Portuguese Pandur - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

In 2005 the Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

government signed a deal worth 364 million euros to acquire 260 Pandur II

Pandur 8X8 APC

The Pandur II 8x8 is an improved modular all-wheel-drive version of the Pandur 6x6 APC wheeled armoured vehicle. It was developed as a private venture by the Austrian company Steyr-Daimler-Puch Spezialfahrzeuge and is currently in production for the Portuguese Armed Forces...

armoured vehicle, with an option for further 33 worth 140 million euro

Euro

The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...

s, to equip the Portuguese Intervention Brigade

Portuguese Intervention Brigade

The Intervention Brigade is a mechanized infantry brigade in service with the Portuguese Army. It was created in 2006 from the Brigada de Intervenção Ligeira , which was itself the heir of the former Special Forces Brigade .- Organization :It is organized and equipped much like a Stryker brigade...

of the Portuguese Army

Portuguese Army

The Portuguese Army is the ground branch of the Portuguese Armed Forces which, in co-operation with other branches of the Portuguese military, is charged with the defence of Portugal...

and the marines of the Portuguese Navy

Portuguese Navy

The Portuguese Navy is the naval branch of the Portuguese Armed Forces which, in cooperation and integrated with the other branches of the Portuguese military, is charged with the military defence of Portugal....

. Portugal was the first country to buy Pandur II. The sale of Pandur II to Portugal includes an associated offset agreement

Offset agreement

Defense offset agreements are legal trade practices in the aerospace and military industries. These commercial practices do not need state regulations but, since the purchasers are mostly military departments of sovereign nations comparable to the US Defense Department, many countries have offset...

for a value of 516 million euro. The methodology of the selection process was officially based on four main characteristics of the bidder´s offers: 1) cost; 2) technical requirements; 3) offset proposal; 4) delivery schedule.

The first 41 Pandur II were manufactured in Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

, the further 219 are being manufactured by Fabrequipa in Portugal.

Timeline

2002 Ministry of Defense prepares a competitive bidding for the procurement of 8x8 Armored Wheeled Vehicles
early 2003 Ministry of Defense authorizes pre-offset activities in Portugal.
14/8/2003 Public announcement of the tender.

2003 General Dynamics
General Dynamics
General Dynamics Corporation is a U.S. defense conglomerate formed by mergers and divestitures, and as of 2008 it is the fifth largest defense contractor in the world. Its headquarters are in West Falls Church , unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, in the Falls Church area.The company has...

acquires Steyr Daimler Puch Spezialfahrzeug, SSF becomes part of General Dynamics European Land Combat Systems which includes also the Spanish Santa Bárbara Sistemas and the Swiss MOWAG. Headquarters in Vienna, Austria.
End 2003 Evaluation of the contenders for procurement program.
27/01/2004 Three companies are selected: Patria Oy, Steyr-Daimler-Puch Spezialfahrzeug (General Dynamics), Mowag (General Dynamics)
15/11/2004 Finnish Patria
Patria
Patria may refer to:* Homeland * Patria, a cycle of theatrical works by composer R. Murray Schafer* Patria AMV * Patria , of Finland...

is excluded for technical reasons. General Dynamics´s Steyr
Steyr
Steyr is a town, located in the Austrian federal state of Upper Austria. The town is situated at the confluence of the rivers Steyr and Enns. Steyr is Austria's 12th most populated town and simultaneously the 3rd largest town in Upper Austria....

Pandur II and MOWAG
MOWAG
MOWAG is a Swiss company which develops, designs and produces armoured vehicles for military applications in both land-only and amphibious configurations. These vehicles have gross vehicle weights ranging from 9t to 30t. More than 12,000 armoured wheeled vehicles of the type Piranha, Eagle and DURO...

Piranha
Piranha
A piranha or piraña is a member of family Characidae in order Characiformes, an omnivorous freshwater fish that inhabits South American rivers. In Venezuela, they are called caribes...

are first and second choice..
12/2004 Steyr-Daimler-Puch is awarded a 344.3 million euro contract for Pandur II, plus spare parts for 20.7 million euro.
01/2005 Finnish Patria alleges misconduct to the Public Attorney’s Office of the Administrative Court in Lisbon. One of the main claim of Patria on the award of the contract to General Dynamics
General Dynamics
General Dynamics Corporation is a U.S. defense conglomerate formed by mergers and divestitures, and as of 2008 it is the fifth largest defense contractor in the world. Its headquarters are in West Falls Church , unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, in the Falls Church area.The company has...

is that their proposed offset (contrapartidas) package is unrealistic and intentionally misleading. Patria calls for the legal suspension of the award of the contract to General Dynamics.
02/2005 Lisbon Court rejects the appeal of Patria.

15/02/2005 The contract is signed; production is supposed to run from the year 2006 to 2009 at facilities in Portugal and at plants of General Dynamics European Land Combat Systems.
05/05/2006 Fabrequipa, the plant at Portugal, is certified to manufacture the Pandur II.
25/01/2007 Fabrequipa begins co-production of Pandur II.
12/2007 Operational tests of a Pandur equipped with the CT-CV turret, with a 105mm gun, from Belgian CMI Defence.
2008 Operational tests of a Pandur equipped with the Hitfact turret, with a 105mm gun, from Italian Oto Melara.
24/06/2008 Jornal de Negócios accuses one of General Dynamics´s main offset fulfillers of industrial espionage.
4/04/2010 Czech Republic Prosecutor investigates corruption charges in connection with purchase of GD Pandur. Czech purchase is the second success of Pandur II, in competition with Patria AMV.
12/04/2010 Portuguese MoD requires Steyr to adapt 10 Pandur with a turret armed with a 105mm gun. No further information is disclosed but this may imply that the option for further 33 Pandur will not be used. The possible turrets are the Italian Oto Melara Hitfact and the Belgian CMI Defence CT-CV, both of which already made operational tests at the training campo of Portuguese mechanized forces, the Campo Militar de Santa Margarida, in the years of 2007, 2008.
8/05/2010 Portuguese Minister of Defense implements procedures to charge General Dynamics with breach of contract.
20/08/2010 Portuguese Public Prosecutor investigates corruption charges in the award of the contract Pandur II.

Variants of Pandur II

Variant	Army	Marines	Total
Infantry Carrier Vehicle (ICV)	105	10	115	Armed with 12.7mm machine gun and capable of transporting 11 soldiers
Infantry Carrier Vehicle (ICV)	7	3	10	Armed with remotely controlled 12.7mm machine gun and capable of transporting 11 soldiers
Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV)	30	2	32	Armed with 30mm cannon (MK30-2 in SP30 turret for army, MK44 in ORCWS turret for marines) and capable of transporting 5 to 7 soldiers. The ORCWS can operate ATGW Spike LR
Anti-tank Guided Missile Vehicle (ATGMV)	15	0	15	Armed with TOW TOW TOW may refer to:* BGM-71 TOW, U.S. anti-tank missile* Maximum Takeoff Weight of an aircraft* Tug of war, a sport* Things on Wheels, video game...
Mortar Carrier Vehicle (MCV)	31	2	33	Armed with 120mm mortar with a crew of 5 to 6
Command Post Vehicle (CPV)	16	3	19
Recovery and Maintenance vehicle (RMV)	7	0	7
Medical Evacuation Vehicle (MEV)	10	0	10
Engineer Squad Vehicle (ESV)	9	0	9
Radio Access Point Station Vehicle (RAPSV)	6	0	6
Reconnaissance and Surveillance Vehicle (RSV)	4	0	4
Mobile Gun System (MGS)	33	0	33	Optional. Armed with 105mm gun turret, either Oto Melara HITFACT or CMI Defence CT-CV

The Pandur II for the marine will be amphibious and have a cargo ramp instead of the original doors.

Armour

The Pandur II for the Portuguese Army

Portuguese Army

The Portuguese Army is the ground branch of the Portuguese Armed Forces which, in co-operation with other branches of the Portuguese military, is charged with the defence of Portugal...

is fitted with Steyr add-on armour that provides Level 4 protection according to STANAG 4569

STANAG 4569

NATO AEP-55 STANAG 4569 is a NATO Standardization Agreement covering the standards for the "Protection Levels for Occupants of Logistic and Light Armored Vehicles".The standard covers strikes from Kinetic Energy, artillery, and IED blasts....

. The vehicles for the marines are equipped with Level 3 armour. However, Portuguese army did not accept the quality of the Pandur II and keep only 120 Pandurs in Portugal a título provisório, that means that either Pandur II are not technically suitable or some other part of the contract with General Dynamics was not fulfilled, or both.

Offset issues

It is worthy to return to the surprising and preemptive exclusion of Patria. It could not have been on technical problems, since Patria AMV was a vehicle more tested than Pandur.
Before Portugal´s purchase there were only few prototypes of Pandur II. On the other hand, Patria sold AMV to many countries: Finland, Poland, Croatia, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Slovenia.
The exclusion of Patria AMV put Portugal in the awkward condition to have to negotiate with one supplier only. Portugal moved from a situation of monopsony

Monopsony

In economics, a monopsony is a market form in which only one buyer faces many sellers. It is an example of imperfect competition, similar to a monopoly, in which only one seller faces many buyers...

(only one buyer and many sellers -typical of arms procurement) to a situation of monopoly

Monopoly

A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...

(only one seller).
It has been stated that Patria proposed the only vehicle that did not show the requested operational capabilities. The fact that the company gave its price offer after the deadline, knowing that this might have disqualified Patria from the tender, was also interpreted as a desire to avoid the final tests with the Portuguese Military, since the results could have harmed Patria's international image. However. this interpretation of Patria´s intentions is not consistent with Patria´s successive actions, especially with Patria´s public legal appeal against the decision of the Ministry of Defense. If a company wants to go unnoticed, it does not make such a public statement against the Portuguese real motivations for the elimination of Patria.

After the elimination of Patria in 2004, Portugal was effectively left with one competitor, that is, General Dynamics Pandur vs.General Dynamics Piranha, GD vs. GD. At this point, the only factor that had actual weight for the Ministry of Defense was the offset proposal.
Most of the serious problems on Pandur procurement pertain to the offset package offered by General Dynamics. Patria had claimed it was unrealistic, and time has shown that Patria was right. They claimed also that General Dynamics offset package was intentionally misleading, and this was an understatement.
Fabrequipa, direct offset, is the most known case. General Dynamics transferred the Pandur production to Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

, blaming the global economic crisis for their breach of the Pandur offset contract.
The case of Tecnia Lda of Torres Vedras

Torres Vedras

Torres Vedras is a city and a municipality in the district of Lisbon, Portugal, about 50 km north of Lisbon. It belongs to the Oeste subregion and the Centro region.The municipality covers an area of 405.89 km² distributed over 20 freguesias...

is connected to an indirect offset, that General Dynamics based in a LGT

LGT

LGT Group is the wealth and asset management group of the princely House of Liechtenstein.LGT, originally known as The Liechtenstein Global Trust, is the largest family-owned private wealth and asset manager in Europe, wholly owned by the Prince of Liechtenstein Foundation.LGT is headquartered in...

branch in Luxembourg. It was supposed to support Portuguese environmental and water technologies sales in Saudi Arabia and it is the most embarrassing of all Portuguese contractual violations related to the offset program. The destruction of Tecnia to justify the issuing offset certificates exposes the ways General Dynamics conceives offset contracts and offset fulfillment in Europe.
The problem of the weight of offset in the procurement decisions is not exclusively Portuguese. It is a European plague.
In the European horizon one can understand what happened in the Pandur procurement between 2003 and 2005 by looking at the Slovenian case, that is one of the many battles in the commercial war between Patria and General Dynamics European Land Systems. In 2008 Jorma Wiitakorpi (Patria CEO) was arrested in Finland and charged with bribery and industrial espionage. Portuguese Pandur offset agreement demonstrates the urgency of a European reform to enforce Lisbon Treaty article 346, and the European convention against corruption involving officials.

External Links

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Timeline

Variants of Pandur II

Armour

Offset issues

See also

External Links