Five Firms Qualify for Danish Artillery Competition
These were the main conclusions from the prequalification list released by the defense ministry’s Defence Acquisition and Logistics Organisation this morning, Friday April 8.
The five shortlisted companies are BAE Systems Land & Armaments (USA), Elbit Systems (Israel), Hanwha Techwin (South Korea), Huta Stalowa Wola (Poland) and Nexter Systems (France).
The most notable point, of course, is that Elbit is back in the running. This is the second Danish artillery competition in recent years, and Elbit had won the first tender, but on April 30 last year that tender was canceled 12 hours before the final decision was to have been confirmed and the contract awarded to Elbit.
Officially, the explanation was that the ministry wanted to wait and see how much it would cost to repair a wrecked helicopter before spending too much money on other things. But, actually, it was that the ministry did not want to buy Israeli artillery.
Remarkably, the Polish Huta Stalowa Wola has also been short-listed. It will be interesting to see what they have to contribute. And BAE is still competing, although it was eliminated during the evaluation phase last time as their M109 could not shoot to the 40 kilometer range demanded by the Danes. BAE’ gun could only manage 28 km, which is standard in the US military.
Finally, there are the two producers which were also in the running a year ago and were beaten by Elbit. Hanwha Techwin was then called Samsung Techwin, but the product is the same.
In parallel, the Danes are looking at what happens in Norway, which is engaged in a similar acquisition project. At some point, we should choose whether to go along with the Norwegian procurement, or whether we should make our own purchase.
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