Babcock International Group (Babcock) has secured the contract to provide individual trade and technical training to the British Army’s armoured fighting vehicle (AFV) community, the company announced on 6 February 2024.
The seven-year contract, worth around GBP 75 million (EUR 87.7 million), is expected to start in April 2024. It will deliver and support close combat training on tracked and wheeled AFVs to a broad variety of Field Army and defence establishment users, including training on driving and maintenance, gunnery, and communications and information systems.
The Babcock solution will deliver and support training at Bovington and Lulworth on behalf of the Armour Centre (ARMCEN), supporting its role as the centre of excellence for the delivery of AFV-trained personnel to the British Army.
In addition to supporting the design and delivery of training, the Babcock team will provide technical and general equipment management, maintenance and management of the ARMCEN AFV fleet and motor transport pool, as well as garrison support services, which includes physical training instruction.
Jo Rayson, managing director of Babcock’s training business, was quoted as saying in a company press release, “It is vital that soldiers are operationally ready for the field both in the UK and Europe. We have a long-standing role in supporting the British Army, managing all aspects of the army training cycle, designing and delivering over 758,000 individual training days annually. We are delighted to have secured this contract to continue this essential work providing training to the mounted close combat community.”
Colonel John Godfrey, deputy commander of the Combat Manoeuvre Centre and commander of Bovington Garrison, added: “This critical new contract award occurs at an exciting moment in the development of the British Army’s armoured fighting vehicle training. Babcock will continue to deliver training on our legacy vehicle fleet, seeking continuous improvement in delivery throughout this contract and our future Ajax, Boxer and Challenger 3 crews will benefit from the developments made. We very much look forward to working with Babcock to derive the very best training for our personnel through this entirely new contract.”
