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October 14, 2000

The British Army has selected the Vickers Engineer Tank System to replace the current Armored Vehicle Royal Engineers and the Armored Vehicle Launched Bridge. The ETS consists of two similar vehicles built on a Challenger-2 chassis: the Titan bridgelayer (using the existing 26m bridges) and the Trojan engineer vehicle (which carries a full-width mine plow, a winch, a fascine (a bundle of pipes used to fill in ditches and allow a tank to cross over it), and a digging shovel on an extended arm. The initial contract is for 62 of the 102 vehicles that the Army wants; the others (along with 32 Heavy Armored Repair and Recovery vehicles) will be ordered when money is available. The decision releases the last of the Challenger-1 tanks (which had been held in case the Army selected a rival design based on that chassis) allowing all 420 Challenger-Is to be sold to Jordan.--Stephen V Cole