I'm talking about the article from the Ottawa Citizen ... it seems that the Alligator yet lives. Interesting. What's even more mysterious is that two articles on opposite sides of the Atlantic have come to completely different conclusions.
UPDATE*
RAF sent me an additional news source that is declaring the Alligator/SEP dead. As a matter of fact it has a BAE spokesman stating that there will be layoffs at the Hagglunds facility which builds the SEP. Too bad.
The Marine Corps has placed all its amphibious assault vehicle eggs in the EFV basket and its about to crash. In hindsight an evolutionary approach with an upgraded AAV would have been advisable to the revolutionary EFV.
Now instead of just the EFV being endangered, its also going to wreck the Marine Personnel Carrier Program along with it.
The Marine Corps Procurement system is broken...our at least the program office for the EFV. Anyway here is the operative passage from the article...
BAE Systems Hägglunds in Örnsköldsvik shed during the day about 150 of its employees, according to Swedish Radio Västernorrland.The reason for the lack of redundancy is ordered, inter alia, for the Swedish defense.
"There are a hundred officers and 50 workers affected by the terminations. Cutbacks will occur during the first half of 2011," said communications director Ola Thorén.
BAE Systems Hägglunds. BAE Systems Hagglunds has also decided to phase out both the SEP and the slimmed-down version, Alligator.
Bandvagn and CV90 are our main activities. We will have two product base, but also a leg for service and maintenance that has grown as customers want to add more and more of service with us. We will have three legs in the future and wheeled vehicle operations are not there, "says Ola Thorén of all sorts.
Following the workforce reduction will be about 700 left to work at BAE Systems in.
Guys,
ReplyDeleteTested against this vehicle in the US as part of the MPC Program at the Nevada Automotive Test Center. The vehicle was very advanced and very interesting. Eight wheel steering and some other very interesting features. The only problem was that the re-liability for the vehicle was terrible and it was small on the inside in the drivers compartment. It went down every day of testing and the replaced the engine three times in a month.
BAE should have invested in this vehicle for the future but instead they are teaming with IVECCO for the MPC program and they have also built another 8x8 in South Africa.
I was extremely impressed with the vehicle but I am not surprised they canceled the vehicle. BAE is uninterested in the program.