Britain Buys Heavy Armored Support Vehicles - New Joint Venture Formed

(MoneyWatch)  The British company Morgan Crucible JV announced that it had set up a new joint venture between Force Protection of South Carolina and is unit NP Aerospace. The new company will be called Integrated Survivability Technologies. Reuters reports that this new company which will mainly work in England will receive a $120 million contract to make heavy tactical support vehicles for the UK military. Most of the focus in this area has been on the new U.S. contract for the MRAP-ATV to support operations in Afghanistan. This contract still shows that there is interest in other types of vehicles for use in Iraq and Afghanistan with the various NATO countries. NP Aerospace makes armor from ceramic and carbon components. Force Protection has sold several hundred MRAP vehicles to the U.S. and other nation's military forces.