The Czech Ministry of Defence has announced that none of the bids submitted to supply a new IFV to the Czech Armed Forces meets all the requirements. As a result, the bids will no longer be considered. Three companie submitted bids. BAE Systems offered the CV90, GDELS the ASCOD and Rheinmetall the LYNX KF41 to replace the ageing Czech BVP-2s. A total of 210 new vehicles were to be procured.
Prague announced that a 15-member expert panel had evaluated the bids, and the assessment was apparently “unambiguous and unanimous”.
“The bids of all three contenders cannot be evaluated on the basis of the responses/documents submitted, as none of the bids meet all the requirements of the contracting authority. The deficits identified concern, for example, missing or inaccurate information on the technical characteristics of the vehicles or insufficient information on the cooperation with the Czech defence industry”, according to the statement of the Czech MoD.
It further states that the offers will not be further examined and evaluated. Apparently, a decision on how to proceed is yet to be made. No timeline has been announced.
The budget required for the procurement of 210 IFVs was originally estimated at €1.9Bn. At least 40 per cent of this was to be provided as local content, first and foremost by the state-owned company VOP CZ. Delivery of the first examples was expected from 2022. With a production rate of five to ten vehicles per month, production was expected to be completed in 2027. The programme had exceeded schedules several times and is now likely to be delayed further.
