Three bidders offer combat vehicles to Czech military.

The Czech Ministry of Defence has announced it received three initial bids to supply new infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) to the country’s military, with one player deciding to pull out of the competition.

The Ascod by General Dynamics, one of the option to replace BVP-2s of Czech Republic (Picture source: General Dynamics European Land Systems)

Vehicles in the race include the Ascod, supplied by General Dynamics European Land Systems, BAE Systems’ CV90, and Rheinmetall’s Lynx. The contract, under which Prague aims to acquire some 210 vehicles for the country’s military, is estimated to be worth about $2.2 billion.

According to the Czech Ministry of Defense, the commission will now begin to evaluate the preliminary proposals received and conduct multilateral negotiations with suppliers in order to improve proposals, including price and technical parameters. After summing up the results, applicants will be invited to submit their specified final proposals. They will be evaluated using a mathematical multi-criteria model, and a proposal to choose a winner will be presented to the Minister of Defense and the Czech Government.

The fourth invited bidder, PSM Projekt System & Management GmbH, a joint venture between Germany’s Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Rheinmetall, which makes the Puma, decided not to submit an offer because the companies believe the tender would require a costly rebuild of the vehicle to comply with its terms, the Czech ministry said in a statement.

According to TSAMTO, in the framework of the procedure carried out since the beginning of 2019, the Czech Ministry of Defense plans to conclude a contract worth more than $ 2.37 billion for the supply of 210 armored combat vehicles in seven versions: infantry fighting vehicle (calculation of 11 people , a tower with a 30-mm cannon), control vehicles, reconnaissance vehicles, artillery observer vehicles, engineering vehicles, ARVs and ambulances.

The planned procurement is to allow the Czech Republic to replace its outdated Soviet-designed BVP-2 vehicles with new IFVs.