Lockheed Martin UK to provide 245 turrets for future British Army's Scout Specialist Vehicle.

It follows the announcement in September that the U.K. Ministry of Defence is to buy SCOUT SV’s to provide essential armoured vehicle capability for the British Army.

Lockheed Martin’s technology-leading turret solution will deliver significant improvements in combat capability, survivability and operational effectiveness for the infantry.

According to Stephen Ball, chief executive, Lockheed Martin UK, this contract reflects the significant investment the company made in developing the workforce in its Ampthill site. “The award not only sustains a significant number of highly skilled manufacturing jobs at our Ampthill site but will also greatly benefit our U.K. supply chain partners with whom we will work to deliver this modern, leading edge capability.” Ball added. Alan Lines, managing director at Lockheed Martin’s Ampthill site is hopeful the new activity could leverage as “a platform for other potential contracts for armoured vehicles programmes in the U.K. and export markets.” Lines said.

SCOUT SV represents the first variant in the future of armoured fighting vehicles for the British Army, providing best-in-class protection and survivability, reliability and mobility and all-weather intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance capabilities. Its range of six variants will allow the British Army to conduct sustained, expeditionary, full-spectrum and network-enabled operations with a reduced logistics footprint. SCOUT SV can operate in combined-arms and multinational situations across a wide range of future operating environments.

The Scout SV is fitted with a two-man turret armed with a CT40 40mm automatic cannon and a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun. The 40mm cannon is integrated into a revolutionary, user defined, fightable turret. Where the operation dictates, a fully stabilised Remote Weapons Station can be fitted to the turret instead of the Primary Sight. A bank of eight electrically operated smoke grenade launchers is mounted either side of the turret firing forwards. Primary and secondary sights of the turret are integrated with a sensor processor unit which, combined with the sights’ stabilisation systems, enables the vehicle’s turret to be rapidly traversed onto the target while on the move, providing an unsurpassed hunter-killer capability for vehicles in this class. Both sights have fully digital video outputs, in accordance with the UK Ministry of Defence’s new vetronics infrastructure for video over ethernet (VIVOE) standard, facilitating connection into the vehicles’ electronic architecture for onward distribution.

(Source : DefenseUpdate)