History Made as WFEL Commences Production of First Boxer Armored Military Vehicles

In another historic event for the UK Defence industry, WFEL has commenced production of Boxer Mechanized Infantry Vehicles for the British Army at its new manufacturing plant in the North West of England. It has been many years since any new armored vehicles have been manufactured in the UK.

The fabrication of vehicle sub-assemblies has been taking place over the last few weeks at WFEL's new production facility at Stockport.  As part of the extensive Technology Transfer Program between KMW and WFEL, UK welding personnel have undertaken secondments of up to a year at parent company KMW's Boxer manufacturing site in Hamburg, Germany. Here, staff worked on the production of Boxer vehicles for KMW's existing customers and are now fully qualified to undertake the complex work required to produce fabricated Drive Module hulls for the UK Boxer variants. WFEL has been selected as the KMW UK footprint for the Boxer MIV Program and will employ high levels of UK content, creating and protecting sovereign engineering and manufacturing skills, ensuring that the vehicles remain supported through their operational life.

As well as manufacturing the armored hulls for the British Army's new vehicles, WFEL will be responsible for the Assembly, Integration, and Testing (AIT) of a total of 225 Boxer MIV vehicles under the £2.3 bn contract signed between UK MoD and ARTEC in November 2019.

In November 2019, ARTEC, a joint venture between two German companies, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Rheinmetall, signed the £2.3bn contract to deliver 500+ Boxer vehicles to the British Army. The vehicles will be manufactured in the UK, with production subcontracted equally between WFEL and Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land (RBSL). The companies will undertake the fabrication of the armored vehicle structures together with the assembly, integration, and test of the complete vehicles at their respective facilities in Stockport and Telford.