Nexter, Thales and Arquus deliver the 500th GRIFFON on SCORPION programme to the French defence procurement agency.
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Press Release, Versailles, 13 July 2023: Nexter, Arquus and Thales have presented the 500th GRIFFON (VBMR) multirole armoured vehicle and the 50th JAGUAR (EBRC) armoured reconnaissance and fighting vehicle to the French defence procurement agency (DGA). The three industry partners in the EBMR temporary consortium are meeting their contractual targets on the programme, which involves the delivery of a total of 1,872 GRIFFONs and 300 JAGUARs.
Manufactured and assembled by Nexter: Nexter, a KNDS company, is building the armoured aluminium body, outfitting the vehicle’s interior and manufacturing the turret for the JAGUAR at the Roanne site. Its high-precision machining and robotic welding processes ensure that the welded aluminium structure of both the GRIFFON and the JAGUAR provide the best possible level of protection for military personnel. Nexter is also manufacturing the JAGUAR’s 40 mm cannon and its telescoped munitions at its Bourges and La Chapelle Saint-Ursin facilities.
Other Nexter sites and subsidiaries are supplying vehicle equipment including CBRN protection systems made by NBC-Sys at Saint-Chamond, onboard electronics and computers manufactured in Toulouse, and vision systems produced by OPT-Sys in Saint-Etienne. Nexter also has responsibility for final assembly and integration of all these components, and those provided by Arquus and Thales, into the vehicles.
Ground mobility expertise from Arquus: Arquus is responsible for the design and manufacture of the complete powertrains for the GRIFFON and JAGUAR vehicles, including the engine, the gearbox, the running gear and all the other parts and components that ensure the mobility of the vehicles.
These mobility kits are manufactured at the Arquus site in Limoges, the company’s centre of excellence for new vehicle production, and then shipped to Nexter in Roanne for integration into the vehicles.
The engines for the vehicles are built at the Arquus site in Marolles-en-Hurepoix, the company’s centre of excellence for engine militarisation. A team of some twenty specialists from Arquus are working alongside their partners in Roanne on a permanent basis to provide technical expertise and quality assurance for all powertrain parts and components.
Also at its Marolles-en-Hurepoix site, Arquus is manufacturing the T1, T2 and T3 remotely operated turrets, which are common components of the Scorpion programme and equip both the GRIFFON and the JAGUAR, but also the SERVAL (VBMR-L) light multi-role armoured vehicle.
Vehicle interconnection by Thales: Thales is providing the vehicle vetronics and data systems required to deploy the vehicles as a network and conduct collaborative engagements. This includes the common Scorpion vetronics, onboard sensors, secure communication systems and self-protection systems incorporating collaborative combat algorithms. Thales is also responsible for the radars and sensor payload for the artillery observation vehicle (VOA).
This onboard computing architecture interconnects all the navigation, protection, observation and communication systems to give deployed units a decisive advantage in the theatre of operations by expanding their intelligence and response capabilities.
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