Croatia’s New APCs: AMVs, RWS and Export Opportunities

Croatian AMVs

Many European countries are currently in the process of acquiring wheeled armored personnel carriers, from former East-Bloc nations replacing their old Soviet BTRs, to NATO countries buying lighter and less protected equipment as replacements for their tanks, to new European states looking for road-mobile and affordable armor. Recent contracts in in Europe have tended to involve competitions between 3 key competitors: General Dynamics subsidiaries MOWAG (Piranha) and Steyr-SSG (Pandur), and Finland’s Patria Oyj (AMV).

Croatia’s finalists were Patria’s AMV and GD Steyr’s Pandur II. Croatian defense writer Igor Tabak helped DID reveal exactly what happened, as the AMV became a key component of Croatia’s future forces. That contract even led to development of ancillary systems for the global market, and is close to landing export orders for Croatian firms…

Cobham Wants to Grow Non-US Defense Sales by Supporting ‘Pivot to Asia’

Business Ebbs and Flows

• Cobham’s 2013 interim results [PDF] point to delays in some land system awards as a source of pressure on their US-based defense revenue. They see growth opportunities outside of the US in air-to-air refueling, supporting the export efforts of American primes, and aviation services.

• ATK reported Q2 FY14 sales up 6.8% to $1.14B, thanks to a mix of organic and external growth in its sporting group. Revenue from the defense group was down 9.4% to $471.9M because of declining small caliber sales.