Bushmaster: Beauty and a beast

The Thales-DEW Bushmaster lurking at the end of the DEFSEC exhibit hall is not in Halifax just to take a few days off at a trade show. The TAPV is in town this week to work. As Thales Canada's lead on the project, BGen (ret) Camil Giguère explained, the vehicle will be a visual aid for Thales and DEW team members who will be meeting with dozens of potential contractors for Canadian-built Bushmasters, should the company succeed in winning the upcoming competition.

"We wanted industry in Atlantic Canada to see what they will be contributing to," Giguère said. "It's better than trying to describe this."

He said the team is looking for contractors that not only have proven capability, but can also build components to Thales standards. Should Canada choose to buy the vehicle, Canadian contractors would be able to provide a substantial amount of its systems, because it is designed around commercial off-the-shelf components.

In fact, Giguère said almost all the vehicle could be sourced in Canada. "I say almost, because we will bring the hull from Australia.

The Bushmaster can carry eight soldiers and a crew of two into combat, and Giguère said the family of Bushmaster vehicles could include as many as nine variants.

Originally conceived and built in Australia, Thales is guarding the intellectual property around the hull. As Geoff Miller, business development manager-export for Thales Australia said, “The heart of the vehicle is ‘the monocoque’ hull. It is a central box that provides a total, encased, protected environment. " Blast resistance begins with the Bushmaster's V-shaped hull, but it is built of “a cocktail of steels, carefully placed for the forces it might encounter.”

Almost 200 Bushmaster TAPVs are currently in service in Iraq and Afghanistan with three countries – Australia bought 736, the Netherlands 736 and one country that nobody on the Bushmaster team cared to name has 24 (Wikipedia claims it was the UK).

The RFP for Canada’s TAPV requirement has been pushed back to March 1, Giguère said, and while he indicated that more time to prepare a bid is always welcome, “The vehicle is ready to test tomorrow.” While the DND specifications are stringent, he said, this will be an interesting competition, because “no one vehicle fills the bill exactly.”