Numerous new system/vehicle integrations were unveiled at the 2024 Defence Vehicle Dynamics (DVD2024) show, held at UTAC Millbrook in Bedfordshire on 18 and 19 September, with vehicle integrator and armour manufacturer NP Aerospace behind several of them.
On NP Aerospace’s own stand at DVD2024 was a Ridgback 4×4 protected patrol vehicle onto which the company had integrated a Moog Reconfigurable Integrated-weapons Platform (RIwP): the first time this system has been displayed on a vehicle outside the United States. The RIwP was configured for the current short-range air defence (SHORAD) requirement within the British Army’s Land Ground Based Air Defence (Land GBAD) programme, with its main armament being launchers for the High Velocity Missile (HVM) and Lightweight Multirole Missile (LMM) and additional lethality provided by a 30×113 mm main gun and an M240 7.62 mm machine gun.
In addition to integrating the RIwP, NP Aerospace also introduced other enhancements. Along with new headlights and a new panel system, the company also integrated a generic vehicle architecture in the rear that allows any other subsystem to be inserted into that architecture.
The Babcock stand at DVD2024, meanwhile, saw the unveiling of the Ground Deployed Advanced Mortar System (GDAMS), comprising a Coyote 6×6 tactical support vehicle onto which NP Aerospace has integrated a hinged 120 mm mortar system provided by ST Engineering. This system addresses a current British Army requirement for a close indirect-fire solution to boost integral firepower at the unit and sub-unit level.
On the Leonardo stand at DVD2024 was a Mastiff 6×6 protected patrol vehicle onto which NP Aerospace had integrated Leonardo’s Falcon Shield scalable counter-uncrewed aerial vehicle (C-UAV) system to exemplify a mobile variant of the Falcon Shield capability.
NP Aerospace also designed and integrated an enclosure system for the GM Defense Infantry Squad Vehicle shown at DVD2024 – including a windscreen, wiper motors and enclose doors, to offer the crew a degree of environmental protection on what is otherwise an open architecture vehicle – and has additionally worked on GM Defense’s Chevrolet Silverado-based Light Utility Vehicle (LUV).
There were also a couple of protected patrol vehicles at DVD2024 from Turkish company Nurol Makina on which NP Aerospace had done the integration work, including an NMS 4×4 and a battlefield ambulance variant of the Dragon 4×4.
In recent years NP Aerospace has won three major contracts relating to the in-service support of military vehicle fleets. Firstly, in 2019, the company won the Protected Mobility Engineering & Technical Support (PMETS) contract to support the UK Ministry of Defence’s (MoD’s) fleet of over 2,000 protected mobility vehicles, including the Mastiff, Wolfhound, Ridgback, Buffalo, Choker, RODET, Foxhound, Jackal, Coyote and Husky fleets.
Then, in July 2023, it was announced that the Canadian Department of National Defence had awarded NP Aerospace Canada its Land Equipment Program – Engineering Technical Support Services (LEP-ETSS) contract, which covers research, testing and evaluation, engineering and prototyping, fabrication, technical investigations, the provision of field support representatives and equipment management and documentation services for military equipment.
Most recently, on 18 September – the first day of DVD2024 – it was announced that NP Aerospace had won the UK MoD’s Conventional Vehicle Systems Spares and Post Design Services (CVSSP) contract, which will see the company delivering post-design services, design authority and spares procurement services to a fleet of over 15,000 UK MoD core vehicles for at least the next four years.
However, the company’s objective is to exploit its vehicle integration expertise to build a solid revenue stream beyond its vehicle fleet support work.
“There’s three key programmes where we’re managing vehicle fleets on behalf of an end user,” NP Aerospace Managing Director and Senior Vice President Davis Petheram told ESD at DVD2024 on 19 September, “but we’ve got to find some other revenues in the business. We’re an integration design authority. We don’t care what the vehicle is. Give us a gun system, give us an ambulance, give us a camera system, give us something new that you need to integrate into a vehicle and we will take that on for you and manage all the design, the management, the wiring, the harnesses, the electrical interfaces, the mechanical design.
“So it’s that whole end-to-end piece that we’re trying to manage,” said Petheram, “and give a user, who may not be able to do that in the UK themselves, the ability to do that.”
