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Procurement Discussion Board
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Subject: Minimi inflation
perfectgeneral    2/7/2005 8:02:54 PM
This from a MOD (UK) procurement press release:


''The £13M buy will see an extra 1,500 Minimi Light Machine Guns (LMG) delivered over the next few months.

A battle-proven piece of equipment, the 5.56mm belt-fed FN Herstal Minimi was rushed into service as an Urgent Operational Requirement during Operation Telic, where its light weight and high rate of fire ? as many as 1,000 rounds per minute ? made it an extremely popular and effective weapon.

This new purchase is in addition to the £7M spent in 2003 when more than 2,000 Minimis were bought for infantry.

Together with the SA80A2, the underslung grenade launcher and the SA80 support weapon, the Minimi has transformed the effectiveness of UK four-man fire teams.''

That's a big increase in price per LMG over just two years. Now that the army have 3500 minimi LMG's planned they can talk of equiping four man fire teams? Just how many fire teams are there in the UK army? Inflation in every sense here.
 
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fitz    RE:Minimi inflation   2/7/2005 11:21:08 PM
One has to know EXACTLY what that money is buying before cost-comparisons can be made. As for how many fire teams there are, you won't figure that out by the number of Minimi's being produced. Simple logic dictates that for war reserves and to cover weapons down for maintenance more weapons will be procured than there will be men to operate them.
 
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perfectgeneral    RE:Minimi inflation   2/9/2005 9:51:14 AM
''logic dictates that for war reserves and to cover weapons down for maintenance more weapons will be procured than there will be men to operate them'' This furthers my arguement that the MoD are over-rating the impact of this purchase when they imply that all four-man fire teams will get one. It is true that we don't know exactly what is bought for the money. A service agreement might be part of the deal, but the DPA (Defence Procurement Agency) should make it clear what the deal is (freedom of information) so that it doesn't look such a bad deal (PR).
 
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perfectgeneral    RE:Minimi inflation   6/30/2005 8:02:38 PM
Thank you for your e-mail of 3rd June 2005, to DPA-FOI@dpa.mod.uk. This is considered to be a request for information in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I assume the "MOD Press releases" to which you refer to was the January "Preview" article on Page 8 "Infantry gets new fighting equipment". In retrospect this article could have been clearer. The figure of £13M provided in the second paragraph of the article was the value for the entire purchase, of 1,500 LMGs, 500 Head Mounted Night Vision Systems and 1,700 laser Aimers. The purchase price per unit for this second batch of LMGs themselves was, in fact similar to the first buy of 2,472 weapons. Orders placed for the LMG now total 3,972 and once weapons purchased under urgent Operational requirements have been brought up to the latest build standard, then all units scaled for this equipment will receive them. It should be noted that not all units require LMGs, nor would units with LMGs always deploy them e.g on peacekeeping duties. The reply from the DPA to my question certainly clears up this matter and is most informative. How refreshing!
 
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flamingknives    RE:Minimi inflation   9/10/2005 2:47:54 PM
WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE AND WHAT HAVE THEY DONE WITH THE REAL DPA?! On a related sideline, I've noticed that minimis are mounting the SUSAT these days.
 
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