General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada [GD] yesterday announced it was awarded a $2.2 billion contract for 724 Light Armored Vehicles (LAV) for a Foreign Military Sale (FMS).
Under the contract from the U.S. Army TACOM Life Cycle Management Command in support of the U.S. Army Security Assistance Command (USASAC), vehicle deliveries will begin in April 2011.
The contract was signed through the Canadian Commercial Corporation, a Crown Agency of the Canadian Government.
Sridhar Sridharan, senior vice-president of General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada, said, “We are pleased to be working once again with TACOM and USASAC in support of their Foreign Military Sales program. This contract now allows us to immediately start work on variant design and production readiness. We look forward to reaching the manufacturing portion of this contract, which will help us bring stability to our production workforce.”
The LAVs provided under this contract will be the LAV II version–a 300 horsepower 8×8 vehicle with a gross vehicle weight of up to 32,000 pounds. The vehicles will be produced in 10 different variants.
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency June 20, 2006 notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Saudi Arabia to continue modernization of the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG). The total value of the potential sale, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $5.8 billion. The FMS request also included radios, night vision goggles, thermal weapons sights and recoilless rifles.
Other contractors involved in the potential sale were ITT [ITT], Harris [HRS], and Raytheon [RTN].