In what the British government is announcing as a boost for British industry, the PBI are getting some new equipment:
- Thermal sights will be provided for rifles, marksman’s weapons and light machineguns. These can be used to detect hidden enemies and bombs while on patrol, and function even in total darkness – when the regular light-amplifying night vision gear now in use doesn’t work. This stuff is already in use by some units, and is considered good by our sources.
- New Lightweight Day Sights will be provided, replacing the SUSAT* sights which came in when the SA80 weapons were introduced during the 1980s. SUSAT was very popular in its day (unlike the SA80s, which were only sorted out twenty years later in a German factory), but according to our sources the new sights are much better, offering improved field of view and a clearer picture. “A gleaming bit of kit,” we’re told.
- The new thermal scopes, in a popular bit of good sense, have open Close Quarter Battle Sights mounted on top of them. This means that a soldier in a close-up gunfight doesn’t need to peer through a scope as he shoots, and lose track of what’s happening around him. This gets the thumbs up as well.
It’s typical in situations like this — regardless of the country involved — for the politicians to view any military spending as being primarily to serve political ends, rather than military ones. This often means choosing a less capable piece of equipment if it can be produced in a key state/province/constituency even if it costs more than a competing product. Unusually, this doesn’t appear to have been the case this time:
Overall, then, most of the gear is necessary and popular. Refreshingly, the MoD seems also to be breaking with tradition and simply purchasing stuff from the firms best able to supply it rather than trying to use the buy to subsidise UK industry. Despite minister Quentin Davies’ assertion at DSEi that the FIST cash will “support the British defence industrial base”, actually it seems that at least half the money will go to overseas firms.
The grenade fire-control gadgets and the commanders’ target-marking binos (two of the most expensive systems) are to come from Switzerland, for example. Swiss provider Vectronix say they’ll be making 92 million francs on the deal, about £53m — more than a third of the total spend, and that’s without allowing for prime contractor Thales’ cut off the top. The new day-sights, another pricy piece of kit, will come from Canada and the periscopes from Israel. The only substantial UK buy is the thermal sights, from Qioptiq.
