Timoney

[Jetjock]

Everyone is familiar with Timoney's involvement with armoured vehicle's that served in the Irish Army from the 1970's. At the time, they were not produced in sufficient numbers to ever overcome any initial design teething problems they may have had. Since then, Timoney have gone on to have an involvemnt in the design of other high quality armoured vehicles for other countries, the most well known being the Bushmaster 4x4 APC for the Australian Army.

It is amazing that more investment and trust has never been afforded to the company by the Irish government, given the high quality of some of their designs listed below. It is a potentially lucrative export market, when all that we are exporting at the moment is the intellectual ability of Timoney engineers while at the same time minimising the impact on the Irish economy by having them produced abroad.

If one looks at it, the market for wheeled APC's and Mine Protected Vehicles has never been stronger. Other more rigidly neutral nations have thriving arms industries and have built up strong export markets for their products.

Switzerland has the Mowag, Sweden has the CV90 family, Austria has Steyr (Pandur), Finland has the Patria AMV. These are some of the best APC/IFV's in production today and they are achieving huge export successes.

If these countries can produce and export products of that quality then why do we only export the designs, therby losing out on a potentially massive export market. Obviously the designs are of a high quality.

In these recessionary times, I for one see this as one of few more diverse ways of bringing in much needed money. There is massive potential. Why allow other countries to benefit from designs produced here?

These vehicles certainly dont have ""blitzkreig" warfare type uses, are more defensive than offensive in role and are ideally suited to peacekeeping type roles and their export and production could be sold to the public as such while at the same time creating huge employment in this country.

It could certainly be one of the aspects on which to base a more solid economy, in place of the false finance/credit based celtic tiger that we were all told to worship. The world economy sneezed, we got the flu. The world economy got the flu and we were put on our death-bed.

Thoughts????




"The CM-32 "Clouded Leopard" (雲豹裝甲車 "Yunpao"), officially Taiwan Infantry Fighting Vehicle (TIFV), is an eight-wheeled armoured vehicle currently being produced for the Republic of China (Taiwan) Army, designed by Timoney Technology Limited of Ireland."

CM32 WIKI PAGE



"The Terrex AV-81 is an armoured fighting vehicle co-developed between an Irish company Timoney Technology Ltd., and ST Engineering."

Terrex WIKI PAGE



"In 1999, Timoney Licensee, ADI Ltd was awarded a contract to manufacture 350 infantry mobility vehicles for the Australian Defence Force. This vehicle is called the Bushmaster and is based on the Timoney MP44"

Bushmaster WIKI PAGE

[hedgehog]

Whats it like

how does it compare to the MOWAG

why arent we favouring our own manufacturers

[Goldie fish]

Cos we dont do prototypes, and favouring local industry is against EU procurement rules.

[hedgehog]

MOWAG are swiss

and are not as such EU

[ollie]

would get the green's and crusties knickers all in a twist.
imagine all the letters to the indo' s letters page from mssr horgan !!

[Goldie fish]

Sharp this morning. read the first part again.

[Jetjock]

What Goldie is referring to is the requirement to put any major acquisitions out to tender, under a specific set of criteria. Eu law.

However all of the above listed countries have overcome this to operate vehicles manufactured in their own countries.

One way of doing so is to write a tender suiting a particular vehicle.

Another way is to claim a pressing security need and you can bypass the entire tender process.

If you buy even one vehicle there are no laws preventing you from increasing the size of the fleet from that starting point without ever having to request further tenders.

[smegers]

Cos we dont do prototypes, and favouring local industry is against EU procurement rules.

What about the Brits and BAE systems and the French and GIAT then? They get used for the vast majority of military programs in their respective countries.

[Goldie fish]

BAE systems isnt just a british company. Of course, as founder members of the EU, France don't need to follow the rules.

FFS I don't know the fukin answer. Ask them yourself . Jesus!. They are the rules we have to follow. Live with it.

[Jetjock]

would get the green's and crusties knickers all in a twist.
imagine all the letters to the indo' s letters page from mssr horgan !!

The Greens have shown us exactly how much they are willing to dilute their supposed ethos for political gain in this government. Search Pat Rabbitte's recent speech in the Dail on youtube for a bit of a laugh.

The point is that, A. we a sending millions of euros abroad when the need could be met at home and jobs coul be created and B. we are losing out on a huge export market.

Vehicles like this have a massive role in UN/EURFOR type peace-keeping operations. Missions such as Chad, where there is a massive impact on humanitarian efforts. Also in providing adequate protection for troops carrying out these missions. Something no party could claim to be objectionable.

They are not offensive war weapons for war mongerers.

A strict vetting process with government approval would apply for export. They wouldn't be sold to North Korea.

[Goldie fish]

I think the real problem is our government actually listen to AFRI.

"military equipment industry=evil"
"thousands unemployed due to bleeding heart liberals=good"

[northie]

In fairness now, can you imagine the hand wringing that would be had if the CM-32 was produced in Ireland? 1400 odd APC's going to ton one of the few countries in the world that is unrecognised by the UN, particularly when as a state we accept the "one china" policy?

Lots of variants, looks like it comes in 105mm and 25mm turreted versions, one with a 40mm grenade/7.62mm remote weapons station, air defence battery, not to forget the usual command and maintenance versions.

[Jetjock]

Unrecognised because a certain country called China, a permanent member of the Securtiy Council has the power to veto resolutions. Recognise Taiwan and you'll have every resolution vital to the Western world failing to get passed.

I'd have no problem supplying Taiwan, it's defence forces are geared towards defence. However, supplying them would hurt prospects of closer economic ties with China. They are however, only one country. They have effectively purchased the design from Timoney in any case. It would not be beyonds the bounds of possibility for Timoney to design a brand new vehicle with the intention to manufacture it here and export it to nations where political sensitivies would not apply. A new vehicle in the role of the Bushmaster, but taking into account the lessons learned from that design could be integrated into our own defence forces for example, filling a role between the RG32 and the Mowag.

[hedgehog]

Sharp this morning. read the first part again.

I am sharp every morning thanks

BAE systems isnt just a british company. Of course, as founder members of the EU, France don't need to follow the rules.

FFS I don't know the fukin answer. Ask them yourself . Jesus!. They are the rules we have to follow. Live with it.

I love it

[northie]

Unrecognised because a certain country called China, a permanent member of the Securtiy Council has the power to veto resolutions. Recognise Taiwan and you'll have every resolution vital to the Western world failing to get passed.

I'd have no problem supplying Taiwan, it's defence forces are geared towards defence. However, supplying them would hurt prospects of closer economic ties with China. They are however, only one country. They have effectively purchased the design from Timoney in any case. It would not be beyonds the bounds of possibility for Timoney to design a brand new vehicle with the intention to manufacture it here and export it to nations where political sensitivies would not apply. A new vehicle in the role of the Bushmaster, but taking into account the lessons learned from that design could be integrated into our own defence forces for example, filling a role between the RG32 and the Mowag.

I'm very aware of the politics behind that particular situation , however i framed my post in the way i would assume the Irish media would portray the supply of equipment. It is in sheer numerical terms also the largest of the timoney orders. Regarding being solely defensive - I'm under the impression that the ROCAF were developing a varient of the Hsiung Feng missile to strike at land based targets - a significant development.

The other thing to take into consideration is that most large defence industries have a heavy element of "jobs for the constituents" to them. Look at the ongoing debacle with AW and BAE in the UK every few years when they stick their hands out looking for an order, normally to fix something they ballsed up in the first place. There's no guarantee that despite the quality of timoneys design that end users would demand local production in the terms of the contract anyway, the Australians build alot of stuff under contract with ADI, singapore is a similar situation.