Nexter Delivers First 4 Regenerated VBCIS Armored Vehicles to French Army

The French Army took delivery of first four regenerated armoured infantry fighting vehicles (VBCI) from Nexter last week.

Since 2013, the VBCI in-service support contract (MSS) has linked the Nexter industrial prime contractor and the French Army. It is one of the four support contracts in place, alongside the Leclerc, CAESAR and AMX 10RC contracts.

Through the VBCI MSS, Nexter provides fixed-price spare parts, equipment repairs, obsolescences monitoring, long-term vehicle configuration management, fixed-price support for the VBCIs present in the training parks (Champagne and Provence) and technical assistance. At the request of the French Ministry of Armed Forces SIMMT, Nexter has been entrusted with a new regeneration service for around 50 VBCIs for the next two years. All the vehicles concerned have returned from external operations or exercises abroad; they have been used in extreme weather conditions, on rough terrain and require numerous interventions.

As of November 2019, an industrial organization has been set up. A technical condition report will first of all make it possible to identify damage to the vehicles stored in Gien (12th Material Support Base) in order to draw up individual estimates and identify the exhaustiveness of the spares to be replaced. Customer orders then launch the start of the work.

The VBCIs are routed by Nexter to the Roanne site for handling. In a workshop dedicated to MCO VBCI activities, the fitters replace the broken or worn components, carry out a complete cleaning and carry out an in-depth repair of the equipment - at NTI level 3 (technical intervention level) - to give it a new lease of life. Then, the machines are subjected to numerous static and dynamic tests comparable to those initially applied at the end of the assembly line, before being presented for verification operations. Arriving in Roanne in June 2020, the first four regenerated VBCIs were presented on time to the administration on November 23, 2020, according to the schedule set jointly with the SIMMT.