Equipment (Hansard, 19 February 1988)

§ Sir Ian Gilmour

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what degree of lateral stability was called for in the DROPS statement of requirement for the medium mobility vehicle; and if he will make a statement;

(2) what lateral stability was achieved by the validation model DROPS medium mobility trucks on their tilt test at the Royal Armaments Research and Development Establishment; and if he will make a statement;

(3) to what tests DROPS vehicles were submitted subsequent to tilt tests, with the test weights turned upside down; what effect this had on the centre of gravity; what stability was achieved; and if he will make a statement;

(4) what stability is expected once the DROPS vehicle has been fitted with small tyres; and if he will make a statement;

(5) whether the DROPS vehicle, once fitted with small tyres, will comply with the statement requirements in respect of the maximum ground pressure; and if he will make a statement;

(6) what was the stated minimum stability requirement for low mobility, road-use only, vehicles; and if he will make a statement;

(7) why, after the first round of trialling, it was considered desirable to subject DROPS RTE to a second round of full open competition to determine best value for money; why this course of action was considered undesirable in respect of DROPS itself; whether it was considered desirable to submit simplified RTE equipment to a second round of full open competition; and if he will make a statement;

(8) what was the difference between RTE/CLOTS equipment and Simple RTE/Simple CLOTS equipment; and if he will make a statement;

(9) which company was selected in 1983 to provide Simple RTE; which other companies were selected in 1985; and if he will make a statement;

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(10) whether RTE (rail transfer equipment) supplied by EKA Ltd., was selected for trials in 1983; and if he will make a statement;

(11) whether (a) the 1982 or (b) the 1986 specification required the rail transfer equipment to operate at different step heights; to what extent this requirement was deemed essential in stating the 1986 requirement; whether any of the equipments tendered in 1986 met this essential requirement; and if he will make a statement;

(12) what have been the changes in operational circumstances that have made rail transfer equipment operation under power cables and at different step heights essential at the time of stating the requirements and dispensable at the time of selecting equipment against those requirements; and if he will make a statement;

(13) which of the requirements of the 1986 rail transfer equipment specification are not met by the ordered equipment; and if he will make a statement;

(14) whether the equipment ordered for rail transfer equipment is an existing commercially available design; and if he will make a statement;

(15) what are the factors that led to the attempt to enhance the mobility of a DROPS vehicle by fitting large wheels; and if he will make a statement;

(16) whether the original DROPS trials equipment achieved medium mobility; whether cross-country mobility is still required; and if he will make a statement;

(17) whether the DROPS medium mobility vehicle is required to be used off-road; whether it was ever intended to have suitable mobility for off-road use; and if he will make a statement;

(18) in precisely what respects the performance requirements called for in respect of the current procurement of 209 DROPS trailers differ from the performance requirements called for in respect of the 295 trailers ordered pursuant to the original DROPS 1982 statement of requirement; where in the 1982 statement of requirement these performance requirements were stated; and if he will make a statement.