WFEL has delivered the first of several new Medium Girder Bridge (MGB) systems to the British Army’s Royal Engineers several months earlier than scheduled.
The new MGB bridging sets can be configured in different ways to provide flexibility on the ground, and this first bridge configuration will allow the Royal Engineers to build a 31 meter Double Storey and a five-bay Single Storey MGB to be used to cross both wet and dry gaps in operational and emergency disaster relief scenarios.
The delivery is part of a contract awarded in October 2020 and is the first of the 17 sets of MGBs to be supplied by WFEL, following a review of the U.K. Ministry of Defence’s (MoD’s) modular gap crossing capabilities (MGCC), to draw together existing in-service capabilities into a single coherent capability.
Mike Batty, Team Leader for the Operational Infrastructure Team for Defence, Equipment and Support, the procurement arm of the MoD, said, “The MGCC bridges provide a bedrock of essential support to troops on both Military and Disaster Relief operations. Receiving them ahead of schedule gives us confidence that our delivery partners understand how vital this equipment is to our Armed Forces.”
The British Army has been a user of MGBs since the early 1980. These new bridging systems will provide lightweight MGCC to Very High Readiness forces and form a significant element of the manoeuvre support capability for the British Army’s STRIKE Brigade.
The MGB systems were chosen by the Royal Engineers for their versatility and deployability to meet the challenges of the future integrated operating concept.
The complete MGB contract will be fulfilled by December 2025.
