DID - Lockheed Tapped For F-35 Support | Qatar To Give Lebanon’s Armed Forces $60M | Finnish Border Guard Orders OPVs from Meyer Turku

Americas

Lockheed Martin won a $22.6 million contract modification, which adds scope to procure 22 Electro-Optical Distributed Aperture System shipsets for Distributed Aperture System for Technology Refresh-3 developmental and operational testing, Block 4 testing, the Electromagnetic Environmental Effects aircraft, and a spare sensor set provision in support of F-35 Lightning II next generation capabilities. Work will take place in Texas. Estimated completion will be by July 2023.

MH Systems won a $24.7 million deal for the purchase of aircraft painters manpower support. This contract provides for the augmentation of 402d Aircraft Maintenance Group organic forces for depot paint and de-paint operations for current and incoming workload for C-5, C-17, C-130, F-15, Global Hawk and JSTARS weapon systems. Work will take place in Georgia. Expected completion date is July 17, 2027.

Middle East & Africa

Qatar has given Lebanon’s cash-strapped armed forces $60 million, the foreign ministry in Doha announced. “The announcement comes within the framework of the State of Qatar’s firm commitment to support the Republic of Lebanon,” the ministry said in a statement. Lebanon defaulted on its debt in 2020, the local currency has lost around 90 percent of its value on the black market, and the UN now considers four in five Lebanese to be poor.

Europe

The Finnish Border Guard has awarded a contract to Meyer Turku for two new liquefied natural gas (LNG)-powered offshore patrol vessels (OPVs). The new vessels will be an improved variant of the OPV Turva, which was commissioned into FBG service in 2014 as the world’s first LNG coastguard ship.

The contract will provide post-design services for armoured platforms including Bulldog, Warrior, Challenger 2, Challenger 3 when in service and other vehicles. According to a contract award notice, the Land Equipment Vehicle Support Team, part of the Ministry of Defence, intends to award a single-source contract for up to 5 years plus two option single years (total maximum contract duration including options is 7 years) to Rheinmetall BAE Systems (RBSL) for provision of Post Design Services (PDS) activity for current in-service armoured platforms.

Asia-Pacific

The Indian Army has issued a tender to local defense firms for 30,000 night sights for its US-made rifles. The sights will be installed on the country’s American SiG Sauer assault rifles to support soldiers patrolling its borders with China and Pakistan. The new device must reportedly have an adjustable illuminated Bullet Drop Compensator reticle pattern to enable target detection up to 600 meters.

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