UK Ministry of Defence, The Prime Minister announced today that the MOD plans to order 150 additional specialist, protected vehicles for Afghanistan. The new vehicles will be called RIDGBACK and will represent a further spend of over £150M on protection for our forces, fully funded from the Treasury Reserve.
Work is currently ongoing to identify the vehicle type. A number of solutions have been looked at, including off-the-shelf products. Negotiations are underway and are currently commercially sensitive. A manufacturer and vehicle will be announced in due course when these negotiations have concluded.
The PM also announced that we will be sending additional Sea King helicopters to Afghanistan. These are expected to deploy in the spring.
Des Browne, Secretary of State for Defence said:
“This is excellent news and it will increase the numbers of helicopters and the range of protected vehicles available to our forces and those who work alongside them on operations.
“Between Treasury and MOD investment, we have made significant improvements to protection for our forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Vehicles like Mastiff and Bulldog have been a huge success and have saved lives on numerous occasions. We will procure RIDGBACK in sufficient numbers to allow comprehensive pre-deployment training”
Background Information
1 RIDGBACK will provide our forces in Afghanistan with a new protected vehicle. (ends)
Speaking to MPs after the weekly Prime Minister's Questions session, Gordon Brown provided the following details:
MRAPs
“Work is currently ongoing to identify the vehicle type. A number of solutions have been looked at, including off-the-shelf products. Negotiations are underway and are currently commercially sensitive. A manufacturer and vehicle will be announced in due course when these negotiations have concluded.
This order “brings to 400 the total of new protected vehicles bought in the last 18 months for Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Helicopters
“We will combine this with increasing the number of Sea King helicopters in Afghanistan and, through NATO, negotiating new contracts for hiring commercial helicopters to move routine freight, freeing up military helicopters for military tasks.”
