case that we take too long to develop stuff today, which allows design-creep to set in as operational circumstances change, driving up costs and frustrating the User who can point to all sorts of “foreign” kit readily available – as happened with the Cougar/Mastiff of course.

I did question the value for money of the Alvis 4/8′s because at over 1.2 million pounds for a handful of vehicles does not seem like a good buy if one considers the Sri Lankan’s can knock out Unibuffels for £30k apiece

Thanks for the excellent additional background, very useful.

On the question of Hammick – it just seemed that Richard North was implying that Hammick had taken the IPR from the UK and exploited it in America. I do not believe this to be the case at all. Apart from anything else, the UK MOD never bought the IPR when it bought the vehicles.

Will get back on track with the other comments tomorrow.

Not sure I succeeded though but there is so much contradictory information out there its hard to know what is correct

Have looked at that other link. Is that your web site as well ?

I will collate these into the main article, as I said, I am extremely grateful if through the efforts of readers we get more accurate posts. Accuracy is one of the key planks upon which TD sits and although we always strive for first time right, we more often than not overshoot :)

Have a look here for a more ‘vehicle’ focussed post, the subject seems uniquely confusing and beset with differing opinions

http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2009/08/mine-and-ied-resistant-vehicles/

On a related but very minor point, I think the TUAM’s are for Clansman VRC353′s, not BOWMAN and the wiring and power fit for CLANSMAN were pretty simple and cheap; 24v power charging, some metalwork and coax. The cost would not have included the CLANSMAN sets either, which by then was long out of production.

1992 to 1996
In late 1993 two prototype vehicles were indeed sent to Alvis who had teamed with Mechem and then Reumech in South Africa; these were the Iron Eagle scout car (looked like a souped-up Ferret) and the first 4×4 version of the Mamba 2.9m wheelbase MPV. The Iron Eagle was renamed Project Acorn. The Mamba was called the Alvis 8 as it carried eight people. However, the South Africans were asked if they could develop a smaller vehicle which was delivered in 2004. It had a 2.3m wheelbase and was called the Alvis 4 in UK/world markets and Comanche in South Africa.
The RG-31 was a commercial copy of the earlier 4×2 Mamba built under license by TFM of South Africa after the production license for the Mamba 4×4 (or Mk2) was given to Reumech. There were many design and component differences between the Mamba Mk2 and the RG 31. And TFM never built a short-wheelbase version.
The UK MOD order for the Alvis 4 was a UOR. It was not intended principally as a route clearance vehicle but rather as an emergency rescue vehicle to go into a mined area to extract troops from disabled vehicles etc. To this end it had, amongst other things, stretcher mounting points on the bonnet in case a casualty could not be placed in the main hull. The TMRP-6 plate was a major requirement as the Army had recently lost men in a Spartan that had hit one of these mines. The Alvis 4 was selected as the plate would have been too heavy for the Unimog 416 running gear on the long-wheelbase Alvis 8.
The UOR meant that the vehicles had to be in service within a 6-month deadline and so, to help matters, Alvis lent the Army some Alvis 8s to tide them over. That is why some photos show the longer vehicles out in the Balkans.
As for cost and comms etc – the UOR vehicles were in fact fully fitted with Bowman comms. If you look at the photos on your own site you will see the wing mounted TUAMs – part of the radio fit – on an Alvs 8 (the Military Today photo). And let us not forget, the TMRP-6 plates were heavy slabs of thick ceramic and steel – not a cheap item to purchase by any stretch of the imagination.
The vehicles were in fact quite well regarded and with their Unimog automotives were able to go where others could not. The Alvis 8s were especially liked and were always being used to tow other vehicles out of the snow and mud. That said, the Alvis 4 were at the limit of their payload and this, combined with the fact that the Unimog 416 was an obsolete vehicle by the end of the 1990s made it uneconomical to keep them in the fleet.

Not sure what you are inferring about Mr Hamick, I certainly don’t have any axes to grind

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/International/2009/10/07/Israeli-K-9-unit-uses-remote-control/UPI-47741254925719/

This was proposed in Australia in 1971, but, of course the generals disagreed! OKETZ must have read our Army Journal…

Yes, they are both Mastiffs, you can tell by the spotlight above the cab and in the first one, what is behind it

The Germans use the Keiler (“Wild Boar”), a flail fitted to the hull of a Leopard tank and that is certainly still in service. Perhaps they are more useful in minefield breaching than in mine clearance work.

Dou you know, by the way, whether the roller etc.- equipped vehicles in your photographs are British or American?

Flails are so eighties!

They just distribute explosive materials over a wide area making the job even harder, destroy track/road surfaces and often don’t initiate them anyway because of the nature of ground pressure they exert

One single piece of technology isnt the answer, I am just concerned we don’t have a big enough mix

Current UAVs don’t have the wide area sensor coverage necessary to cover the huge amount of terrain that needs to be observed in Afghanistan. The number you’d need to cover even a reasonably sized area on a 24hr persistent basis is certainly beyond UK UAV operations. I have heard that the wide area sensors are coming soon but aren’t operational yet.

Aerostats and Towers increase the surveillance horizon of bases but don’t help the wide area situation that much. However given operations are less expansive now, they could be all thats necessary.

Airships would be the ideal answer, but I understand the main problem to be ground handling rather than any major performance constraints. Some of the new hybrid designs that are partially buoyant / aerodynamic lift and so can land unaided, could solve this but I haven’t heard of any successfull full scale designs

My question for this forum is this, why don’t we just have rollers/flails attached to the fronts of vehicles clearing routes on a regular basis because the devices we’re trying to counter here aren’t exactly sophisticated

http://www.mineseeker.com/
http://www.lightships.com/otherapplications.php
http://www.americanblimp.com/index.htm
http://www.aht.ndirect.co.uk/index.html
http://www.nott.com/
http://airshipman.com/

I would have thought that lighter-than-air UAS would make a lot of sense but the whole UAV thing seems to have gone down the fixed wing/helo high cost route.