New vehicles for Canadian special forces: "a year late and 40 vehicles short"

Remember this lurid journalism from March last year?

"War wagons"!?!

The contract was supposed to be signed in summer 2009, for 100 vehicles (most relevant further links at post above); now the contract looks like a year late and 40 vehicles short--and one of the bidders has mysteriously dropped out. Why the shortfall, the budgetary crunch, crunch, crunch (more here)?

Special forces units to get 60 high-tech vehicles

Canada’s special forces units will be getting new vehicles as early as next year.

Sixty special reconnaissance vehicles will be bought and housed at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa to support special forces units there, in Ottawa and in Trenton, Ont.

The new vehicles are being located with the Canadian Special Operations Regiment in Petawawa, which would also provide maintenance support as well as drivers. The high-mobility trucks will be available to various units such as the Ottawa-based Joint Task Force 2 or to special forces task groups...

Canadian special forces use Humvees in Afghanistan. Day said the Humvees will be usable until the end of the Afghan mission in the summer of next year.

The new vehicles will likely be a version of the British-designed Supacat Jackal. That vehicle is being built by Lockheed Martin in the U.S. and being marketed to Canadian and U.S. militaries.

The special forces command could look at an additional purchase of 20 more vehicles at a later date.

The special reconnaissance vehicle would be required to operate for extended periods of time in enemy territory and be capable of carrying maintenance equipment and other supplies.

The request for proposals from industry for the special reconnaissance vehicle closes at the end of May. Only one firm, Lockheed Martin, is expected to bid.

The Supacat Jackal is in service with a number of special forces organizations around the world, including with British and Australian units.

Day did not get into cost estimates for the Canadian program...

More on the Jackal here and here:

Predate: A thoughtful post by Babbling on our special forces more broadly:

Walking the secrecy vs. transparency tightrope