444 Seats Included in £2 Million Deal
Jankel has been awarded a subcontract worth over £2 million (€2.4million) by RBSL – the Rheinmetall/BAE Systems Land joint venture – to supply crew seats for the UK’s Challenger 3 main battle tank programme.
The seats – 444 of them; commander, gunner and loader seats for 148 vehicles – will be designed and produced at Jankel’s UK site in Rustington, West Sussex. The plant currently employs around 150 people, and the company says the contract will either create or sustain around 50 positions directly. Indirect benefits to both the company and the UK supply chain include retaining and developing specialist design, manufacture and fabrication skills.
There will be a development phase and a separate manufacturing phase for the project. The development phase will include all design, development and integration tasks, as well as verification via testing and design reviews. Once this phase is complete, manufacturing will begin. This is expected to be in 2025.
“Jankel has a long history in innovation and complex problem solving, combined with a deep understanding of how to integrate protection and occupant survivability systems into specialist military platforms,” said the company’s chair, Andrew Jankel. “As a global group of companies founded and headquartered in UK, we are extremely pleased that we can bring all that experience and expertise to designing and delivering the best possible seating protection for our British Army’s tank crews of the future.“
