General Dynamics [GD] recently said it recently was awarded two contracts worth $44 million for Saudi Arabia’s tank program.
The contracts, awarded by the U.S. Army TACOM Lifecycle Management Command on behalf of the Royal Saudi Land Forces, are part of a plan by the to upgrade the Kingdom’s fleet of 314 tanks.
The first contract of $37.1 million is to provide materials and labor for the conversion of 42 M1A2 tanks to an M1A2S configuration. The M1A2S will possess defined capabilities that increase lethality while limiting obsolescence.
The conversion work will be conducted by current employees at the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center in Lima, Ohio, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 20, 2012.
The second contract, worth $6.9 million, will provide the tools and equipment needed to outfit a production facility in Saudi Arabia for future conversion of M1A2 tanks to the M1A2S version. This work will be performed in Sterling Heights, Mich., with an estimated completion date of Aug. 1, 2012.
These contracts extend work started in 2008 to design, develop, convert, implement and test a hybrid configuration of the M1A1, M1A2 and M1A2 System Enhancement Package (SEP) tank variants for the Saudi Arabia.